Arkansas lottery, annual sessions change 2009 landscape
LITTLE ROCK (AP) By approving a state-run lottery and annual legislative sessions, Arkansas voters dramatically changed the landscape of state government as lawmakers prepare to return to the Capitol in 2009.
The nuts and bolts of establishing a lottery authorized by a constitutional amendment have moved to the top of lawmakers' agenda for next year as they also grapple with the prospect of moving toward a more full-time Legislature with annual sessions.
Approved along with three other ballot measures in Tuesday's election, the lottery and annual sessions amendments will likely upend a session that already was about to be clouded by a grim economic picture. Voters also approved an act banning unmarried couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents, $300 million in bonds for water projects and an amendment removing outdated election language from the constitution.
The lottery amendment, backed by Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, leaves many details up to the Legislature on how to set up the games and what to do with the $100 million Halter predicts will be raised annually. They range from what types of games will be allowed in the state and how the college scholarships to be funded to be distributed.
"Developing the framework for how these dollars are disbursed is the most important thing we'll do next year," said Sen. Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow, who will serve as Senate president next year. "Once we do it, it'll be hard to unring that bell."
Tuesday's vote was a resounding victory for Halter, who has been pushing the idea of a state-run lottery for education since his brief run for governor in 2006. Despite the state's past rejection of lottery efforts, the measure passed with 63 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results from all of the state's 2,588 precincts.
The amendment, which won a majority in all of Arkansas' 75 counties, saw some of its greatest support among counties bordering Tennessee, Missouri and Oklahoma, states that already have lotteries.
Halter said he plans to talk with lawmakers and state officials about ideas for setting up the lottery and the scholarships. One of the biggest questions that remains is whether a new agency or entity will be needed to oversee the games, and how much it will cost to start up the state's lottery.
Halter has said one possibility is to create an independent commission to run the games and said other states have take out loans to start up a lottery. Halter said he doesn't have any specific proposals for establishing the lottery and said he plans to talk with lawmakers in the run-up to the session.
"We'll be the 43rd state to implement a lottery, so there's a lot of best practices out there you can learn from and there are some mistakes you can learn from, too," Halter said Wednesday. "I definitely have a point of view on some of these issues."
Also left up to lawmakers is how the scholarships will be distributed among college students. Gov. Mike Beebe, who voted against the lottery on Tuesday, said the state could use the revenue to create scholarships to address shortages in areas such as nursing or math and science degrees.
"I envision there may be several pots," Beebe said.
Sen. Steve Faris, chairman of the Senate stage agencies and government affairs committee, said he doesn't think Halter should be the one taking the lead on crafting the legislation for the lottery. Faris said he thinks lawmakers will look to Beebe and the Department of Finance and Administration instead.
"The lieutenant governor has specific duties in the constitution and implementing lotteries isn't one of them," said Faris, D-Malvern.
Opponents of the lottery, meanwhile, say they hope to persuade lawmakers to not establish any lottery at all. Jerry Cox, head of the Arkansas Family Council, said the anti-gambling group may otherwise lobby lawmakers to put restrictions on the games and ban the addition of slot machine-like video lottery terminals.
The debate over the lottery may be months off, but the annual-sessions amendment is already throwing a wrench into the fall budget hearings that are already under way for next year's session.
The amendment's 70-30 victory at the polls surprised even the legislators who sponsored the measure referred to voters by the Legislature. Sen. Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins, and Rep. Eric Harris, R-Springdale, had not formed a campaign committee to push for the measure, instead promoting it through speeches at Rotary and other clubs around the state.
"I think it's really going allow the legislators to serve the people," Pritchard said.
Beebe and several lobbying groups had come out against the proposal. Johnson and incoming House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, said they voted for the annual sessions proposal.
Sen. Kim Hendren, however, said he believed the change would make it hard for legislators to balance regular jobs with their legislative duties.
"We're going to have more and more professional politicians who spend all their time in Little Rock," said Hendren, R-Gravette.
The amendment requires the Legislature to meet in odd-numbered years for regular sessions for 60 days and in even-numbered years for 30-day sessions handling only budgetary matters. The measure also moves the state from a two-year budget cycle to an annual budget cycle.
The vote came a little more than a week before Beebe is scheduled to introduce his budget proposal proposal and financial forecast for the two years beginning next July 1. Beebe said he still plans to present a two-year budget to lawmakers on Nov. 13.
"We're probably going to go ahead and present what we we're going to with the two-year budget, with the caveat that the second year is merely something we've already done and would just be a guideline for people to consider in January of 2010," Beebe said.
The amendment was approved in a state had passed one of the nation's strictest term limits laws for legislators in 1992. The governor later said that his spokesman had joked that the vote showed "we don't want them to stay here very long but we want them back more often."