The word out of Jackson is, now that Gov. Phil Bryant has signed the Alyce G. Clarke Mississippi Lottery Act into law, it will take about a year to get the lottery up and running. When that transpires, Mississippians who want to play the lottery and those non-gamblers who will merely benefit from the tax revenue should give pause to remember the great lady for whom the lottery act was named.
There are few Mississippi legislators for whom I have greater personal and professional respect than Rep. Alyce Griffin Clarke, the Democrat from Jackson who represents District 69 in Hinds County. A home economist and nutritionist by education, the Yazoo City native is a 1961 graduate of Alcorn State University.
The first African American woman to serve in the Mississippi Legislature, Mrs. Clarke’s tenure in the Mississippi House began in 1985 and her committee assignments are those befitting a House member with 33 years of experience. She’s a vice chairman of the Drug Policy Committee and holds seats on the Appropriations, Banking and Financial Services, Education, Universities and Colleges, and Youth and Family Affairs committees.
The Mississippi Lottery Act is not the first state law named in Clarke’s honor. Her longtime support of the concept of drug courts in the state led to that law being named The Alyce Griffin Clarke Act as well. For most of her tenure in public office, Clarke has been living with Multiple Sclerosis. She has relied on a cane for a number of years as she gracefully walked the marbled halls of the State Capitol Building. Her physical challenges never impacted her keen intellect or the grace and dignity of her legislative service.
Over the course of my own interactions with the Legislature as a reporter, I’ve seen instances of racism, sexism, and chauvinism, but Clarke’s determined and dignified nature and her polite toughness – think velvet glove over a steely hand – allowed her to overcome most of that nonsense. Powerful men, even those in the opposing party, respect “Miss Alyce” because she quietly but surely demands it.
But Gov. Bryant and the legislative leadership didn’t name the lottery bill after Clarke because they felt sorry for her afflictions or because of her advancing age. Rep. Clarke has for almost two decades persistently introduced legislation to bring the lottery to Mississippi only to see the bill killed in the committee system by the influence of the strange political bedfellows who team up to kill it – usually the churches and the casinos.
I cast no stones at the faithful and I understand naked self-interest on the part of the casinos and those who partner with them. It’s like watching a local option liquor election beaten by a coalition of bootleggers and preachers.
Every state in the union sanctions the lotteries except Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah. People in those five states have to drive across state lines to buy lottery tickets. And in the past in Mississippi, people were doing so in droves.
And yes, lotteries are regressive taxes by nature and odds of winning are infinitesimal to the point that lottery ticket buyers are 250 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the Powerball.
Rep. Clarke knows those odds and those facts. She’s a solid Christian woman with the highest moral and ethical values. But she saw the lines of cars taking Mississippi lottery players to Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida to buy lottery tickets and she wondered why a portion of those funds couldn’t stay in Mississippi to fund highways or education or public health or a host of other needs.
Each year when Clarke filed her lottery legislation, legislative colleagues killed it in the name of either protecting the existing casino industry or protecting us from ourselves in terms of religious and moral concerns. But stubbornly, defiantly, Rep. Clarke came back each year and filed her lottery bill again, and again, and again.
This year, Bryant and key legislators knew that the new sports book in Mississippi casinos would provide political cover for legislators who shared Rep. Clarke’s pro-lottery stance. The majority of Mississippi voters have long expressed their support for the lottery in polling and actually voted for it at the ballot box when afforded the chance.
Rep. Clarke had vision, determination, and most of all, patience. She deserves the honor afforded her for policies that will put new General Fund dollars to work from non-traditional taxation.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
27 comments:
"Rep. Clarke knows those odds and those facts. She’s a solid Christian woman with the highest moral and ethical values."
That simply means she is aware that poor people will be fleeced of monies they need more than anyone else and she still persists.
That's the definition of stupidity and its exactly why Bryant named this bill after her.
This is repulsive.
9:36 do some research. The bill was named for her by an amendment on the house floor as the bill was being debated. Regardless of how you feel about the effects of a lottery, you are wrong about how the bill came to be named. It is repulsive how you want to try and smear the lady and the legislative process by which the bill came into existence.
9:36 I don't read Sid's columns as I don't want to give the clicks. I do read the comments. Please tell me you made up the quote in your post as satire and that Sid didn't actually say that about Clarke.
So do poor people have no civil liberties when it comes to what they do with their money? Glad you know better than them.
What's repulsive is the fact that Bryant and his confederates only accept a "revenue stream" that comes from the pocket of poor people while they cut the taxes of the wealthy and ruling classes and provide bare bones funding for education. Education is the ONLY thing that will reverse Mississippi's one-sided economy.
So, 9:36, you're against anything that might harm poor people who don't know any better? Hope you're not a tobacco farmer...
What a well written post. Thank you.
@9:36
I'm with you. Ms. Clarke's relentless effort to get a lottery doesn't quite pass the "smell" test with me either. This lottery is going to cause a lot of hardships among the poorest in the black community...there is no way she doesn't know this. $omething is up.
Alyce G. Clarke has been a model Representative, unlike others in the Jackson delegation. She has worked for years to get a lottery. Each year, she would ask about the scratch off tickets you see in the 7-11. That money was going straight into the owners pockets - Mississippi did not get one RED CENT. Thanks you Representative CLarke for your service.
9:36 am Never met nor has ever spoken with Rep. Clarke.
He just enjoys griping about poor people and thinks all their decisions should be made by him.
He doesn't complain about the sins of those who take advantage of the poor by charging them loan shark rates for renting or buying the bed they sleep in either.
@10:02
Hey genius it's your tax money those poor people will be spending AND when they get in even more financial straights than they're in now, guess whose money will be used to bail them out. DUH
...and provide bare bones funding for education.
Incorrect by almost any measure.
10:18 AM
you have no clue if I ever met Clarke or not.
Stop obfuscating.
The point is that Clarke represents the poorest people in the country and the fact is that a lottery takes money from the poorest of us. This is the most regressive tax there is....its insidious. Bryant named the bill after her in an effort to say "look a black lady wanted it too." Its political cover and he history will judge him harshly for actions he knows well are violent to a sect of people.
Poor people have a right to throw their money away. But it is unethical for these social justice warriors to screw poor people in the name of helping them.
The biggest racist I know favors the lottery because he knows it screws poor blacks and he wants them to be screwed.
I think Sid would be a better fit with Donna and Tom over at Jackson Free Press.
I applaud Ms Clarke for her pursuit for the Lottery and what is right for Mississippi. You can say what you want poor people are going to be poor people. They drink, they smoke...AND they are going to buy a lottery ticket with the hope of not being a poor person anymore....I know i will...
Again I applaud Ms Clarke's affords to bring the lottery to the State of Mississippi....So Very Happy she succeeded!!!!!
The comparison of a lottery to a tax is misplaced. Taxes are not voluntary either in payment or amount but lotteries are. Moreover, since poor people are buying lottery tickets now from neighboring states, if those same people buy the same dollar amount of tickets in a Mississippi lottery, it would keep those dollars in the state and would be economically neutral as to those individuals.
I have no idea how many people, of whatever socioeconomic or racial makeup, who do not currently buy lottery tickets from neighboring states will buy them once Mississippi has a lottery and neither does anyone else. Yes, polls may show some indication, but the simple fact is no one truly knows what the sales volume will be or what the increase in expenditure over neighboring-state lotteries will be. Common sense does seem to suggest that at least some folks in areas not close to those neighboring state lotteries will now buy tickets, but making absolute claims about how much is simply guessing.
What doesn't seem to be in dispute is that a majority of the population supports Mississippi having a lottery and for a variety of reasons. Well, Mississippi will have one, the first question will be is whether it is a case of, "Be careful of what you wish for, least you receive it?" The second questions will be, "Who will get paid and how much will they receive in the implementation and operation?"
Should we eliminate the voluntary tax paid on cigarettes because its "regressive"? Poverty isn't ameliorated by taking away the dignity of the poor and telling them how they can and can't spend their money.
September 5, 2018 at 12:32 PM wrote, "... the voluntary tax paid on cigarettes..."
The tax isn't voluntary. It is the expenditure of the purchase price, part of which is a mandatory tax, that is voluntary. It is not a distinction without a difference.
As to the rest of your post, here's my take: if someone is poor and all the money they spend is that which they have earned, then nope, it isn't appropriate to dictate to them how they can spend it. But if a "poor person" accepts any form of aid, then yep, it is both reasonable and appropriate to dictate - at least as to discretionary, non-essential items - how they spend money, i.e., if such a person prefers one meal a day, a steak and some iceberg lettuce for example, rather than 3 square meals a day, that would be well within acceptable. However, if that person wants a pack of smokes, a couple of Powerball tickets, a 40 of beer, junk food AND "assistance," then, yeah, that is not (or rather, should not be) acceptable.
Nobody will be forcing “poor people” to buy lottery tickets. These “poor people” will no longer have to drive across state lines to make lottery purchases. Now that money will go to Mississippi instead of other states. I’m happy we will have a Lottery.
Sid = getting paid to state the obvious.
12:32- they do, in fact, forgo the tax if they choose not to smoke. It is a choice no matter your socioeconomic status.
We (collectively) give financial assistance to those less fortunate in many forms. None of those programs currently entitle us to scrutinize how they spend other expendable monies, no matter their source. To do so would likely involve an intrusion George Orwell would scarcely have thought of.
It’s perfectly acceptable for you to object to taxpayer funding of direct poverty assistance. When you insist that entitles you to manage all aspects of their financial lives that is another matter. Should the government direct how all recipients of federal largesse use their resources? That will be a long and complicated list which would include some major corporations.
People can spend their money how they choose (legally). Booze, condoms, lottery tickets, etc.
We don’t need more theocracy.
Let's see some of these studies that reveal how much money is spent, by demographic identity, on lottery tickets or on anything else in Mississippi's economy.
I'm damned tired of these know-it-all, self-appointed, weekend theologians telling us they know what's good or bad depending on economic status. As if a man driving a BMW has a better grip on family finances than a man driving a rented Chrysler. You don't know that either. Quit making shit up.
Now Bingo is the target of the government. Irony The Republicans came to power on the backs of Christian Morality. Demonizing the opposition as pot smoking heathen criminals. Now that the Republicans are in power every form of Gambling is legalized and the government raids the church bingo games.
Church and vet-org bingo games have been 'raided' and/or ignored in this state for a hundred years. Most of that time Democrats were 'in power', 10:32....some come down off that bullshit. You might also want to look back at the power structure when Riverboat Gaming was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by a governor.
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