Last Push For Georgia Casino Bill Scuttled For 2017

ATLANTA, GA — After a last-minute push to revive a bill that would legalize casino gambling in Georgia, lawmakers on Friday conceded the effort is effectively dead for 2017.

"We’re going to take a deep breath and come back and look at it some over the interim," House Speaker David Ralston told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We want to keep the discussion going but we thought today was probably not the appropriate time to do that."

Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, planned to present his own version of the bill to the House Regulated Industries Committee Friday afternoon. A similar plan already had been scuttled in the Senate.

But Stephens conceded Friday he didn't have enough support to get the casino bill through the committee and to the full House.

"The plug was pulled. We just couldn’t come to grips with it,” Democratic Rep. Calvin Smyre, of Columbus, told the AJC. "I was hoping to come to some kind of agreement today, but we fell short."

Earlier this week, Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, acknowledged he didn't have enough support to get his version of the casino bill out of the Senate's Regulated Industries Committee. He said he thinks there's more support for the measure in the legislature at large than there is on the committee.

Legislation must clear a committee in either the House or Senate before it can be considered by the chambers as a whole.

The legislation would allow voters to approve two resort-style casinos in Georgia. One would be in metro Atlanta and the other around Savannah, on the Georgia coast. Lawmakers from other parts of the state, notably Columbus, have pushed to have more casinos allowed in other places.

As part of the legislation, the casinos would generate revenue for Georgia's HOPE scholarship and other higher education funding, as well as money for rural health care and broadband technology.

Opponents of the casino bill, largely coming from religious groups, threw together a press conference Friday morning to oppose Stephens' effort.

Friday is the 28th day of the General Assembly's 40-day annual session. Known as Crossover Day, it is, by custom, the last day upon which a bill must be approved in one chamber to be considered by the other.

But there are various legislative maneuvers lawmakers can use to keep bills alive after Crossover Day, including attaching them as amendments to other bills that have already cleared one chamber.

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