What’s happening with gambling? No one in the Alabama Legislature knows

Senators work in the Alabama Senate chamber on Feb. 20, 2024 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

When it started in the Alabama House of Representatives earlier this year, a package of gambling bills would have created a lottery; allowed casino gambling and sports betting, and directed Gov. Kay Ivey to negotiate a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a federally recognized tribe that operates casinos in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka.

When the legislation came out of the Senate, it had been stripped down to a lottery and compact bill, with some historic horse betting allowed in certain casinos.

And as lawmakers return to start the second half of the 2024 regular session, they don’t know where it’s headed next.

“In the House, we decided to allow everybody to catch their breath and get their feet back underneath them because it’s been such a frenzy of the first half of the legislative session,” said Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, who sponsored the bill in the House. “We want everybody to be there, enjoy their week off with their family and getting back to their full time in their districts. At some point this week, we’ll get together in the House with House leadership and determine what our path forward is on the substituted bills that were passed out of the Senate.”

Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, listens to Stephanie Smith, president and CEO of the Alabama Policy Institute, speak in opposition to his gambling bill at a meeting of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee on Feb. 13, 2024 in the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The committee held a public hearing on Blackshear’s bill. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

Echoing previous attempts to pass gambling legislation in Alabama, bills have passed one chamber but have stalled in another. In a reversal of previous years, the bills have started in the House of Representatives and been torn apart in the Senate. The bills were not sent to the House before spring break began last week, said Blackshear.

At the start of the session, the House of Representatives focused almost exclusively on the gambling legislation until it passed on Feb. 15.

But the package lingered in the Senate where it sat quietly for weeks. The legislation eventually left a Senate committee in a drastically different shape than it entered the Senate. It passed the Senate on March 8 after a tense session where Albritton began filibustering the bill he was carrying. 

The House can concur in the changes or send the bill to the conference committee, where a joint-chamber committee will find something workable for both sides.

Lawmakers said in interviews last week that they did not know when that was going to happen.

“I had some informal conversations with various and sundry folks,” Albritton said on Friday. “I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen Tuesday. At this point, I’m not sure anyone does.”

Albritton said there was not so much a specific item in the House version of the bill that caused issues, as much as it was the entire bill.

“The whole bill was a poison pill according to the Senate,” he said.

Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, who voted against the bill in the Senate, said that he had concerns about “the expansion of legitimacy” for gambling. He cited “media” gambling in Lowndes County, a term he said was confusing to lawyers. He also had doubts about a specific type of machine in Houston County, which mimics the look of a slot machine, while having a paper bingo constitutional amendment.

“I do understand that they’ve got some unique process that they say the Attorney General that involves — I’m gonna call it a machine that appears and looks like a slot machine — that the attorney general has provided an opinion that that unique machine type is legal under their local constitutional amendment, but I just have my doubts about that,” he said.

Orr also said he had concerns about what he called “the lack of legal certainty” about a compact with the Poarch Creek Band of Indians.

Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, a vocal opponent of the House-passed gambling bill, wrote in an email that he did not “have a clue” what could happen with the legislation. 

“All I know is that there are not close to enough votes in the Senate to pass a ‘comprehensive gaming bill,’” he wrote.

Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, had been a vocal opponent of the legislation on social media leading up to the vote but ultimately voted yes.

“I have always maintained that I wanted the people to have the right to vote for a lottery and that and I have been consistent on that and that is essentially what we have here,” he said.

Elliott said that negotiations between the House and Senate leadership “gets above my pay grade real quick,” but he does not think there’s a lot of room for negotiation in the Senate.

“A lot of folks talk about leaving money on the table as it pertains to gambling, or leaving money on the table as it pertains to sports betting, and my answer to that is ‘Yes, and I’m okay with that because that’s how you control the growth of government. You don’t continue to give it more money,'” he said.

First since 2021

This year’s attempts at passing the bill are the closest the Legislature has been to passing gambling since a bill in 2021, when then-Sens. Del Marsh, R-Anniston and Jim McClendon, R-Springville, tried to tackle the issue.

But Elliott said that the 2024 bills are vastly different from the 2021 bills, with the key difference being that the Marsh and McClendon bills put much of the regulation and distribution in the constitutional amendment, while the House package put it in the enabling legislation. 

It takes a three-fifths vote in the Legislature and voter approval to change the constitution, while the Legislature can change general law far more easily.

Elliott also said the issue this year lacks a figure like Marsh, who in 2021 was a former Senate President Pro Tem who had helped elect many of his colleagues. He also said some senators had left, which makes a big difference when trying to pass a constitutional amendment in the Senate.

“It is politics to some extent,” said Elliott.

Marsh said in a phone interview Monday that in 2021 that they had realized that they were losing money to other states. He said the challenges were deciding where revenue went and where the facilities were going.

“Once we kind of hammered that out, I’ll be quite honest it wasn’t, in my opinion, that difficult to pass out the Senate,” he said.

Marsh’s 2021 bill failed on a procedural motion. Later in the session, the Senate passed a bill sponsored by McClendon that was altered to be nearly identical to Marsh’s. 

McClendon said Monday that passing the bill out of the Senate was not that difficult because they knew who the no votes were after Marsh’s bill failed to pass.

“So, I’d have to agree with him the second time around,” he said.

McClendon said the people wanted a lottery, and he said his advice to lawmakers is still that people want a lottery. He said he had not heard a desire for casinos or other gaming from constituents.

In the House of Representatives, the legislation came up near the end of the session, where a group of Republicans attempted to turn it into a lottery-only bill. Amid confusion, the legislation failed to come to a vote.

Marsh said that passing the bill in 2021 involved the timing of the two versions and working with different factions. He said he thinks it’s the same now as it was then.

“It’s about getting enough votes,” he said.

Democratic support

Rep. Sam Jones, D-Mobile, stands in the Alabama House of Representatives before the start of the session on Feb. 15, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The chamber debated a bill that would bring a lottery, casino gambling and sports wagering to the state. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

To get enough votes to pass a gambling bill in the Alabama Legislature, the bill likely needs the support of House Democrats, who provided the votes to pass the legislation in February; the Republican caucus was divided. 

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, has maintained through the session that he wanted language around a rural health program, which resembled Medicaid expansion, to stay in the bill. The Senate stripped the language out.

Daniels said last week that he also needed to see a cost of living adjustment for retired educators to be in the bill for it to have his support in addition to the rural health language.

“Anthony Daniels, the House Minority Leader, will not support any legislation that does not include a COLA for retired educators,” he said.

Rep. Sam Jones, D-Mobile, the main House Democrat working on the legislation, said last week that they are planning to discuss next steps when they return to Montgomery, and they are still going through it.

“It’s almost a rewrite of the entire legislation,” he said.

Jones said he was still going through the legislation, but he does not think he would support the bill as it passed the Senate. 

“I think we’ll probably have to discuss how we handle what was sent down, but, no, I don’t think the bill in its present form is in the best interest of the people of Alabama or the state as a whole,” he said.

A spokesperson for House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, wrote Friday that there were no updates. Harrison Adams, a spokesperson  for Senate Pro Tempore Greg Reed, R-Jasper, wrote in a text Monday that discussions are ongoing.

“The Senate maintains strong confidence in the legislation it passed to crackdown on illegal gambling operations and put a statewide paper lottery on the ballot for Alabamians to vote on,” he wrote.

Gina Maiola, spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey, said that Ivey is in discussions about the legislation.

“Gov. Ivey remains committed to ensuring whatever the Legislature presents to the voters is a good deal for the state,” she wrote in a text. “She will continue to be engaged in those discussions.”

Albritton said that he does not see a compromise or a willingness to compromise. But he said that while a way towards passage is unclear, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

“Never underestimate the Legislature to pull victory out of defeat or defeat from victory one or the other, we can do both usually, (and) simultaneously,” he said. 

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