Though the lottery act passed through the legislature last year, the debate over the controversial issue continues.

“There are two things that you do not want to see being made — sausage and legislation.” The old saying, attributed to Otto Von Bismark in the 1800s, is still used to describe the legislative process.

This past fall, North Carolina became the last state on the east coast to adopt a lottery with the passing of HB 1023.

A strategy Governor Mike Easley and other advocates touted as an “education lottery,” has evoked a legal battle.

Contrary to assurances by Easley and other lottery supporters that lottery revenues would serve as a strictly supplemental source of funding to education, it appears the revenue brought in from a lottery will in fact replace traditional sources of education funding.

A major point of contention over the past 23 years regarding the lottery has been the actual impact or benefit it would have on education in this state.

Advocates of the lottery claimed it would benefit education in the form of increased spending. Opponents of the lottery contend education is not benefited by a lottery and lottery revenue would simply replace traditional sources of educational funding.

According to North Carolina House of Representative Paul Stam, every other state with a lottery uses the money to replace traditional funding.

“We have been saying for years that the money will supplant current sources of funding for education,” Stam, a congressional representative from Wake County who represents North Carolina’s 37th district, said.

“The Governor has already started this magical supplanting of education money by stating that much of his preschool and class size reduction monies now in the budget will be paid for by lottery money,” Stam said.

A concession to lottery opponents was the inclusion of language in the bill stating revenue generated by the lottery to be used for education would not supplant current funding to education.

This language was dropped from the bill without mention when the bill was amended for the 2006 fiscal budget, eliminating an important safeguard against misuse of lottery funds.

According to Rep. Grier Martin of Wake County’s 34th district, as of now there exists “no guaranteed, effective way to ensure that funds will not be supplanted.”

Despite promises from lottery proponents that lottery revenue would only increase education spending and not simply replace current sources of funding, lottery money is already slated to supplant traditional sources of funding to education according to the 2006 fiscal budget.

$62.5 million of lottery revenue will replace previous sources of funding in the first year and lottery revenues will replace approximately $1 billion in previous sources of funding over the next five years.

David Campbell, a freshman in computer science, said he originally had no problem with a lottery because he saw it as a benefit to the North Carolina education system.

For him, the issue of how the funds are actually used strikes at the heart of the lottery’s very purpose.

“I feel mislead and cheated,” Campbell said, regarding the replacing of spending on education with lottery revenue.

Research from Michigan and Florida indicates lottery funds substituted for normal levels of state spending on education, despite the communities being told that a lottery would provide a boost to education spending.

The lottery’s impact on North Carolina universities is uncertain. Though 10 percent of lottery revenues are earmarked for college and university scholarships for low-income students, if the money simply replaces current money then there will be no real benefit.

According to Terry Stoops, an education policy analyst at the John Locke Foundation, “It is incumbent upon students and higher education faculty to fight to ensure that the money does not simply supplant current funding.”

Not only do many claim the lottery is not living up to the promises of those who helped push the lottery bill through the legislature, the way in which the legislation was passed is now under investigation.

Last Monday, a Wake County judge considered a motion to block initial spending on the lottery.

The North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Reform, headed by former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr has filed a lawsuit, claiming the passage of the lottery act was in violation of the state constitution.

If the law suit is successful, the lottery act would be declared unconstitutional and therefore null and void.

“They violated so many rules,” Stam said, in reference to the actions of the Democratic leadership that resulted in the passage HB 1023.

Under article II, section 23 of the constitution, any bill that raises revenue must be read and voted on three separate times in each chamber, and mandates the second and third votes take place on separate days and the final votes be recorded.

The second and third votes of the lottery act took place on the same day in both the House and the Senate despite objections from lawmakers at the time and the final votes were not recorded in the House or the Senate.

In the House, Speaker Jim Black called for a third vote immediately after the second, and Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue did like-wise in the Senate.

These actions, the lawsuit claims, were in direct violation of the constitution.

According to the 1897 Supreme Court, the purpose of the provision requiring the second and final votes take place on separate days “was to prevent hasty and ill-advised legislation,” and, “ostensibly in the name of the public good, but which might prove sources of individual injustice and injury,” which many believe aptly describes a lottery.

According to Rep. Stam the lottery presents an example of such a source of injustice.

“The lottery exploits the poor,” and essentially replaces traditional sources of educational funding with “the most regressive tax possible,” he said.

Rather than directly amending the lottery act, which would have required it be sent back to the House for further consideration and another vote, the Democratic leadership prevented further consideration of the bill by amending it as part of the budget.

This prevented further consideration of the bill and made it so legislators “could not vote for the budget without voting for the lottery,” Martin said.

This controversial plan to push the lottery act through quickly ended the 23 year debate on the issue.

“Both the House and the Senate rammed the lottery and the budget through without due process,” Russell Capps, member of the state legislature from Wake County, representing North Carolina’s 41st district, said.

The maneuvering lead Martin, who was opposed to the lottery from the start, to be one of only two Democrats in the House to vote against the budget.

Although Martin said he does not believe the lawsuit will bring the lottery to an end, he conceded there are “strong objections to the process in which the lottery bill passed through the legislature.”

On Wednesday, the judge denied the motion to block work on the lottery. This allows the lottery to continue for now, the suit to decide the legality of the lottery due to the way in which it was passed will continue.

Despite last year’s passage of the HB 1023, the lottery does not appear to be a settled issue. There are important questions to be answered regarding both the usage of lottery funds as well as the very constitutionality of the lottery act itself.