Casinos fail to get support needed to be part of NC’s state budget, House speaker says
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North Carolina’s casino debate
State legislators are considering expanding state-sanctioned gambling in North Carolina. That could include adding new casinos on nontribal lands as well as legalizing and regulating video lottery terminals. The debate has stalled budget discussions. Here is coverage from The News & Observer about the issue.
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House Speaker Tim Moore has informed his Republican colleagues that a controversial proposal to open new casinos in North Carolina hasn’t drawn enough support to make it into the state budget, his office confirmed.
In an email to the House Republican Caucus sent Wednesday night, Moore said Republicans would not pass a state budget that didn’t have at least 61 House GOP votes, a majority of the 120-member House. Moore went on to say that “there are not 61 Republicans willing to vote for the budget if it includes gaming.”
The email was first reported by CBS 17. Moore spokesperson Demi Dowdy confirmed to The News & Observer that Moore had sent the email to House Republicans.
GOP lawmakers are expected to release and vote on a final state budget next week, but Moore said in his email that House Republicans should expect another caucus meeting next week “about the budget without gaming.”
During their last caucus meeting on Tuesday, House Republicans met for more than three hours to discuss the proposal, which has previously been described as potentially approving up to four new casinos across the state. After the meeting, Moore told reporters that GOP leaders were still trying to determine if enough Republicans would back the plan.
Senate leader Phil Berger, meanwhile, has said he believes the casino proposal will either advance by being included in the budget, or not at all.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Berger reiterated that a standalone bill sanctioning new casinos was not likely to pass this session, according to CBS 17.
Asked if Moore was indicating in his email that the casino proposal was not going to move forward at all, even as a standalone bill, Dowdy didn’t address the status of a bill but said that discussions about casinos are ongoing in the House GOP caucus.
GOP leaders first signaled that they might be willing to take action on casinos — to help North Carolina compete with neighboring Virginia, which has given the go-ahead to multiple casinos — back in June, soon after the legislature sent a bill legalizing sports wagering to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk.
As Republicans continued to work on the proposal behind closed doors this summer, it gained considerable opposition from residents of the counties that could have hosted the new casinos. Earlier this week, a group from Rockingham and Nash counties traveled to Raleigh to urge GOP lawmakers to reject the plan.
And earlier on Thursday, the proposal to include casinos in the upcoming budget drew strong rebukes from CPAC, the conservative political conference, and Donald Trump Jr., who called the effort to secure casino approval “outrageous.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2023 at 7:32 PM with the headline "Casinos fail to get support needed to be part of NC’s state budget, House speaker says."
