State Sen. Orr: Gambling push ‘sucked all the oxygen out’ of passing…

The 2024 legislative session saw a comprehensive gambling package fall short of passage when the Alabama Legislature adjourned sine die on Thursday despite a late push to pass something in the waning hours.

During Friday’s broadcast of Huntsville WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show,” State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) lamented that the ongoing battle to pass a gaming package made things “not very productive” in either chamber to pass other legislation.

“It was not very productive, in either chamber, and the cause of that was the gambling issue, and that’s unfortunate because a lot of times a lot of good legislation does get passed on the last day. But because gaming was in the wind, it kind of sucked all the oxygen out, and the House held the education budget hostage while [they were] trying to give time for those trying to promote the issue in the Senate to get it done, and it just wasn’t going to work.”

“When you’re talking about gaming, they’ll pull out all of the stops, and that’s just using political leverage trying to get what you want down the road,” he added. “It didn’t work, but it caused problems for other pieces of legislation when they resorted to those tactics.”

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