With just a handful of days remaining in the Alabama Legislature’s 2021 regular session, getting a gaming proposal through the Alabama House of Representatives that the Alabama Senate passed this week could prove to be a difficult challenge.

However, State Sen. Jim McClendon (R-Springville) argues his House colleagues could have an added incentive to push ahead on the vote before adjournment sine die.

McClendon was a “no” vote for the 2019 Rebuild Alabama Act, which includes a provision that makes annual gas tax hikes a possibility for the foreseeable future. He said on Thursday’s broadcast of Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show” that if voters are denied a referendum on a constitutional amendment for gambling, it could come back to haunt incumbents in the 2022 campaign cycle.

“One of the things I heard, Jeff, I thought was interesting was that, ‘Well, they’re giving me a hard time back home about voting on that gas tax — voting ‘yes’ on that tax,’” he said. “So, what I’d like to do is turn around and give them a right to vote on this to kind of make up for it. I thought that was an interesting take.”

“I tell you what, if I was going to run against an incumbent, and they didn’t give them people the right to vote for this, I would make an issue out of it, big time,” McClendon added. “I’d bring it up. I wouldn’t let them get a free ride on denying the people the right to vote.”

@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.