Think You Had An Embarassing Week?

At least you're not Richard J. Ross.

Who's Richard Ross, you ask? Well, until last week, I doubt more than 5,000 people could identify him. But thanks to his unusual performance at the Massachusetts House's debate on Gov. Deval Patrick's casino gambling legislation, hopefully that number has vaulted to at least 10,000.

Ross is a second-term, relatively obscure Republican state representative from Wrentham. He also runs a funeral home and looks somewhat plastic in his head shot.

And he also cast the deciding committee vote that ensured Patrick's desire for three casinos here would die on the full House floor, which it did the next day. But funny enough, Ross cast a committee vote against casinos after saying the night before, "I'm sticking with the governor," i.e. he was going to cast a committee vote for casinos.

What changed? The House speaker, Salvatore DiMasi, who, it appears, only likes blocking legislation for the sake of blocking legislation. (The man is unimaginative and power-hungry, which really just makes him a top state lawmaker in any state.) He doesn't like casinos, mainly, it seems, because he didn't propose the idea and convinced nearly the whole House to vote against them. But the way he convinced Ross to vote against them was by expressing mild support for allowing slots at the state's racetracks, which is just another form of gambling, and eventually bringing that legislation to a floor vote. (In DiMasi's defense, he can always vote against it.) Conveniently and unsurprisingly, one of those racetracks, Plainridge Racecourse, is in Ross' district.

Too much insider baseball? OK, maybe you're right. But here's where it gets even worse for Ross. Matt Viser and Frank Phillips of the Globe report that as Ross was trying to figure out it his committee vote, he was "suddenly dashing around the hallways of the State House, visibly shaken..."

And then this exchange for Ross: "At about 11 Wednesday morning, he approached Representative Brad Hill, an Ipswich Republican, in a hallway between the offices of the governor and the speaker. 'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'Go talk to Jones-y,' Hill told him, referring to House minority leader Bradley Jones. Ross sprinted off in that direction."

After spending hours on the phone with the racetrack's president and last-minute courting from Patrick's cabinet, Ross ultimately went with DiMasi and the racetrack. Ugh. Things Ross should also have done in this situation: grown up; acted mature and composed; and had a mind of his own.

As if it couldn't get any worse for Ross, when the full House vote was taken Thursday, he voted in favor of casinos even though he didn't mean to! He actually had it changed for the record that while he voted formally voted "no" (which in this case actually meant sending the casino bill onwards instead of back to committee, which is only logical in the illogical world of wording legislation), he had intended to vote "yes." What does that mean? Ross didn't even understand the wording of the motion and was incapable of following along! (Providing the link again here; scroll down to fully understand Ross' incompetence.)

I'm quite divided on allowing three casinos to locate here. It's poor economic development -- the salaries are not very good and they will most likely hurt all dining and entertainment within at least a 10-mile radius of each one -- but I don't gamble and never will and don't think I live anywhere close to where a casino would want to locate so it wouldn't directly impact me, and people will just keep going to Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun or Twin River, so why not keep that revenue in Massachusetts? But if it's going to make our elected lawmakers act so idiotically, maybe it's best that we not have them.

Finally, the TV news report below on the casino debate is priceless. Not only does WBZ create its own impossibly cheesy slots graphic to visualize how Dimasi felt, but the reporter's name is "Joe Shortsleeve." It doesn't get any better.