Anticipating that some version of East Providence Sen. Paul E. Moura’s proposal to allow 24-hour gambling would reach the House, Murphy made an offer. If CCACG would cancel the demonstration, Murphy would promise a hearing in Newport on this and any other expansion proposal, and he would meet with CCACG leaders after the first of the year.

Hoffman said the CCACG board met Wednesday and decided to “accept Murphy’s proposal” and call off the demonstration. “We felt we made our point, which was for Murphy [and the House] to pay attention and recognize that there are lots of voters who oppose expanded gambling.”

The promise of a hearing in Newport also held sway, he said, because “it isn’t easy getting Aquidneck Islanders off the island to the State House to testify or demonstrate. A hearing in Newport gives us a shot at mustering a large crowd in Washington Square and a goodly bunch of people to testify.”

In an interview late last week, Murphy confirmed the substance of the conversations. He said he called Father McKenna to find out “why they were going to protest what I viewed as a purely social, not a political event … [ to register] concern about any attempt to expand gambling I had indicated it was not the forum to do it. If they want to protest, do it at the State House before a session, not at a purely social event.”

In addition to offering face time with the anti-gambling coalition’s leaders — and a hearing in Newport at some point after the session gets under way , Murphy also briefly sided with the coalition on a key issue: whether the state Lottery can introduce “virtual blackjack” on its own, without seeking legislative and, potentially, voter approval. With people sitting around a table, playing off a simulated “dealer,” Murphy said, virtual blackjack “would require legislation.”

But later, through a spokesman, he said “the attorney general should offer an opinion.” Would he ask for one? Spokesman Larry Berman said he did not know.

Weeks before the telephone back-and-forth with Murphy, Father McKenna and others from the anti-gambling coalition met with Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, who, in Hoffman’s words, told them that because “2008 was an election year…[and] there were so many problems coming up in 2008, that he didn’t think Moura’s proposals would go anywhere.”

A spokesman for Montalbano confirmed that the Senate president met with the group recently, but “he doesn’t want to get into the details of what he said was a private conversation.”

By Katherine Gregg, Scott MacKay and Steve Peoples
Journal staff writers