A ban on gay “marriages” and legislation legalizing electronic bingo both died in the Alabama Legislature when the final gavel fell on the 2004 session May 17.
“All in all, we had a fairly good session,” said Dan Ireland, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program (ALCAP).
Along with adopting a $1.42 billion general fund budget and $4.5 billion education budget, the Legislature also approved a cigarette tax increase of 26 cents a pack.
“The cigarette tax increase is a step in the right direction,” Ireland said. “This will help the budget considerably and will help keep young people from getting started smoking.”
Ireland said the bills banning same-sex “marriages” and legalizing electronic bingo had strong resistance as well as support. The stronghold on both sides caused them to become weapons for a filibuster in the House of Representatives even though both bills passed the Senate with relative ease.
“Proponents of the bingo bill failed because money was supplied for ‘books’ and ‘beds’ in the budget and that was the target — money for education and Medicaid,” Ireland said.
The ban on gay unions was not debated in and of itself, but the timing was. Rep. Ken Guin said passing a constitutional amendment to be voted on by the state’s citizens now would make it a partisan issue because of the presidential election.
Rep. Gerald Allen disagreed, saying it is vital that Alabama pass a ban immediately.
As far as alcohol was concerned, a bill allowing specially regulated country clubs in dry counties to sell liquor passed, despite the governor’s veto.
But legislation lowering a city’s population requirement to hold a wet/dry election in a dry county from 7,000 to 6,000 failed.
(TAB)
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By June Mathews
It’s not just a kids’ game anymore. Bingo has grown up and in the process has generated some heavy-duty adult issues.
The most recent debate inside and outside the Alabama Legislature about the now failed bill (see story, this page) known most commonly as “Bingo for Books” prompted yet another analysis of what does or doesn’t constitute gambling. It also caused many to question how much and in what form gambling should be legal in Alabama.
Two of the state’s four dog tracks currently have video bingo machines, and the other two tracks want the same privileges. The “Bingo for Books” bill would have allowed this to happen had it passed the Legislature and a vote of the people.
Greenetrack in Greene County and Victoryland in Macon County gained the right to install and run video bingo machines after constitutional amendments passed for both counties in 2003.
Much of the money generated from video gambling at the Greene and Macon tracks goes to local schools, agencies and charities.
According to an employee at Greenetrack, there are approximately 300 bingo machines there. Machines number “in the hundreds” at Victoryland, an employee estimated.
Video gambling, in particular, has been a source of contention between gambling proponents and its opponents for some time.
In 1993, Calhoun County Circuit Judge Joel Laird ruled a Piedmont city ordinance unconstitutional that allowed certain nonprofit organizations to operate “instant bingo” games as fund raisers.
“This wasn’t the simple game we used to play as kids where we’d call out a number and if your card had that number on it, you covered it up,” he said. “This was something else.”
The game, Laird explained, involved concealed-number cards and worked exactly like a lottery. Because Article 4, Section 65 of the Alabama Constitution prohibits lotteries, Laird ruled the game unconstitutional. The City of Piedmont responded by asking the Supreme Court of Alabama for a ruling in the case and in 1994, the higher court affirmed Laird’s finding. In his original ruling, which the Supreme Court adopted in its opinion, Laird drew a distinction between “bingo” and “instant bingo,” using verbiage from the city’s own ordinance to prove his point. “Instant bingo,” he held, did not even fall within the definition of bingo found within the ordinance.
By that time, as in many other Alabama counties, bingo had been legalized in Calhoun County via a constitutional amendment that specified bingo “for prizes or money by certain nonprofit organizations for charitable, educational or other lawful purposes.”
Laird’s ruling and its subsequent affirmation made it clear that municipal ordinances could not add to or supercede those amendments.
But bingo soon became big business as one form of video gambling.
In 2002, then-Attorney General Bill Pryor issued an opinion that said, “All forms of slot machines, including electronic and video gambling machines, are illegal under state law.”
The opinion addressed the so-called Chuck E. Cheese law, legislation passed in 1996 to allow arcade games, like those at the Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurant, to award coupons for prizes. Under the guise of legality, video poker machines began to appear across Alabama.
A plurality of the supreme court said in an opinion that the games violated the state constitution. Pryor agreed, and ultimately, adult arcades statewide were forced to shut down.
While Jefferson County officials recently allowed video gambling arcades to reopen, Dan Ireland, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action, said the game is not over.
“I think most DAs are standing pat on not letting the arcades come back until a state supreme court ruling takes place,” said Ireland, noting an appeals case is currently waiting to be heard by the state’s high court. “I’m hoping the pending case will surface and will rule the games unconstitutional,” Ireland said. “Then it will apply statewide and will shut them down.”
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