This year’s legislative session may be winding down, but electronic bingo gambling opponents are not breathing easy just yet. With less than 10 legislative days left at the Statehouse, gambling bills are still being debated in committee meetings and moved around both chambers’ calendars. And Joe Godfrey, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program, believes there is always a chance some could fly through at the last minute.
“You have to be on your guard at all times until they adjourn sine die (close the session),” Godfrey said. “There is a lot that we have to watch for in these last few days. They (legislators) will allow bills to sit there and you think they’re not going anywhere and in the last few days they start moving them.”
Three bills that have most recently moved around the Statehouse concern a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and constitutional amendments about electronic bingo gambling in Elmore, Autauga and Covington counties.
Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, introduced Senate Bill (SB) 578 April 9 proposing a compact between the State of Alabama and the Poarch Creek Indians. The bill seeks to “limit class III gaming to Indian facilities and would provide that the state could receive a portion of the revenue of gaming.”
While leaders on both sides of the electronic bingo gambling debate have said they do not wish to bring class III gambling into Alabama, Sanders said he and a group of other legislators began working before the session started “to get money from bingo and any other gambling activities that are going on for the state.” He admits the group worked for “quite a while” on SB 578 and other bills to raise money for the state but said that he has not talked to any of the Poarch Creek people about the 38-page bill. He did say he had talked to a lobbyist for the group about the bill.
Sanders admitted that his bill would allow the Poarch Creek Indians to “end up with more (gambling) than they currently have,” but said which types of class III games allowed in the state could be negotiated.
“There is a whole range of class III activities, and it doesn’t have to be all of them,” he said.
Eric Johnston, president of and general counsel for the Southeast Law Institute in Birmingham, disagreed.
“Class III gambling is class III gambling, period. … That is everything from electronic slot machine operations to dealers to roulette wheels and all the things you can find in Las Vegas,” he said.
Still Sanders believes the compact is necessary to bring in additional funding for education and Medicaid. “The Indians have a tremendous amount of gambling revenue that’s flowing through, and I think that all revenue ought to help to support much-needed activities in the state,” he said.
Johnston said this is flawed thinking.
“You are not going to tax drug dealers and prostitutes because that illegal activity is going on in the state, and they are not being taxed,” he said. “So if you use the same rationale, it’s saying go ahead and tax it and get our share of the money.”
Yet Johnston believes the biggest flaw with SB 578 is its attempt to make the governor sign a compact with the Indians.
“I don’t think that’s legal,” he said. “The Legislature cannot order the governor to enter into a compact, and the Legislature cannot do a compact on its own. Federal law requires it has to be done with the governor. … We have a governor that opposes gambling, and you can’t side-step him by passing a statute that violates federal law and requires the governor to do something that the Legislature cannot require him to do. The only way they can get the governor to do it is to get a new governor that supports gambling.”
Since the bill seeks to allow the Poarch Creek Indians to have class III gambling, which is currently illegal in Alabama, Johnston said the bill raises questions about its true meaning.
“It’s just another bill to expand gambling and legalize it,” he said. If the Indians are allowed to have class III gambling, “I believe there would be an argument for everyone else to have it because the governor authorized it for the Indians.”
Three new bills causing concern among gambling opponents around the state are House Bill (HB) 821, 832 and 833.
HB 821 seeks to repeal legislation passed in 1993 allowing only “card” bingo in Covington County. While HB 832 will prohibit “class II electronic bingo machines” in Autauga County, HB 833 bans “class II” gambling machines in Elmore County except those operated by “certain American Indian tribes.”
Johnston said these bills are suspicious because neither Elmore nor Autauga County have bingo amendments.
Numerous other electronic bingo gambling bills remain pending on each calendar and in various committees.
Share with others: