Reportedly, the Alabama State Senate will take another look at the elusive gaming issue when members return from a week off later this month, which, if successful, could add a lottery and increase the availability of casino-style gaming around the state.
Legislation offered by State Sen. Del Marsh (R-Anniston) fell two votes shy of clearing the three-fifths vote hurdle, which is required for a constitutional amendment to change the language that prohibits gambling in the Alabama Constitution of 1901.
Among the “no” votes was State Sen. Chris Elliott (R-Daphne). During an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5 on Friday, Elliott decried what he indicated was an undue influence of so-called special interests on all aspects of the legislative process on gambling in Alabama.
“I continue to be frustrated by the special interests’ influence on this entire issue,” he said. “A lottery is simple. A lottery is what folks are after. They are not after a duopoly of dog track casinos around the state. I cringe at that the thought of that’s what we have to do to get a lottery out there. It really bothers me. We’re going to give it another shot in the Senate in two weeks and see. But if it fails and it is not substituted with some other version of Senator Marsh’s bill or something like that on the floor, and it fails, again — I think the likelihood of the Governor calling a special session, focusing both chambers, as you correctly point out, on this issue, may be the only way to get the House to really focus on and come to the table and say, ‘OK, what can really pass in the House instead of the Senate just carrying our own water on this and trying to come up with a solution we don’t know that will actually pass downstairs.”
“‘Special interests’ is a wide grouping,” Elliott explained. “You know, firefighters have a lobby. Police officers have a lobby. And you know, they represent teachers and farmers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. But when you see a tiny, tiny, little group of folks that are in it, really for the money and only for the money. They’re exercising this amount of control over not just an issue that affects them but really holding hostage the concept of a lottery that doesn’t have anything to do with what they’re doing — that is the part that is so odious to me and really, really just chaps me on this entire issue. I’m trying to figure out a way to get this to a vote where the folks are not having this binary choice between nothing, and they clearly want something — and I want to make sure they have the opportunity to vote on it — and something that is so laden with special interest fingerprints and handprints and special carveouts for some folks.”
“I have to feel there is a better way to accomplish that,” he added. “And even if it is not this year, I don’t mind, you know, trying to swing at this again and again. You don’t want to do something incorrectly, and especially to put it in the Constitution. Jeff, you know, once it goes into the Constitution, it never comes back out. And Alabama’s constitution is a great example of that. How in the world would you fix this later if it is already in the Constitution? I’d rather take our time and get it right than mess it up.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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