State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) said it will be hard to convince him and his colleagues to change their vote on the lottery and gambling bill if it comes back up before the end of the session.

The Senate failed to pass the constitutional amendment on lottery and gambling with a 20-15 vote. It needed 21 votes to pass due to constitutional amendments requiring a 60% threshold in each chamber.

Orr discussed the legislation Friday on WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show.”

“In my conversations with him of course, and they can speak for themselves, but I think they’re more entrenched than they ever were,” Orr said. “And I would say this… after you take a vote like that and people start pushing you and railing on you, a lot of times it makes you just knuckle down and say, ‘you know I am where I am,’ and firm up your resolve.”

The senator explained some of the other issues with trying to get this bill through.

“We talk in terms of one vote,” he said. “I believe we’re talking about two, maybe three. And by that I mean, in the first two rounds of voting on the Senate bill and the need to go to conference, you had a majority of the Senate Republican caucus voting for those pieces of legislation. In this last vote … you had 15 Republicans voting no and 12 Republicans voting yes. You have very clear majority against this conference committee report. And we’ve got a kind of an unwritten rule in our caucus. The minority of the caucus does not butt the majority of the caucus when it comes to votes.

“We’re not going to ally with Democrats to get and have a minority of the Republican caucus ram it through trying to get something passed. And so that’s where I think we are as a Senate. The proponents for the bill that wanted to pass it, they’ve got to have more than just the 21st vote, they at least have to have a 22nd.”

Donald Trump Jr. recently made headlines by weighing in on the issue.

“I’m excited to be in Alabama next week for a fundraiser for my dad, but whenever I ask anyone from there what’s going on in the state this is all they talk about,” Trump posted on X. “Why’s their senate refusing to let the people vote on a clean bill to legalize the lottery & fund education when 45 states already do it? Wouldn’t they rather keep the billions of $$$ in Alabama instead of sending it to other states?”

Orr reacted to the comments saying it won’t really affect the final outcome.

“It just made me roll my eyes and think, you know, the hubris of some people thinking that they can just be afar, not know our local situation and think that anybody really cares what they say.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee