North Carolina lawmakers narrowly pass lottery
In the end, it was a lack of two votes that got the state into the gambling business.
Two senators, both Republicans who were part of the coalition that held firm for weeks against the lottery, didn’t make it to Raleigh on Tuesday. One was on his honeymoon while the other was sick.
It was the break supporters had been waiting for. Casting a rare vote, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, the Senate’s presiding officer, sided with most of her Democratic colleagues in breaking a 24-24 tie.
“I did what I thought was right,” Perdue said after her vote, the first by a lieutenant governor in the state since 1996.
On Wednesday, Gov. Mike Easley is expected to sign the legislation creating the lottery, a cause he’s championed since his election in 2001.
Polls have shown that most state residents want a lottery, but the plan appeared all but defeated last week, when the Senate left Raleigh after backers failed to persuade any of the five Democrats and 21 Republicans who have opposed its creation for weeks to switch their vote.
An April vote in the House was nearly as close, with the lottery passing by just two votes.
The legislation will funnel an estimated $400 million annually to public school construction, college scholarships and class-size reduction and preschool programs.
GOP opponents argued that the lottery is an inefficient way to raise money and sends the message to children that gambling is the way to solve the state’s financial problems.
“Is this a lesson we teach our children: ‘Don’t do your homework, don’t work hard, you’ll make it rich.'” Sen. Andrew Brock told his colleagues Tuesday. “I think it’s a poor choice for North Carolina. I think it’s one that we’ll regret for a long time.”
But North Carolina citizens already cross the border to other states to play the lottery, said Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Democrat from Cumberland County. Up to 10 percent of lottery revenues in Virginia come from Tar Heel players. The amount is higher in South Carolina, which started its game in 2002.
“The money has been leaving North Carolina,” Rand said. “It’s time to keep it at home.”
The news raised the spirits of North Carolina residents who travel to surrounding states to play the lottery.
“Oh, yes!” Tammy Anderson, 41, of Huntersville, said at a lottery outlet in Fort Mill, S.C., just south of Charlotte. “Now I can play the lottery much closer to home.”