But the absence of two Republican opponents — Sens. John Garwood, R-Wilkes, and Harry Brown, R-Onslow — gave the Senate’s Democratic leadership just enough room Tuesday to push the bill through.
Garwood is confined to his home with a leg injury, and Brown is on his honeymoon.
“It needed to be resolved,” Rand said after the vote. “When you see what’s going on in the country and what’s going on in the Southeast, we needed to get this behind us.”
North Carolina is the last state on the East Coast without a lottery, and supporters have long complained of the ticket revenue lost to neighboring states.
The N.C. House narrowly passed a lottery bill in April, and Democratic Gov. Mike Easley has been a strident supporter of a state lottery to fund public education.
But Senate opposition had kept the bill from clearing the General Assembly, and lawmakers adjourned last week with no expectation of coming back to work.
Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, however, had other plans.
The Dare County Democrat, a strong lottery supporter, said Friday that the Senate would reconvene to consider unfinished business.
“I gave adequate time for any and everybody to be here,” Basnight said after the vote. “One thing I wanted to be certain, that if we’re going to vote the lottery, everybody had the chance and the opportunity to come and place their vote.”
Republicans left fuming
Lottery opponents were quick to assign a more sinister motive to Basnight’s decision to reconvene.
“We were told last week that we were going to adjourn and we were not coming back,” said Sen. Fred Smith, R-Johnston, speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor.
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“In reliance upon that, one member in our caucus went on his honeymoon. Whether he knows that we’re doing this today, I don’t know. Another member of our caucus lies sick at home.”
Smith alleged that the Senate leadership was purposefully taking advantage of the situation.
“I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, does the end justify the means?”
While all five Democratic opponents of the lottery — including Orange County Sen. Ellie Kinnaird — held to their positions and voted against the bill Tuesday, none chose to speak out against it on the floor.
But some Republicans were vocally livid.
Several called for protest votes against the tactics of the chamber’s leadership, but they fell well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to sustain a challenge to the rules.
They also questioned whether Basnight had made a good-faith effort to contact all of his Senate colleagues about the vote.
“I don’t know where the notice was sent, I don’t know what calls were made,” said Sen. Hugh Webster, R-Alamance. “I will tell you, tell everybody, that this senator did not receive a call about this.”
Opponents also took the opportunity to rehash many of their arguments against the lottery, calling it an immoral and unfair way to boost state coffers.
“We’ve got it: gambling fever. That’s what this is,” said Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. “There is no more money for education with a lottery. There’s more money for government.”
‘Business as usual’
Despite the protests, Basnight and Rand insisted that the vote had been fair. By sending out a notice on Friday, Basnight said he had provided plenty of notice about Tuesday’s session.
“We had 48 people show up, and that’s a pretty good count of people,” he said.
While Easley already has announced that he will sign the bill as early as today, there is no time table on when the lottery will be up and running.
Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
