BY MARY SELL
Lawmakers return to Montgomery this week for the second half of the legislative session and awaiting the House are significantly different and scaled-back versions of gambling bills than what it passed in February.
The Senate, which has been lukewarm on the proposal from the start, approved March 7 bills that eliminated the sports and online betting component, scaled back the casino portion to essentially codifying the status quo, and split the revenue up between the General Fund, the Education Trust Fund and infrastructure fund.
Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, sponsored the constitutional amendment and gambling proposal, House Bill 151 and House Bill 152, in the Senate. He liked the House’s version better, but said changes were needed to get it passed in the 35-member Senate.
Now, he says he’s not sure what will happen.
“I may be wrong, but my take on this is that the House does not have the votes to concur and I don’t know where they stand as far as going to conference,” Albritton told Alabama Daily News.
Conference committee is where the two chambers could work out differences.
“But then you get to the point of, if we go to conference, what changes will be acceptable to both bodies and particularly where both bodies will probably have to change the constitutional amendment, which will require a three-fifths vote in each house.”
“That’s a very heavy lift.”
In the Senate, the required constitutional amendment to put any lottery or gambling proposal before voters needs 21 votes. They had 22 votes in favor last month.
House leaders have said the chamber will take up the legislation again, but there’s no set timetable.
“We’ll look at it, we’ll continue to study it and in due time, we’ll have some results,” Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, told Todd Stacy on Capitol Journal before last week’s spring break.
Rep. Andy Whitt, R-Harvest, has been one of the advocates for the bills and the need to control illegal gaming in the state.
“We are still having good conversations with the leadership and fellow members,” Whitt said Thursday about the future of the bills. “And we have plenty of time to move something this session.”
There are 13 legislative days left in the session that could go through mid-May.
A lottery would generate about $305 million to $379 million annually for the state, according to the fiscal note on the bill. That’s about half of what the original bill, with sports and online betting and more casino options, was estimated to generate.
That revenue was key to Democrats, said Rep. Sam Jones, D-Mobile, who chairs the gambling committee for his caucus and worked with Republicans on the original bills.
“One of the most important things we were looking to make sure that if gaming came to Alabama, there would be enough revenue to address some of the ills of the state that we have not been able to address over the years,” Jones said. “And with the changes that I’ve seen made (to the bill), that would not be possible.”
Democrats also want the constitutional amendment vote to happen on Nov. 5 on the general election ballot. The Senate moved it to a special election in September. A special election just for the CA is a waste of money, Jones said. It would cost about $5 million, according to a new fiscal note on the bill.
“We don’t see any logical reason for that,” he said. “There might be a political reason.”
House Democrats are willing to work toward common ground, Jones said.
But as the bill stands now, he doesn’t think Democrats will support it.
“I think it has to have some work before Democrats, and hopefully the House as a body, supports it,” he said.
Asked what he’s advocating at this point, Albritton said he is not.
“I’ve done all that I can do at this juncture,” he said. “I’ve got to wait and see what the House does or doesn’t do.”
