Alabama lawmakers told the media earlier this week that a conference committee brokering a deal for an expansion of gambling would meet on Wednesday (24 April) at 2pm local time. But as early as Wednesday morning, the meeting had fallen off the legislative calendar for the day.
A call to the Alabama house of representatives confirmed that the meeting was off for Wednesday (24 April) with no reschedule date. The legislature is now scheduled to close on 5 May. This will leave lawmakers a little more than a week to reach a deal for an Alabama gambling expansion. It will then require approval from the house and senate.
If approved, the decision to approve any gambling expansion would go to the voters. The house version of the bill would put the issue on the November ballot. The senate version would create a special election in September.
Historically with gambling, precious few bills that don’t have consensus relatively early in a session make it to a governor’s desk. Just this year, ..