Alabama Senate leader declares gambling, lottery bills dead for session
Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, speaks to his colleagues after being sworn into the leadership position on Feb. 4, 2025 in the Alabama Senate chamber at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Gudger on Thursday said the Senate would not take up lottery or gambling proposals in the 2025 session. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The leader of the Alabama Senate said Thursday there would be no efforts to create a lottery or expand gambling in the state in the current legislative session.
Senate President Pro Tempore Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, said in a statement emailed after the chamber adjourned Thursday that passing gambling legislation in the chamber will require 'long-term and intense negotiations among members' and votes to be secured before beginning another legislative session.
'With 12 meeting days remaining in the session, both budgets still awaiting approval, and other important bills and measures demanding focus and attention, the comprehensive gaming bill released today is simply too little, too late, and has too few votes to pass,' Gudger said in the statement.
The Senate leader's statement came as Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, had been shopping what he described as a 'trimmed-down' version of a gambling package filed last year that failed to pass the Legislature. That package included a constitutional amendment and legislation to legalize a state lottery and gambling, which stalled in the Senate.
Albritton did not push back against Gudger's statement in a phone interview Thursday afternoon, saying that 'the last part of that phrase is the most accurate.'
He also confirmed he's not introducing a bill in the 2025 legislative session.
'We're not going to drop a bill this year,' Albritton said.
The gambling package failed last year amid disputes over what kinds of gambling would be offered and distribution of revenues. House sponsors were sharply critical of changes the Senate made to the package, and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said in February that the chamber would not bring its own version of the legislation.
The state's 1901 Constitution outlaws lotteries and gambling. Gambling that exists in the state operates under local constitutional amendments or on land owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a federally-recognized tribe that runs casinos in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka. Efforts to create a lottery or expand gambling have been stymied by divisions among Republicans in the Legislature; disputes among gambling interests and disagreements over distribution of gambling revenue.
Alabama is the only state east of the Mississippi without a lottery.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' Would Slash Medicaid & SNAP: 3 Moves Retirees Should Make Now
President Donald Trump's 'one big beautiful bill' has passed in the House and is now awaiting Senate approval. If passed, Trump's signature bill would extend the tax cuts granted by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and add additional tax cuts. While this might be welcome news to many, the bill also includes changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that could threaten seniors' access to these programs. Find Out: Read Next: 'The 'one big beautiful bill' passed by the House of Representatives, if it were passed into law today, would cut Medicaid and SNAP by a combined $1 trillion,' said Chris Orestis, president of Retirement Genius. 'In addition, because of the increase to federal debt of as much as $5 trillion, the bill would trigger an automatic reduction in Medicare funding of $500 billion,' he continued. 'This would represent the largest cut to social services and health insurance for the poor, disabled, children and the elderly in U.S. history.' Here's a look at the changes retirees can make now to secure care and avoid benefit disruptions if the bill were to pass. Before changes go into effect, check with your healthcare providers to ensure there won't be any interruption to your care if there are cuts to Medicaid. 'Check with your healthcare provider to see if they might cut back on services or cease accepting Medicaid-funded patients, and contact any nursing home where you or a loved one may reside to find out if they will be reducing the number of patients they can support — or even [if they are] possibly planning to close,' Orestis said. Knowing this ahead of time will allow you to find alternative care providers before it's too late. Learn More: If you are reliant on SNAP, start searching for alternatives that may be able to provide food assistance in the event your benefits are reduced or cut. 'Make sure you know where there are local support services through community or faith-based organizations to replace lost access through SNAP,' Orestis said. Many retirees plan to 'spend down' their savings so that they qualify for Medicaid to pay for their long-term care. However, this may no longer be a viable option. 'If you are considering going onto Medicaid for long-term care and are preparing to engage the 'spend down' process to impoverish yourself and get below the poverty level to qualify, you may want to reconsider that strategy, and instead look to leverage private pay resources to pay for your care,' Orestis said. 'If you are on Medicaid, you will primarily be reliant on nursing homes for your care, and their ability to withstand these cuts will be very challenging and up in the air,' he continued. 'If you are private pay, you are in control and can decide where and when you will receive care, such as at home or an assisted living community not funded by Medicaid.' Strategies to stay private pay for long-term care would include long-term care insurance, annuities, a life insurance settlement, a reverse mortgage or VA benefits. Editor's note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on More From GOBankingRates Clever Ways To Save Money That Actually Work in 2025 This article originally appeared on Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' Would Slash Medicaid & SNAP: 3 Moves Retirees Should Make Now
Wall Street Journal
2 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
GOP Senators' Competing Demands Risk Pulling Trump Megabill Apart
WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) is trying to release this week a revised version of President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.' But as he races to pass the legislation ahead of Republicans' self-imposed July 4 deadline, he has got about as many problems as there are GOP senators, with lawmakers battling over the additional borrowing and spending cuts that will be used to finance tax relief, plus spending on the border and military.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Speaker Johnson teases follow-ups to the ‘one big, beautiful bill'
The 'one big, beautiful bill' may not be so singular, after all. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is teasing follow-up legislation to the megabill of President Trump's tax cut and spending priorities that Republicans can push though using the same special budget reconciliation process that requires only GOP votes. That tool can be used once per fiscal year, with the current fiscal year ending on Sept. 30. So after Republicans are done with the 'big, beautiful bill,' the GOP trifecta has, in theory, two more shots to muscle through party-line legislation before the next Congress comes into power after the midterms. Johnson floated plans for a second reconciliation bill while rebutting concerns from deficit hawks on the budget impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which includes an extension of tax cuts and boosts to border and defense funding, with costs offset in part by new requirements on low-income assistance programs like Medicaid and food aid. 'Everyone here wants to reduce spending,' Johnson said Friday morning on CNBC. 'But you have to do that in a sequence of events. We have a plan, OK? This is the first of a multistep process.' 'We're going to have another reconciliation bill that follows this one, possibly a third one before this Congress is up, because you can have a reconciliation bill for each budget year, each fiscal year. So that's ahead of us,' Johnson continued, also pointing to separate plans to claw back money based on recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 'We're also doing rescissions packages. We got the first one delivered this week from the White House, and that will codify many of the DOGE cuts.' The promise of another reconciliation bill is somewhat surprising given the crux of the debate that dominated the early weeks of the year: Should Republicans divide up their agenda into two bills, passing the first quickly to give Trump an early win on boosting funding for border enforcement and deportations? Or would putting all of Trump's priorities into one bill — which would contain both bitter pills and sweeteners for different factions of the razor-thin majority — be a better political strategy? Trump eventually said he preferred 'one big, beautiful bill,' a moniker that became the legislation's official title in the House last month. It's not clear what would be in a second piece of legislation. Multiple House Republicans who spoke with The Hill were unaware of plans for more reconciliation bills and were not sure what could be included in them. 'I think we need to see what's left on the table after the first one,' Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said. And to muster through multiple reconciliation bills is a delicate prospect. If members know more reconciliation bills are coming, that complicates the argument that everything in the current package — even policies some factions dislike that others love — need to stay in one megabill. The Speaker declined to elaborate on what might be in such a package when asked in a press conference last week. 'I'm not going to tell you that,' Johnson said. 'Let's get the first one done.' 'Look, I say this is the beginning of a process, and what you're going to see is a continuing of us identifying waste, fraud, abuse in government, which is our pledge of common sense, restoring common sense and fiscal sanity. So we have lots of ideas of things that might be in that package.' Republicans had started planning for the current legislative behemoth months before the 2024 election so they would be prepared to quickly execute on their policy wish list if they won the majority. 'This isn't something we just drew up overnight. So, we'll go through that same laborious process,' Johnson said. But some members have ideas of what else they'd like to see. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said that he'd hope a second bill would do more to tackle rolling back green energy tax credits and make further spending cuts. Ultimately, though, it will be Trump's call, Norman said: 'I know when the president gets involved, it adds a lot of value.' And Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) speculated that passing the 'big, beautiful bill' would inspire members to keep going with another bill. 'People like the feeling of winning,' Pfluger said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
