Good move! Lottery for education funds is a joke.
NC House rejects lottery referendum
By AMY GARDNER, STAFF WRITER
The state House of Representatives resoundingly defeated a proposal Tuesday to seek the opinion of voters on launching a statewide lottery.
The measure, which would have set a Nov. 5 referendum on the issue, failed 69-50, a far greater margin than expected even among those who predicted defeat.
Gov. Mike Easley has pushed the lottery to pay for his education agenda; Tuesday's vote delivers the first major defeat of his administration.
"Children are only 4 once," said Easley adviser Dan Gerlach immediately after the vote. He was referring to the pre-kindergarten program the governor had planned to fund with lottery proceeds.
Lottery opponents were thrilled with the vote, and they sought out television cameras and newspaper reporters crowding the hallways outside the House chamber.
"It's a defeat for the governor, no question," said House Minority Leader Leo Daughtry, a Smithfield Republican. "He simply could not get the votes, so I think it's a real blow to his leadership."
House Speaker Jim Black, meanwhile, blamed Republicans and his voice rose as his frustration showed through.
Black said the vote likely would reverberate in November -- to the Republicans' detriment. Polls have consistently shown that most North Carolinians favor a lottery when the proceeds are earmarked for education.
"I expect the people in the November election will remember who was willing to let them vote and who was not," he said.
Whether of not to have a lottery was not nearly as important question, politically, as to whether to have a referendum on the lottery. This vote is a huge defeat for the Democrats, and for Governor Sleasley.
Speaker Black's assertion that "people in the November election will remember who was willing to let them vote and who was not" is so much whistling past the graveyard. In fact, the absence of the issue on the ballot should depress the turnout of the Dems' core constituencies. Had the measure been on the ballot, waves of "soft money" aimed to get out the vote would have the effect of doing just that. Marginal voters who might be persuaded to trek to the polls only because of this issue would be much more likely to be straight-ticket Dem voters.
The NC House and Senate votes are critical this November, because, after a court-won redistricting battle, the GOP actually has a chance to control the General Assembly. The first item on the agenda for the newly-elected House and Senate members will be to redistrict again, since the court-mandated lines are for the 2002 election only. The importance of this round of elections can't be emphasized enough.
Legislators who supported the referendum were cowardly. Nothing more and nothing less. They preferred political cover to making decisions. The referendum was to have been non-binding, as it must be according to the state constitution, and the wording of the ballot question was to have been so non-specific as to have been a joke.
One of the prime beneficiaries of the lottery was to have been pre-pre-school for four year olds. Does anyone remember parents?
I can hear the Parrot now: "Easley wants a lottery, Easley wants a lottery..."
JWinNC
SACRILEGE!!!!
The News & Fishwrap must be run by a bunch of Bluebellies!!!
Harumph!
Dean Smith never played at UNC.