By John Brummett
Don’t get all bent out of shape from fear that state legislators are going to try to run the new state lottery after professing time and again they wouldn’t dare.
That’s what everyone advises me.
This is due to my alarmed reading of the news reports of the first meeting of new legislative committee to oversee the supposedly independent new lottery commission.
For one thing, Sen. Tracy Steele of North Little Rock asked at this meeting if maybe the legislative oversight committee ought to meet jointly with the newly minted — and, again, I remind, the “independent” — lottery commission.
Oh, dear.
If you can concoct a worse idea, I implore you to keep it to yourself.
Fortunately, everyone said no.
So then Steele wanted to make sure the legislative committee asserted ongoing review of lottery commission contracts.
But that’s no different from the hoop that all state agencies are required to jump through. Legislative review of state agency contracts can become almost tantamount to approval, since state agency officials tend to be loath to offend the appropriators.
Wasn’t the new lottery supposed to be more independent than your garden variety state agency?
In this idea the sadly misguided Steele seemed to be joined prominently and distressingly by the eminent speaker of the House, the ubiquitous Robbie Wills. He got quoted as saying he wanted the legislative committee to keep a lookout over the shoulder of the lottery commission.
Again, oh, dear.
I got on the phone with Speaker Wills. Voices were raised slightly. Words flew rapidly. Frustrations were evident.
Wills worked hard on the lottery implementation statute and he doesn’t much appreciate any intimation of legislative impropriety. And I didn’t much care for the image of legislators actively looking over the shoulders of supposedly independent lottery commissioners.
Wills explained that the new lottery law specifically imposes this contract review. He said he doesn’t want legislators to run the lottery, but that, at the same time, he doesn’t want the lottery to proceed without any accountability to the public or to elected representatives.
I mentioned that the lottery commission would meet in public. I mentioned that its activities would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I mentioned the lottery would get audited by the legislative audit agency. I mentioned that, if the lottery goes off the evil deep end, legislators can rescind the whole statute and rebuild the lottery anew in the next session or any thereafter.
In the end, I suspected and trusted that my difference with Wills was almost entirely a matter of semantics.
He didn’t mean actually looking over the lottery commissioners’ shoulders in what they call real time. He meant legislative review that would provide a backstop, meaning a place where abuses or problems would come to light. “Show their work,” is how Wills put it in a follow-up conversation.
That’s the wise position of Sen. David Johnson of Little Rock, the Senate chairman of the legislative oversight committee.
A young lawyer with a vigilant command of legal definitions, he says “review” means after the fact. He says “contract” means something already signed, not something still pending.
The lottery commission can and will enter into contracts. The legislative committee will review them. If somebody wants to suggest that some vendor got unfair preferences or got paid entirely too much, then the legislative review process would provide the place to air those concerns.
That sounds like a plan to me. So I’m going to relax. Well, relax isn’t the right word. Becalm myself for the time being — yes, that’s the way to put it.
There are two inherent virtues at work here. One is a lottery that operates outside political influence. The other is a lottery ultimately accountable to public representatives we elect.
That’s not a contradiction. But it is a delicate balance.
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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.
