Whether the recently completed session of the Georgia General Assembly was a tale of accomplishment (if you’re Republican) or a tragicomedy (if you’re a Democrat), the recently completed session of the Georgia General Assembly left a lot on the cutting room floor.
Case in point: legislation legalizing sports betting in Georgia.
Neither a proposed state constitutional amendment or authorizing legislation for sports betting ever came to a vote in the House, after a committee passed it the last day of the session.
For some lawmakers, failure to get a bill to the floor for a vote would be failure. For Jeanne Seaver, a resident of south Savannah and head of Moms Against Gambling, that was a victory.
Seaver describes the latest defeat of legislation legalizing sports betting in Georgia a “team effort” that combined the efforts of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Michael Griffin and Georgia Baptist Mission Board, and her Moms Against Gambling.
A “team effort,” no doubt. But in the middle of it was Seaver, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in 2022, button-holing lawmakers and cajoling state officials, starting with Gov. Brian Kemp and state education superintendent, Richard Woods.
In the end, the gambling measures didn’t go beyond committee for many reasons, not the least of which is that lawmakers had greater priorities and ran out of time to iron out their differences.
They also didn’t succeed because as much as scores of pro-gambling lobbyists and supporters of the sports betting measures — including Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah) and Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah) — wanted to make the gambling debate about how much the tax proceeds from it would benefit education in the state, the argument didn’t sell in the face of addiction and other problems that gambling creates.
“We [the state of Georgia] have $16 billion in surplus,” Seaver quoted a top Republican on the House Higher Education Committee as saying. “If legislators wanted to pass and fully fund education or pre-K, we could get it through the legislature. But it’s about gambling, passing gambling.”
For Seaver, the battle to prevent gambling in Georgia didn’t end with the latest legislative session. She has no doubt that sports betting will be pushed again when the legislature convenes in January for a new session, even though fears are growing about the threat that gambling poses to the integrity of the sports that Georgians cherish.
She describes PrizePicks, a fantasy sports company that recently announced it was expanding its operations in Atlanta, as a beachhead for the gambling industry — one of many, sometimes insidious, efforts to soften the idea of legalized gambling in Georgia.
Calling it “fantasy sports,” is a misnomer, she said, recounting conversation during the session with a lobbyist for PrizePicks.
The lobbyist told her fantasy sports were merely a “game of skills.”
“If you’re betting on those skills, it sounds like gambling to me,” she shot back.
The Tide brings news and observations from The Current’s staff.
