Former State Rep. Mack Butler (R-Rainbow City) is making a return to the Alabama House of Representatives after a four-year absence. Butler posted recently that he would support a simple lottery.
“I believe that grown people can do what they want with their own money,” Butler told Alabama Today in a phone interview on Friday following a Butler post on the subject.
“On the issue of the lottery I did a little digging and thought I would share with you some of my findings,” Butler stated on Facebook. “The first American lottery was in 1612 and it was to fund the original settlement. Lotteries built early America by funding roads, libraries, churches, colleges etc. Princeton and Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania began by being financed by lotteries. Lotteries supported the war efforts during the French and Indian Wars also the American Revolution. Rare lottery tickets with George Washington’s signature can still be found today. John Hancock, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson all used lotteries for raising monies. As Paul Harvey used to say “Now you know the rest of the story.””
“We actually passed a lottery when I was in the House,” Butler told Alabama Today. “It went to the Senate where they killed it because they wanted full-blown casinos.”
“A lottery is a voluntary tax,” Butler said. “A lot of people would like to be able to go to a gas station and purchase a lottery ticket for the $billion prize they had last week or play some scratch-offs.”
Butler was known as one of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives during his previous service.
“We were a lot more conservative when I served than the House has been in the last four years,” Butler commented. “If you look up the history of lotteries, they were used to build Churches, schools, roads, and finance the Revolutionary War back then.”
The gambling bill that failed to make it to the floor of either House last year rewarded existing gambling establishments with territorial monopolies.
“I am not for picking winners and losers or for rewarding people who have been breaking the law for years,” Butler said. “If we do casinos, it shouldn’t be fixed. Everybody should have a fair shot.”
“I am not a big gambling guy,” Butler said. “I would be more interested in rebating some of that surplus money to the taxpayers or removing the four percent tax on groceries.”
The legislature is projected to have a $2.5 billion surplus that will roll over into Fiscal Year 2022 in FY2023 on October 1.
“What I don’t want to do is use that money to grow government,” Butler said. “The special interests are going to want to spend every penny of that money.”
Butler was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in a 2012 special election to represent House District 30, which included parts of Etowah and St. Clair Counties, after Blaine Galliher resigned to take a position working for then Gov. Robert Bentley (R). Butler was reelected in 2014. In 2018 he left the House to run for the State Senate District 10; but lost the Republican primary for the open seat to Andrew Jones. Most of Butler’s hometown of Rainbow City was redistricted in 2021 to House District 28. In May, Butler narrowly defeated incumbent State Rep. Gil Isbell (R-Gadsden) in the Republican Primary.
“I do not have a Democrat or a Libertarian,” opponent Butler said. “Governor (Kay) Ivey has already called me to congratulate me.”
Rumors about the Governor’s health have followed Ivey’s reelection campaign.
“She sounded like Kay to me,” Butler said. “She seemed strong.”
Gambling is likely to be a topic that will be introduced in the 2023 regular legislative session in March as well as calls to reduce or eliminate the grocery tax.
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