This is one gambling fight where most Alabama Baptists are on the same side as Gov. Don Siegelman. Speaking to reporters following the Alabama Baptist State Convention Prayer Luncheon Feb. 2, Siegelman told reporters “I can not imagine any circumstance where I would be supportive of video poker or any kind of casino-related activity.”
Many Alabama Baptists breathed a sigh of relief when the governor made that statement. There was widespread fear that after his support of lottery gambling last year, Siegelman would support, or at least sidestep, the video gambling battle. However, that fear ignored statements made by the governor in years past when he openly declared his opposition to casino-related activities like video poker.
Of course, the lopsided defeat of the lottery gambling proposal helped remind the governor and most legislators that our citizens are not eager for expanded gambling’s evils in “Alabama the Beautiful.”
Unfortunately, Siegelman’s statement does not put an end to the video poker battle. Two days after the governor reiterated his opposition to video poker, the first of four bills to establish video poker at the state’s four dog tracks was introduced in both the House and Senate and the governor has not gone so far as to promise a veto of the bills, should they pass.
The gambling forces are trying a new tactic this year. In the past, all gambling bills have been considered general legislation because they impact the entire state. This year, the sponsors are asking that their bills be considered local legislation. It is the practice of the state Legislature that when officials from a specific geographical area, such as a city or county, agree on bills that impact only that area, other legislators support the decision of the local officials as a matter of courtesy.
By asking that the video poker bills be considered local legislation, the gambling forces hope to pressure other legislators to vote for the bill as a matter of legislative courtesy. To emphasize the point, gambling supporters have threatened to hold up all local legislation if their video poker bills are not treated as local legislation.
The threat is pure blackmail. It is politics at its rawest form. Those who threaten such actions show they care little about the public good. Their concern is for a private agenda.
Realizing that Alabama generally opposes expanded gambling, these legislators want to change the rules and threaten retribution if everyone does not bow down to their power play.
The impact of gambling cannot be limited to the boundaries of a city or a county. Its tentacles spread across political boundaries to destroy the dreams and hopes of all it touches. It corrupts the human spirit, the community in which it dwells, as well as the political process.
Anyone who doubts the negative impact of video poker has only to look at what happened in Louisiana and South Carolina. The stories of human tragedies are almost limitless: lives ruined, public officials arrested, the political process abused, organized crime rampant. The experience of these two states proves again all the stereotypes about gambling are true.
Gambling plays on the darkest, most selfish side of the human spirit. Yet amazingly, some legislators continue to promote expanded gambling as a way of protecting the investments of some major money interests. Dog tracks in Alabama are failing. They are failing nationwide. Dog tracks were never a good idea, and time is proving they were not.
But instead of recognizing that reality, some legislators attempt to change the culture of Alabama in order to protect the investments of a few. It is another case of attempting to use government to protect big-money people.
Another result of this strategy would be to spread casino-type gambling throughout Alabama. Video poker, or slot machines, would be the first of the casino-type game placed at the dog tracks. Others would soon follow. Then would come the calls to establish similar games in other parts of the state. What the gambling crowd cannot accomplish statewide, they now attempt to do one piece at a time.
Alabama Baptists opposed to the spread of gambling in the state may want to contact their legislators and encourage them to treat all gambling bills as general legislation and not as local legislation. That also may want to encourage their elected officials to join Siegelman in his opposition to video poker and all other kinds of casino-related activities.
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