A chaotic Senate committee meeting ended Wednesday without a vote on the gambling legislation already approved in the Alabama House or expected substitute bills.
Substitute bills were being prepared Wednesday, but weren’t discussed publicly.
The Senate Tourism and Economic Development Committee had posted earlier in the week its 1 p.m. meeting, but didn’t list the bills it would discuss, as is legislative protocol. It also didn’t mention a planned public hearing.
But enough people knew about it for multiple opponents of the sweeping legislation to prepare remarks. They included Alabama Farmers Federation, the Alabama Policy Institute and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
The House two weeks ago approved the bills, including a constitutional amendment that would need voters’ approval, allow for a lottery, 10 casinos with table games and online sports betting. But the proposal, as arrived in the Senate, has lacked the needed GOP support. Some have said a lottery focused bill would be more palatable to members.
Wednesday’s meeting started more than 20 minutes late and several members expressed frustration over the structure of the meeting and felt left out of the loop on plans for the bills.
“I have not seen any legislation. I have not seen any substitute that’s been rumored,” said Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre. “… This is not how you run government.” He said he’d be a “no” vote if yet-unseen substitute bills were to get a committee vote in that meeting.
“And that’s no knock on the chairman (Sen. Randy Price, R-Opelika) because I know he’s not responsible for this.”
Later, Jones suggested the meeting end before substitute legislation arrived.
“I just don’t want to give people time to finish putting together something that we haven’t seen and get up here and try to ram it out,” Jones said.
Democrats also complained about being left out of discussions. Democrats in the House all supported the bills in that chamber, ensuring its passage.
“Everything I saw on this meeting was to-be-announced,” Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who has been influential in previous gambling legislation. “(I) didn’t know what bill was gonna be here, didn’t know there was going to be a public hearing.”
Had it been advertised, people from his district would have come to speak, he said.
“We’ve been toiling and carrying this torch for years and we’re not even involved in it at all and I think that’s totally unfair,” Singleton said.
After the public hearing, Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, said while he thought he had the votes in the committee to approve a bill, a vote wouldn’t happen that day. He said there’d been a lot of work to find “a workable bill that is comprehensive in nature that will resolve the issues and give us the caps and controls and the collections of revenue that we need here in Alabama…”
He said the substitute legislation being created Wednesday was different than a previous substitute floated earlier in the week.
He moved to delay a vote on House Bill 151 and House Bill 152.
The next committee meeting has not been announced.