Georgia casino bill dead for this year
The sponsor of the bill said that he doesn’t have enough voted to get the bill out of the committee.
US.- Senator Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, reported that his Senate Bill 79 didn’t get enough votes to make it out of the committee. The bill was supposed to go through a voting last week but it was cancelled after the Senate cancelled the second hearing.
“I am not discouraged,” Beach said, and confirmed that he will double down the efforts and “plan to crisscross” the state starting in April to gain support for the bill to make it through the committee in 2018. Senate Bill 79 would’ve allowed the construction of two casinos in Georgia, one in a county with a population greater than 900.000, whilst the other would’ve been in a county with 250.000 residents. The first casino was intended to be located in Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett or Cobb, whilst the second one 30 miles away of a major convention center.
His original plan also established that approximately 30 percent of the tax revenues would go to the HOPE scholarship program of the United States, another 30 percent to a needs-based college scholarship, 15 percent to rural trauma care and other 15 percent to rural healthcare. It was unclear where the remaining 10 percent would’ve gone. Beach said that he’s planning on spending the remaining of the year educating Georgia about his bill, and that he’s likely to visit educateon leaders, hospital administrators and local clubs to gather the support he believes the bill needs to succeed.
Senator Beach also introduced the Senate Resolution 249, the proposed amendment to the state Constitution that legalises casinos. According to a poll conducted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution on January, 56 percent of registered voters support the idea of legalising the casino industry in the state, whilst 38 percent of them were opposed to the motion.
