Lottery still key, despite budget plan

Gov. Mike Easley has been — and still is — a strong supporter of a statewide educational lottery, but he might be hedging his bets in this year’s budget proposal.

“Rest easy, my budget will not include an education lottery,” he said during Monday’s State of the State address.

Momentum has been building in recent weeks for a referendum on an education lottery, as representatives have introduced two bills in the House that would create such a state-run program.

The first, introduced by Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, is based on a plan in which individual counties would opt in. The more recent bill, introduced by Rep. Bernard Allen, D-Wake, proposes a referendum that would call for a statewide lottery.

And though the issue was excluded from the budget, that does not equate to a lack of gubernatorial support.

“I don’t think that diminishes (the lottery referendum) at all,” Allen said.

Rep. Maggie Jeffus, D-Guilford and co-chairwoman of the education appropriations subcommittee, also said she has little concern that Easley’s speech will prove detrimental to lottery support.

Easley has placed the lottery on his budget requests in the past, but when the legislation came to a vote, it failed, leaving a portion of the budget nonexistent, she said.

Jeffus said the governor is probably trying to avoid a similar situation until the lottery’s future is more certain. “At this time I do not know how the vote will fall out,” she said.

If Allen’s bill is passed, it will allow for a statewide referendum. But David Mills, executive director of the Raleigh-based Common Sense Foundation, a progressive think tank, said this process will take longer than most would expect.

“Even someone who supports the lottery should not put it in the fiscal year budget simply because it takes a long time once the lottery is passed to get the game up and running.”

The path to passage of the referendum also will be a long one. Even if the bill were to be passed immediately, a referendum would not appear on the ballot until the next statewide elections in late 2006.

The legal status of referendums in the state will also make for extra steps in the process.

“North Carolina is not an initiative state; therefore, referendums are (in their) nature nonbinding, which is another way to say relatively meaningless,” Mills said.

The referendum would be more of a statewide opinion poll that would need to be followed by formal legislation. Having to propose and pass another bill would push the start-up date for a lottery to 2007.

With the long process ahead, Easley’s move errs on the side of practicality.

“I would say it represents more realistic accounting methods,” Mills said.

Allen expressed no worry that Easley’s move would put the brakes on the issue. “(Easley) talked about it. He certainly impressed me as for the lottery in his speech.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.