Phil Williams Commentary: Alabama politicians are tone deaf about casino gambling
Have you ever sat through something that just made you squirm? That awkward, please-make-it-stop sensation as someone was speaking, acting or singing?
I was once at church on a beautiful Sunday morning. Everyone was in good spirits until a man began to sing a solo. To say it was awful would be a compliment.
That ol’ boy was caterwauling. I actually began to break out in a cold sweat while wondering, “Whose bright idea was this? Who gave him the microphone?” It sort of quenched the Spirit, if you know what I mean.
But he had no idea how bad he was singing. He could not tell that the vast majority of the congregation was silently begging for it to be over. This vocally impaired soloist was completely tone deaf, oblivious that what he thought he was singing was not what we were hearing. Tone deaf is never good when your role is to sing.
Politicians can be tone deaf as well. They get in their bubbles, and they believe that what they are legislating, or issuing executive orders for, or giving speeches about, are things that their constituents really want to hear.
Yet too often they are completely oblivious to what is actually needed. They engage in political caterwauling, never realizing for a second that folks are looking at each other in awkward wonder, trying to discern why their elected officials do certain things when it doesn’t really relate to what the people need or even want.
Case in point: The Alabama Legislature appears ready to bring yet another casino gambling bill. Current state law does not allow true casino gaming, so it would therefore require legislation and very likely a vote of the people.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that any gambling bill will suck the air out of the State House. It will be all consuming as it becomes a source of contentious debate, committee action, public hearings, paid polling and lobbyists doing the bidding of their casino clients.
Other, much-needed legislation will be derailed as the rarified air on the upper floors of the State House is inhaled by casino operators and casino industry lobbyists.
This song has been sung many times in the State House, and it has never been sung well. It shows up like a bad soloist, and everyone in the congregation of Alabama squirms uncomfortably.
It begs the question as to why gambling is so important inside the State House, but never so important to the vast majority of folks outside. It is a classic case of being politically tone deaf — thinking they are singing a great song, while really missing the mark.
Ask yourself, how many times have you talked with your friends about how badly you wished that we had casinos in Alabama? How many dinner table conversations, or watercooler discussions at work, have you been a part of that centered on how badly you and your friends and family wished that Alabama could just please get some casino gaming action?
I’m going to wager (pun intended) that the overwhelming majority of Alabamians can’t recall ever expressing a burning desire to have a casino nearby.
What people are really talking about are completely different priorities.
Voters want things done that will help them through this crazy era of post-COVID-election-integrity-Bidenomics-energy-costs-border-security-crime-in-the-streets-schools-need-improving-madness that we have been enduring now for the past several years.
Nowhere in that litany of real and abiding issues are the people of Alabama begging their politicians to please give them a casino to make their lives better.
A recent Center Square Voters Voice Poll found that voters overwhelmingly picked inflation as the top issue affecting their concerns that need to be addressed. Next on the list were matters related to illegal immigration, then crime, then jobs/economy.
A 2023 poll by the Center for Excellence in Polling shows that 92% of Alabamians are concerned about crime rates where they live, with 72% believing that the state’s cities have the larger share of crime problems.
It showed 81% of respondents strongly support special efforts to enforce election integrity as we come into the all-important 2024 election year. Earlier this year, another survey of likely Republican voters showed that 94% believe that parents should have a choice in where and how their children are educated, with 91% saying that they believe that parents, not the government, should choose the best education environment for kids.
Just last month, the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business issued a report noting that a survey of business leaders concluded that the Alabama Business Confidence Index is still in the negative, and that the business mood has gone down slightly since last quarter. Confidence in the U.S. economy as a whole was even lower.
The point is that politicians need to sing to their audience, not to themselves. They need to sing (and govern) in a manner that does not look, sound or feel like they are so tone deaf that they are missing what really matters to the people who elected them — things like crime, school choice, inflation, election integrity, jobs. Those are the things that folks talk about, because those are the things folks care about.
Casinos? Not so much. That’s tone-deaf politics.
Phil Williams is a former state senator from District 10 (which includes Etowah County), retired Army colonel and combat veteran, and a practicing attorney. He previously served with the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute in Birmingham. He currently hosts the conservative news/talk show Rightside Radio on multiple channels throughout north Alabama. The opinions expressed are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Phil Williams on casino gambling in Alabama
