RALEIGH – So, it came down to this.
Gov. Mike Easley has sought a state-run lottery since taking office in 2001. Some leaders of the NC Senate and House have sought a lottery far longer. There has been a lobbying effort afoot for a lottery at least since the early 1980s. A lottery bill has passed a different Senate in the past. The House narrowly approved a lottery bill this session, 61-59, after defeating it in the past.
But Easley, the lottery industry, the teacher union, and like-minded lawmakers couldn’t get it done in 2005. The Senate began the year, unbeknownst to a surprising number of supposedly informed observers, with a bare 26-member majority against government-run gambling. It appears to have adjourned for the year with that anti-lottery bloc intact, formed by all 21 Senate Republicans and five brave, principled Senate Democrats.
A last-ditch pressure campaign, composed of major ad buys as well as individual arm-twisting, had no effect. The so-called Lottery Five Dems – Sens. Charlie Albertson of Duplin, Dan Clodfelter of Mecklenburg, Janet Cowell of Wake, Ellie Kinnaird of Orange, and Martin Nesbitt of Buncombe – stood firm. Republican Sen. Harry Brown, a freshman from Onslow County who was a local Democratic leader and candidate just a couple of years ago before a party switch, appeared to be the primary focus among the GOP of pro-lottery forces. Opening the door to his approval if all lottery proceeds were devoted to local school construction, Brown seems to have made an offer he knew would be refused – thus allowing him to vote with his colleagues, and one hopes with his conscience, while reassuring voters in his swing district back home that he had handled the issue with due diligence and an open mind.
The next time someone says that North Carolina politics is thoroughly, depressingly corrupt and North Carolina politicians without principle, remember these North Carolina senators.
The easy choice for the Lottery Five would have been to go with the crowd. Other Democrats, including quite a few former opponents in the House, had set aside their concerns about using government to trick people out of their money. They saw a lottery as a means of increasing education funding (they’re wrong, by the way), placating the governor and other party leaders, or casting a vote popular with the general public. As for Brown, it would have been harder for him to cast the lone GOP vote for a lottery, thus tying the chamber and allowing Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue to cast a vote to create one. But I’m sure that some friends and political allies told him he could get away with it, that the GOP would still need to help him win re-election in 2006. To his credit, Brown didn’t listen. He stuck to his campaign promise, despite being subjected to withering political fire.
And even Senate leader Marc Basnight, faced with a parliamentary opening that might have slipped the lottery through under the cover of night, resisted the urge to break faith with a longtime colleague, the absent Republican Sen. Ham Horton. Basnight showed good judgment – and an appreciation of the potential blowback from destroying comity in the Senate.
The lottery issue isn’t dead, of course. It will never be dead. North Carolina is the largest state and the only one on the East Coast that doesn’t run a gambling operation. The pressure will continue. This year’s House-passed lottery bill will be alive for consideration during the 2006 short session. But for now, lottery opponents can savor another improbable victory – and cynics everywhere can savor a political moment at which principle prevailed over pressure and prevarication.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.