During the first three days of this week, the hot rumor going around the Legislative Building in Raleigh was that a House vote on a state lottery was imminent. No one claimed to know exactly how it might come about, though one scenario had Speaker Jim Black try to ram an “advisory referendum” bill through a hastily called meeting of the Rules Committee and then get it on the floor when undecided or anti-lottery lawmakers were absent.
Whatever the scenarios, fanciful or otherwise, that danced like sugar plums in the heads of legislative leaders all snug in their beds, Santa never showed up. Some lawmakers have thought of the state lottery as a sort of good fairy, a deus ex machina that would save them from having to either raise tax or significantly cut government services. This really is a fantasy, since no one expects a lottery to contribute much in revenue in FY 2002-03, which is frankly the only year that matters right now to panicky legislators. Even with a lottery, passed straight up and implemented by fall or, worse, accomplished through the nonbinding referendum route that gets a game going no earlier than late spring, the state legislature must still hike taxes or cut spending or both to eliminate a $1.5 billion budget gap.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Black decided not to run the bill this week. Perhaps wavering lawmakers just don’t see any reason to anger implacable lottery foes if it won’t get them out of the tax hike/spending cut box, anyway. Another reason the speaker may not yet have the needed votes in the House is the implied message of a Monday press conference by religious leaders opposed to the lottery. The gathering was ecumenical, not just in religious terms but in political ones. Still, there was a noticeable contingent of what is usually called the Religious Right. Undecided Democrats, especially those in newly competitive House and Senate districts, have got to be wondering where lies the political wisdom in placing an issue on the statewide ballot in November that virtually guarantees these conservative, GOP-leaning voters will turn out in droves.
Democratic consultants answer that a lottery referendum would help turn out their base, too, including black voters and seniors. I don’t buy it. Other issues — the so-called “judicial coup” in Florida or prescription drug benefits, for example — would seem to be more fit tools for political demagoguery. I guess that the lottery-management companies might be induced to kick in some money to Democratic campaigns, but they’ll do that in any event. Indeed, having a lottery referendum on theballot might induce them to put their dollars into independent expenditures rather than into partisan campaigns. That’s not what Democrats would want.
Speculation aside, what we have seen this week is a lot of talk and no action. Par for the course in recent years on the strange and contentious issue of a North Carolina lottery.