• Slug: BC-CNS-Arizona Lottery,450
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By KRISTENA HANSEN
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Thursday, Feb. 4)_ State lawmakers are on the verge of renewing the Arizona Lottery without putting the issue to voters.

Part of a special session to address the state’s budget woes, SB 1004, sponsored by Senate President Robert “Bob” Burns, R-Peoria, would continue the lottery through 2035. The reason for renewing it now: a plan to borrow up to $450 million before year’s end against future lottery proceeds.

The bill has won Senate approval and on Thursday gained an endorsement from the House Appropriations Committee, which also approved a companion bill, SB 1003, containing the provisions for borrowing against lottery proceeds.

Voters have renewed the lottery twice since approving it in 1980, the last time in 2002. But lawmakers can renew it themselves this time around because the provisions of the 2002 renewal didn’t address what was to become of lottery after the 2012 expiration, said Robert Dalager, a lobbyist whose clients include the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and the city of Phoenix.

“The question was never even asked of the voters,” Dalager said. “I don’t think people ever really considered it.”
Jeff Hatch-Miller, the lottery’s executive director, said he doesn’t think most people will mind the change in procedure this year. He noted that the lottery passed by a wide margin in 2002.

“People say to me all the time, ‘Why do we keep referring stuff to the ballot? Why do we keep having to vote on this again and again?'” Hatch-Miller said. “I think the public understands that right now is a time of real crisis.”

Each year, a percentage of the lottery’s sales revenue goes into the state’s General Fund. Under the bill, the Legislature would get roughly 20 years’ worth of its share, up to $450 million, by the end of this year. Proponents said the new expiration date will leave enough time for lottery sales to pay back that money.

In an interview, Burns said he understands that some people might be upset they won’t be able to vote on whether to renew the lottery. But he said in these times no one, including him, is doing things they like to do.

“There’s things we should do, there’s things we want to do, but it ends up being what we can do,” he said. “And this is what we can do.”

Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, and Steve Court, R-Mesa, voted against the bills in the Appropriations Committee. Biggs called the measures unconstitutional because they are being presented as something other than debt, which the Arizona Constitution limits to $350,000.

“That’s why it says in the provisions it doesn’t constitute debt,” Biggs said. “And they just hope that nobody sues the state.”

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