Gambling loss limit clause survives another session
By Staff
May 25, 2004
JEFFERSON CITY – Thanks to the moral resolve of the state House of Representatives, which never even considered lifting the $500 loss limit clause in state law, pro-family groups were able to celebrate a victory May 14 when the General Assembly chose to do nothing with state gambling law.
The Senate had been flirting with change, reading a bill twice that sought to repeal the loss limit. But in the end, the bill died in the upper chamber.
“I’m proud of the House, because I do think we kept it from happening this year,” said Rep. Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill and a member of New Salem Baptist Church, Marble Hill. Jetton is the Speaker Pro Tem of the House, the No. 2 leadership position.
“If you remember, at the beginning of the year they said we had to have more money, that we couldn’t get by without it. We just kept trying to tell them, ‘There are better ways to find money if we need to find money, mostly through cutting the waste, abuse, fraud and duplicity.’ We are able to do that in the budget.
“The revenue numbers increased, and that helped. Once finally the Senate believed us, and the governor believed us, then they dropped all their talk.”
Rodney Albert, chairman, Missouri Baptist Convention’s (MBC) Christian Life Commission, and pastor, Hallsville Baptist Church, felt all along that it would be “highly unlikely” that the House would ever take up the loss limit bill. Albert said he had faith in House Speaker Catherine Hanaway, R-Warson Woods.
“We trust her on this issue,” Albert said.
Kerry Messer, lobbyist for the Convention, said Missouri Baptist involvement helped kill a movement to repeal the loss limit. The loss limit movement gave birth to a deal tailored to more-moderate senators, but Missouri Baptists shed light on the effort and it was subsequently quashed.