Alabama Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter is not willing to predict yet whether there is any momentum in the Alabama Legislature to attempt to pass a statewide lottery bill this year.
The Alabama House passed a comprehensive gaming bill including a lottery, casinos, and sports betting, last year. The Senate scaled the bill down to focus on a lottery and limited pari-mutuel wagering, but the two chambers failed to reconcile their differences before the session ended.
During a recent appearance on “Alabama Politics This Week,” Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) responded to the question of whether lawmakers will try to pass a lottery bill during this upcoming session.
“If I could answer that question, it would’ve passed last year,” Ledbetter said. “I think, from the standpoint of the House, some of these come out of the Senate. I mean, the house had done their due diligence and done a really good job, and they had Senators involved in trying to put a package together. Once it went to committee, I thought if everybody can get together on the same page, that something would happen. But it was one vote short in the Senate. And for reasons, I mean, everybody’s got different reasons, but, you know, if anything comes out this year, it’ll have to be out of the Senate.”
Ledbetter explained why it’s hard to get any kind of lottery bill passed in the Yellowhammer State.
“It’s complicated. You know, you got the areas in the Black Belt that’s got the casinos, and they’re, you know, most of those people, they would be for fixing what we’ve got so they can keep the casinos they have in their districts, but they don’t vote for a lottery because they’re afraid it will mess them up. So you lose those votes. And then you got a certain amount of Republicans that aren’t going to go for it period. So, you see, it’s a constitutional amendment. You got to get 63 votes. So, that’s what makes it hard to get there.”
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Ledbetter said the idea of a lottery is popular in the state, but that still doesn’t mean it can easily pass the Legislature.
“The other thing I think Alabamians want to do is they want to vote. I mean, we look to polling and 80% of the people are supportive of the lottery…. It’s not as simple as that. I wish it was, but we got to fix what’s going on. I mean, we’ve got illegal operations in the state that’s running rabid and we don’t have the regulations to fix it. We don’t have any kind of laws that we really clamp down on it. So, it’s complicated issue.”
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
