Lotto South
So a few days after the NC Senate sent everyone home, without voting on a state lottery, to wait for the NC House to adjourn, Senate leader Mark Basnight (D-Manteo) called the Senators back to Raleigh (which he could, since they hadn’t officially adjourned for the session).
The reason? Why, to vote on the lottery, of course. Lottery supporters did some head counting and found that the 26-24 against margin that they saw before they went home might have changed. One Senator went on his honeymoon, one was sick, and a third was similarly unavailable. That would have put the vote at 24-23 in favor of the lottery.
One of the absent Senators showed up, leaving only lottery opponents Harry Brown from Jacksonville (honeymoon) and John Garwood of North Wilkesboro (sick) out and the presumed vote at 24-24. In that case, Lt. Gov. Bev Purdue could break the tie in favor of the lottery, and it would pass.
But hold! There’s another trick up the sleeve. The NC Senate has a traditional gentleman’s agreement called “pairing” that allows an absent Senator to “pair up” with a present one who is going to vote the opposite way. The present Senator agrees not to vote, thereby “cancelling” the effect of the missing Senator. So if either Brown or Garwood were to pair up, lottery supporters still wouldn’t have the votes they needed.
In the end, though, nobody could find Brown, and Garwood declined to exercise his pairing, so the lottery vote was 24-24, with Purdue breaking the tie and sending the NC lottery to the governor to sign.
Here’s what I think – Garwood and/or Brown knew what was coming, and agreed to make themselves scarce for the session. Neither of them were hard-core lottery opponents, and both had been the target of ad campaigns urging them to change their vote to support the lottery. However, with the way things went down, both men now get to play both sides of the fence. They allowed a lottery to pass, which will make the pro-lotto people happy. But they can still honestly claim that they opposed the lottery, didn’t vote for it, and it was “sneaky politics” that allowed the lottery to pass while they weren’t there. It’s risk-free politics on their part, and I could see Basnight being willing to take the political heat for them in exchange for getting Mike Easley’s baby made into law.
So I think it was shrewd politicing, instead of dirty tricks, and that the major players were all in on the plan.
As for the results, I’m personally not really concerned one way or the other. I don’t like the idea that the state lottery sends, which is “Gambling is bad, unless you gamble through the government.” (see also: “Liquor is bad, unless you buy it from state-run stores.”). But I drop a couple bucks on Mega Millions when I’m up in Virginia, and there are plenty of people in the state fueling a demand for the lottery and sending their money to Virginia, South Carolina, etc. With demand that high, it’s better to keep those dollars in-state to fund our programs instead of those in other states.
So it looks like Basnight’s lucky number came up big. We’ll see if he really does hit the jackpot, or if he’ll end up paying at the polls come election time.