By Sondra Washington and Jennifer Davis Rash
The showdown is over. Alabama’s Supreme Court has spoken.
Gov. Bob Riley — not Attorney General Troy King — is the state’s “supreme” executive authority, and King cannot take over Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling. Combine this hit with the fact that the FBI is currently investigating several lawmakers about their connection to gambling money, and the gambling industry isn’t finding quite the welcome mat it thought it would in Alabama.
In fact, many slot machine gambling operations, referred to as electronic bingo facilities, remaining open in the state are now publicizing plans to close, at least temporarily.
Gambling operations statewide have come and gone over the past two years as this issue has been debated, most heatedly in the Alabama Legislature. Operations still open at press time were VictoryLand in Macon County, Greenetrack in Greene County and more than 10 facilities in the Bessemer Cut-off section of Jefferson County.
The facility first raided by the task force, White Hall Entertainment Center in Lowndes County, remains closed and has been since early this year when the legal battle between it and the task force began.
Bobby Segall, who represents Cornerstone Community Outreach, which runs the White Hall casino, told The Alabama Baptist he does not believe the recent ruling has any “long-term impact” on Cornerstone and its plans to reopen since both the governor and attorney general were going to “pursue legal proceedings to determine the legality of the (electronic bingo) games.”
“The difference was that the governor would raid and the attorney general would not raid, apparently,” Segall said, noting he believes the facility will not reopen unless the machines are found to be legal.
But “supporters of electronic bingo in Macon County say they are prepared to take their fight to the highest court in the land if the governor makes any move to shut down [VictoryLand],” according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Greenetrack officials could not be reached before press time.
In Jefferson County, the ruling’s impact in the Bessemer Cut-off is not yet clear.
While Brandon Falls, Jefferson County’s district attorney, shut down all gambling operations under his jurisdiction April 7, Bessemer Cut-off District Attorney Arthur Green allowed the facilities in his area to remain open in April and May.
Green noted he would make his decision about what to do once the Supreme Court ruled whether King or Riley was in charge of the task force or when task force commander John Tyson shut down the larger facilities in Macon and Greene counties.
But operations in the Bessemer area have remained opened even though Green reportedly announced that gambling in Alabama is “over” and called for the facilities to close.
Green could not be reached before press time, but Fairfield City Attorney Michael Trucks reportedly said Green told him he had no problem with the facilities staying open until June 4. The significance of June 4 was not known as press time.
Tyson said he doesn’t know why Green isn’t “doing his job.”
“What we have now is all three separate and equal branches of our government — Supreme Court, governor and Legislature — saying the same thing. … There is just no more … controversy about whether or not that is … the law.”
Even Country Crossing in Dothan — the newest and one of the most aggressive gambling establishments in the state — is listening. It has been shut down since January in an attempt to avoid a raid by the task force. News reports in late May indicated Country Crossing owner Ronnie Gilley toyed with the idea of reopening the gambling operation but decided against it.
“Owners of the electronic bingo machines at Country Crossing would not give their support (to reopen) because the governor’s gambling task force has threatened a raid,” Gilley said, according to the Dothan Eagle.
Gilley and the other gambling facility owners counted on King being named head of the task force, indicating they would be allowed to open if he were in charge.
In March, King announced he would take over the task force and use declaratory judgments to determine the legality of “electronic bingo.”
But the Supreme Court shot down King’s proposed plan. It repeated its ruling in an Etowah County gambling case that the courts have no jurisdiction to “interfere with the enforcement of the criminal laws.”
In turn, Etowah County Circuit Judge Allen Millican threw out the case dealing with a company attempting to legalize efforts to open a gambling operation in Etowah County. Millican said he recognizes “the court does not have the luxury of not following the law” when it comes to illegal gambling.
“The attorney general’s plan ignored prior Supreme Court decisions that made clear that declaratory judgment actions in these circumstances are not permitted,” Riley stated in a press release.
But King said, “The gambling laws in Alabama had been sorted out for a long time by declaratory actions including declaratory judgments that the Supreme Court upheld. … We constructed a strategy based on the law, and the Supreme Court has now, evidently, changed the law.”
King expressed disappointment with the Supreme Court’s ruling, which he told The Alabama Baptist reversed its past decisions and those of the writers of the state’s constitution in 1901. King believes “there will come a time when this opinion is going to create a crisis in the state.”
“Since 1901, this premise that the attorney general is subservient to the governor has not been the law of Alabama,” he said. “Alabama has always been a place where being in its government had limited power. I think that’s good. Unchecked, unlimited power lends itself to abuse.”
King said the same power could be used if a pro-gambling governor is elected.
“He would have … the same powers to come in and reverse all this, and nobody would be able to … dispute it,” King explained. “Normally you would have a balance of power. Now you have a situation where nobody can disagree with the governor.”
But Tyson believes King’s intentions in the case were disingenuous.
“There was not confusion about whether or not slot machines were illegal until Troy King became the attorney general,” he said.
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