By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — A proposal for an interim study on repealing the state lottery did not win adoption today, but a state senator urged lawmakers either to abolish the lottery or at least place new restrictions on the program.

Lacking a quorum, the House and Senate committees on state agencies took no action on the proposal by Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, but did allow her and several witnesses to offer testimony in support of repealing or revamping the law that set up Arkansas’ lottery to fund college scholarships.

The panel’s inaction does not prevent Madison from asking for more hearings or filing legislation to repeal the lottery. Madison did not rule out trying to bring up the issue during the 2010 fiscal session.

“My first preference would be to repeal it. I think it’s that bad,” Madison told the panel today. “But failing that, let’s do everything we can to minimize its effect on people that might be hurting.”

Lottery officials say the games have generated more than $70 million since tickets went on sale Sept. 28, and the lottery is on track to generate more than $400 million in gross revenue and more than $100 million for scholarships in its first year.

Still, Madison said lawmakers at least should require the lottery to do a better job of publicizing the odds of winning; restrict advertising from targeting the poor or minorities; and do more to prevent people under 18 from buying tickets.

Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, testified that studies have shown low-income people are more likely than other groups to play the lottery frequently and typically spend a larger percentage of their income on lottery tickets than other groups.

Huddleston urged the legislators to order studies to determine who plays the Arkansas lottery and who benefits from lottery-funded scholarships.

“The last thing that we want to have happen is to have our most economically volatile low-income and minority families bear the burden of paying (into) the lottery and yet not receive their fair share of lottery scholarships,” he said.

Jerry Cox, executive director of the Christian conservative Family Council, testified that the Legislature gave too much authority to the state Lottery Commission.

“If you look at the legislative oversight committee … the committee really has very little power to regulate what the Lottery Commission does, so pretty much the legislation ties your hands. That being so, I think we need to go back and we need to redo the legislation,” Cox said.

Last year, Arkansas voters approved Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s proposed constitutional amendment authorizing a lottery to fund college scholarships by nearly a two-to-one vote. Lawmakers passed legislation setting up the lottery during this year’s legislative session.
Several legislators said today they were reluctant to thwart the will of voters.

“I think that the people in my district … mandated that we write this enabling legislation to enable a lottery for which they voted overwhelmingly, and I’ve heard nothing today that convinces me otherwise. The people of this state I think have spoken,” said Rep. Rick Saunders, D-Hot Springs, the House chairman of the panel.

Madison said she did not believe repealing the lottery law would subvert the will of the people, but she acknowledged that it would be politically difficult.

“If you look at exactly what the ballot proposal was, it didn’t mandate a lottery.” she said. “It bounced the ball to us to make a decision about a lottery and figure out how to implement it.

“Now having said that, I probably out of 135 people might get one vote to repeal the lottery outright. Politics is usually about compromises, as we know, and I think what we’ve learned from this is that we might indeed be better off tweaking it.”

House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, one of the principal architects of the lottery law, said after the hearing the legislative oversight committee on the lottery can address the issues raised in the hearing without any changes to the law.

“We are monitoring all aspects of this lottery. We don’t have to have a bill to require us to do that” he said.

Halter said in a prepared statement today that abolishing the lottery would “betray the Arkansas voters’ trust and back out on our commitment to Arkansas students and families.”