[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 25217]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   ALABAMA REJECTS PLAN FOR A LOTTERY

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous 
material.)
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to the attention of my 
colleagues today's headlines: Alabama Rejects the Plan for a Lottery, 
AP. Fifty-four percent of the voters in Alabama rejected a State-
sponsored lottery yesterday. The Crimson Tide has rejected a lottery in 
their State, and perhaps this is a shift that will change the tide of 
gambling in America.
  According to news reports, the tide is expected to wash over South 
Carolina, where a referendum to ban video poker is expected to also 
pass.
  I want to congratulate the people of Alabama for standing up and 
voting against State-sponsored gambling, and I hope others around the 
country will take note of what has occurred at the ballot box.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to, at this point, submit this material for 
the record.

       Montgomery, AL. (AP)--Gov. Don Siegelman, who lobbied long 
     and hard for a state lottery to help fund education, watched 
     the measure collapse in defeat at the hands of voters 
     unwilling to cross their ministers.
       With 98 percent of precincts reporting, 663,988 people, or 
     54 percent, opposed the lottery referendum Tuesday, and 
     559,377 people, or 46 percent, supported it. Turnout was 
     estimated at 50 percent.
       The proposal--a constitutional amendment to allow 
     gambling--had once enjoyed a 20-point lead in the polls but 
     came under increasing fire from church groups who said it 
     would exploit the poor.
       Other opponents also claimed that a recent traffic ticket-
     fixing scandal showed that the Democratic governor's 
     administration could not be trusted to oversee gambling in 
     the state.
       Alabama joins Arkansas, Oklahoma and North Dakota as states 
     that have rejected lotteries at the ballot box. Thirty-seven 
     states and the District of Columbia have approved them.
       The loss was a stinging blow to Siegelman, who had made the 
     referendum's passage a cornerstone of his 1998 election 
     victory over Republican Fob James.
       ``In my inaugural address, I said that we would dare mighty 
     things. I said that we would try new things and if they 
     didn't work we would try something else,'' Siegelman said 
     after the votes were counted.
       He said the results ``only serve to motivate me and to 
     energize me in our fight and our quest to change education in 
     this state forever.''
       Along with the lottery proposal, two other proposed 
     constitutional amendments were on the ballot, and voters in 
     Birmingham and Montgomery chose candidates for mayor and city 
     council members.
       In Birmingham, Alabama's largest city, interim Mayor 
     William Bell led a 14-way race for the mayorship but was 
     forced into a Nov. 2 runoff against City Councilman Bernard 
     Kincaid.
       In Montgomery, conservative Mayor Emory Folmar led six 
     opponents in his bid for a seventh term but was forced into a 
     runoff against Bobby Bright, a lawyer backed by organized 
     labor.
       Siegelman had promised that the lottery would generate at 
     least $150 million annually to fund college scholarships, a 
     pre-kindergarten program and computer technology in schools.
       ``He has put everything on this,'' said Auburn University 
     at Montgomery political analyst Brad Moody. ``He has made it 
     the centerpiece of his campaign and the centerpiece of his 
     first year in office. He has thrown all his political capital 
     away.''
       Sheila Bird was among those who voted against the lottery 
     even though her 2-year-old daughter Amanda could have one day 
     benefited from the plan.
       ``I just feel like it's morally wrong. I feel like it's 
     going to cause problems in lower income families,'' she said. 
     ``I think you can get money other ways.''

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