According to the Boston Herald, a fundraiser for House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and other Democrat legislators who have final say over a Mashpee Wampanoag casino bid is also on the tribe’s payroll as a public relations consultant. Brooke Scannell is a $3,000-a-month fundraiser for DeLeo’s PAC, Committee for a Democratic House, as well as the spokesperson for the tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell.

As the Herald points out, Speaker DeLeo was a major force behind the state’s new casino law that gives the Mashpee Wampanoags first dibs on a casino in southeastern Massachusetts. “It’s an incestuous relationship in Beacon Hill and it’s no wonder taxpayers are so cynical,” Kathleen Conley Norbut, founder of the Western Massachusetts Casino Task Force, told the Herald.

Massachusetts Family Institute continues to be opposed to the building of casinos in Massachusetts. We are working with our allies to educate the public on the costs of expanded gambling and helping local groups defeat proposals that are put to municipal voters.

Source: Boston Herald