Alabama Lottery Bill Likely Dead For Current Session

MONTGOMERY, AL - Alabama residents hoping to vote next March on a statewide lottery will likely have to wait another year - at least - after the House of Representatives failed this week to get enough votes to pass the bill. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, said the votes simply aren't there.

It would take 63 votes, three-fifths of the House membership, to pass the proposed constitutional amendment, and while Clouse had hope the bill would get enough support earlier in the week, he conceded Wednesday that support was at least five votes shy.

The bill passed the Senate in April by a vote of 21 to 12. The Senate bill outlined a lottery that was expected to generate revenue of $166.7 million annually. That money would go toward administering and operating the lottery, and half of the remainder would go to the Alabama trust fund to repay transfers made to the state general fund from 2013 to 2015. The other half of the remainder would go into the state general fund.

The House changed the bill to direct 75 percent of net revenue to the General Fund and 25 percent to the Education Trust Fund. House Democrats said what they were hearing from constituents was that the Senate lottery bill needed to have money go toward education, hence the House amendment, but there was still uncertainty this week on how the money was going to be spent.

Rep. Anthony Daniels of Huntsville said Democrats wanted lottery funds to go to need-based scholarship programs, prekindergarten, and Medicaid expansion, a longtime Democratic goal that the Republican majority does not support.

Utah, Alaska, Hawaii and Nevada are the only other states without a lottery. Proposals for an Alabama lottery were rejected by voters in 1999, and by the legislature in 2016.