Editor’s Note — This is an excerpt from Gov. Bob Riley’s State of the State address delivered Jan. 12 in Montgomery. To view the video clip, visit www.thealabamabaptist.org and go to the video section.
We’re doing a lot as a state to help struggling families during this recession and to help our economy. But we also must protect our economy by standing strong against threats to it … (and) … there is one threat to our economy that members of this Legislature can control, and that’s whether to legalize slot machines in Alabama. I can’t imagine anyone who thinks the best way to help our economy is to have Alabamians lose billions of dollars gambling! But that’s precisely what the gambling interests want you to believe. In one Alabama county where these illegal casinos operated, court testimony revealed that people were losing $2 billion every year — $2 billion from one single county. This is not money spent in the community at local businesses, where it would sustain jobs and help the local economy. No, this money is taken out of that county and sent to out-of-state slot machine makers and gambling bosses. Just imagine how many billions more will be taken out of the pockets of Alabamians if you vote to make it legal. Talk about a rip-off!
So let’s understand that any scheme that will legalize slot machines under the pretext of generating new revenue is the biggest hustle in Alabama’s history.
Yet here we go again. Another legislative session is starting, and you know what that means. Millions of dollars are going to be spent trying to pressure you into making slot machines legal for the first time in the history of our state.
Of course, they don’t call it that. They call it bingo. But you weren’t born yesterday and neither was I. This is nothing like bingo. These are slot machines pure and simple, and they are illegal for a reason. They are illegal because they’re bad for our families, they’re bad for taxpayers and they’re bad for Alabama.
The devastating social costs of gambling — increased crime, addictions, domestic violence, bankruptcies, suicides, family breakdown and much more — are undeniable and well documented by the National Gambling Impact Commission. Now I ask you: who ultimately pays for all these problems? The casino operators? Not a chance. They’re making money hand over fist off this misery. It’s the taxpayers who are the ultimate losers. In states with casinos, for every $1 casinos contribute in taxes, they cost taxpayers at least $3 in additional government services to deal with the devastation the casinos leave behind.
They say those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. Alabama has seen this before. How can we so soon forget the lessons that Phenix City taught us? Someone who has not forgotten — and will never forget — is Gov. John Patterson. If there is one person who knows the lawlessness and corruption that gambling brings, it is him. Listen to his warning, which was in the newspaper last week.
He said, “Gambling brings the bad people to town and brings out the bad in good people. There’s nothing about it that’s good.”
Ladies and gentlemen, heed his warning. If you vote to let this happen, you’ll be swimming in a pool that has more sharks than all the oceans of the world.
Every one of us in this room knows that slot machines are illegal under Alabama law, no matter whether you call it electronic bingo or anything else. Yet despite the clarity of that law and the clarity of the court decisions, we have today slot machine casinos being operated in some areas of this state, abetted by officials who are willing to ignore the law.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we are to fulfill our oaths to ensure that the laws are followed, how can we permit this flagrant and rampant violation of the law to go on?
Men and women of principle must act now — and act decisively — to ensure that the rule of law is not some hollow standard that is cast aside whenever people with enough money and enough influence decide that the law does not apply to them.
I took an oath to uphold the laws of Alabama. And as long as I am governor, I will never go back on that oath. All of you (legislators) took that oath, too. [A]ll of us must reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law.
Share with others: