Poll Position: Casino gambling for education?

Last week, the executive committee of the Georgia GOP approved five questions to be placed on the party’s July 31 primary ballot. Ballot questions from the Democratic Party of Georgia are forthcoming. So, if you vote in this summer’s primaries, the T-SPLOST won’t be the only policy question you get to tackle.

The most surprising question to come out of the GOP concerns casino gambling. The question will read:

Should Georgia have casino gambling with funds going to education?

It will be the first time in 20 years — since the referendum that paved the way for the lottery and, in turn, the HOPE scholarship — that the issue of gambling has been on Georgia ballots. This one won’t be binding but the result, and how it comes to be used by policy makers, will be very intriguing. All the more so because it’s unclear who wanted the question put on the ballot: casino friends or casino foes.

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My guess is that the friends are behind it. Peach Pundit’s Charlie Harper theorizes that Republican state leaders who are reluctant to irritate social conservatives by publicly supporting an expansion of gambling would use a resounding “yes” vote as an excuse “to either support or ‘look the other way’ on the approval of video casino gaming operated by the Georgia Lottery Corporation.” (The Georgia Lottery Corporation has the authority to expand gambling but is loath to do so without the explicit or implicit support of the governor and other high-ranking officials.)

So, this week’s Poll Position question is the same one Georgia Republican voters will face in July: Should Georgia have casino gambling with funds going to education? Answer in the nearby poll and in the comments thread below.

(Note: This is the first in an occasional series of Poll Position posts between now and July 31 that will address questions on the Republican and/or Democratic primary ballots.)

– By Kyle Wingfield

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