FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
State Senator Chris Elliott - Jeff Poor Show - Friday 6-28-24
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome back to The Jump 4 Show and I've been talking about those 6'5" they should stay with us on this Friday, what's what to this Friday morning, text line we'll try to welcome in given time. 2513430106 we do appreciate you listening. Joining us now we do this every week, our friend, our returning champion is I like to call him, State Senator Chris Elliott joins us on the line. Senator, good morning, how are you? - I am doing great. It has been a busy week for sure, so much for the all season. (laughing) - Well, it's, I mean, like, I don't know, you're right there kind of front row seat. It's the throes of tourist season and I just, I don't know how far you have to travel beyond your home base there, but you really, you really sent it in Ballet County all over. - It is tough, it's tough getting around. You know, there's just so many more people here and that's what my colleagues, you know, in the rest of the state don't always understand. You know, we always try to put it in terms of they get it, but you know, we have an iron bowl here every weekend and they come in and they come out and they move around on all of our side roads and everything else and it's a blessing, but it's challenging to see, so we're, you know, we're definitely in the habit of, you know, when do you go to the grocery store and when do you not go to the grocery store and how all that works out, it's tough. - But I tell you, and you said something a couple, it might have been about a year or two ago, but it's funny how check out time in Orange Beach. Or check out time anywhere on the Gulf Coast from, I don't know, apalachicole all the way to Dolphin Island has impacts on the state's highway system. Is it that incredible? - It is, and I'll tell you, you know, I hate it for the folks in Clanton that see that and Kalera, who see that, but also it drives home the point to my colleagues and in the northern part of the state, how important the beach is and how important Baldwin County is because that's where they're coming from. And so that bottle neck moves, moves up and moves through I-65 and gets bogged down. And that's why, you know, when Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth talks about, you know, the need for widening of I-65, how important that is for the whole state for that entire artery to continue to move people, you know, efficiently back and forth up and down the state and two Alabama's beaches here in Baltimore County because that's where they're going. - I mean, it's that bottle neck between Birmingham and Montgomery. Once they get to Montgomery, I mean, everything kind of pans out. There's like everybody's got their secret shortcut to the beach from that point forward, right? But like, it's all funneled into right there between Birmingham and Montgomery and it's all driven by tourism. - Well, it is and there's a spot south of Montgomery too that you especially if you get a wreck or anything like that really causes problems that you're right that the north of Montgomery and Birmingham, you know, those areas and there get really problematic. And how about, to their credit is doing some work there but we need to continue to make sure that we, you know, we continue that work on I-65 and do exactly what Governor Ainsworth's talking about doing which is widened in '65. And of course, you know, here in the fountain too, you look at, you know, you drive around Baltimore County too, you know, you see a lot of Texas tags, a lot of Louisiana tags, all you gotta do is go to the beach to see all those LSU fans. So those folks aren't using 65, they're coming across 10, so that's gotta be a priority as well. - I mean, I was coming back from Jackson, Mississippi the other day, missed you there by the way, but you feel it like you're coming in on 98 or 45 there and everything kind of funnels in, going over the Africa town bridge. And then it's like grand central station right there where the bank hit tunnel, the interstate and all that comes together. And like, I'm so like, you know, this isn't just even just a bottle of county thing. I mean, you guys are mobile, a lot of that backup's coming from the other side of the tunnel. - Well, and that's commerce and again, that's something when we talk about tourism tax credits that we passed the year before last and in other things like that, the tourism industry here, especially in Baldwin County, is commerce, it doesn't look like, you know, shift change at Austin or shift change at Mercedes in France. But those, you know, those condos check in and check out, that's commerce and it drives a huge amount of revenue to the state of Alabama. Our tour spent just shy of $9 billion in Baldwin County last year. And if you think about that from a taxable revenue standpoint, that's incredible. And so, you know, that just has to be recognized as commerce and we have to keep that commerce going in order to, you know, keep all, to keep the machine moving. So it's not just folks being inconvenient if what happens to that customer if they have a bad experience. - Speaking of a misguided transportation policy, then I promise it's been too long on this, but what are your thoughts on Amtrak and any kind of state investment as it pertains to mobile? - You know, I think you, I am not in favor of that project. I'm not in favor of the state, but any money in that project there is, you know, there are real places where that money needs to go. And I think this is, you know, this is a hobby for some people and, you know, good for them if they like trains or riding on trains. But I testified before the Federal Surface Transportation Board, you know, against this project. I think it's gonna cause problems. And on addition to that, I think it's, you know, there are open-ended commitments associated with this project. And I know I've talked to, you know, or I've heard some city council people at Mobile talk about, "Hey, it's not just a million dollars. It's not just three million dollars." There are open-ended commitments that have to, where the government, you know, the local governments or the state is serving as a backstop against, you know, Amtrak's projected revenues, which is a scary place to be. I mean, these folks should be on the hook for two, three, four, five, ten times what they think. They're gonna be paying. And that's not good fiscal conservatism right there. You don't know what you're gonna be on the hook for. And, oh, by the way, Amtrak's never met rather than projections. So it's gonna be worse than whatever they say it's gonna be. - Yeah, that's three million dollars. I mean, a turn-laying and like, I don't end a loser or something will be better use of that money than what they wanna do with it. But that's where you probably know where I stand on it. Hey, so I don't know, Bill has just shown the last few days, but this kind of came up earlier this week. Mayor Kennan worried about the potential for casino gambling in Baldwin County, particularly at the beach. If for whatever reason that a constitutional amendment is done and it does it, I guess it doesn't specifically say no casino gambling within how many ever miles of Baldwin County or the beach or whatever. Tell me this. Well, it's caused a little bit of a stir. What do you make of that at his comments? Because I tell you, like, the goal yesterday, or the day before yesterday when I had him on, I thought it was to find out how traffic was going now that the toll's gone. And it was like kind of a throwaway question. But he was pretty amped up about the way gambling had unfolded in particularly the way members of Baldy County voted on that. Well, Rick Kennan is a true conservative and he's got a set of principles that he lives by, and I call frequently, and he's a tough guy. He's not, he doesn't doubt himself and he doesn't doubt his beliefs. And I think it's fair to say he believes that gambling's bad for, you know, for the city of Gulf, or excuse me, almost made a big mistake to see, large beach, but in for Baldwin County in general, and I agree with him, I don't want to see, to see those here in Baldwin County. That's why the house version of the bill was not acceptable to me. It came out with an amendment in the enabling legislation that purported to preclude gambling from, you know, by occurring in and of all the county. The problem with that is it's just a majority vote in the Alabama legislature to change that. And that's a simple thing to do. That's all we do all day long, the word session is essentially change the law. And so that would be a very simple thing to do. One of the things I worked on in the Senate version of the bill was to make sure that that language was even tougher, and that it was in the constitutional amendment, which had meant that the borrower's much higher, and that the constitution had to actually be changed in order to allow gambling and Baldwin County. But Jeff, as this process went on, you know, I made the analogy the other day that for your listeners that watch the TV show "Yellowstone," this is similar to that. This is very similar to "Yellowstone." This is fighting for your way of life and what casinos and gambling and those interests will do to politics and to our way of life here in Baldwin County and in Alabama. And so my concern is that even with it in the constitutional amendment, I don't know that that's not enough protection that once they start really making money and throwing that money around in politics, that they couldn't just change the constitution in 10 or 20 years. I mean, I was doing the best I could to try to get those protections in, and I was successful in doing so, but I'm still not sure that was enough protection because I don't want to screw up Baldwin County. - Well, what do you think the public opinion is here, Baldwin County? I mean, I always assumed, and I, you know, growing up in Alabama, it kind of falling politics. Like, Baldwin County, at least the southern half of it, one of the like Republican holdouts, right? Like, it was never like a big George Wallace, or it was never like even old school Alabama Democrat. And gambling, even back then, before Democrats were like, they are today, whoa. I mean, it was always just kind of a Democrat thing, right? And that Republicans just didn't do that. But now like you have members, and I don't know if it's a change in the culture or what, but it's a little striking, Senator, that like Shelby County, maybe something in North Alabama, Republican holdout places, and Baldwin County, that has, has, have attitudes changed, or what's going on there, you think? - Well, Baldwin County is still very conservative, and even the folks that are moving here are still very conservative. They may come from California, they may come from Washington State, and they come from, from Michigan. You know, I met a former Minneapolis police officer the other day that left the police force and moved to Baldwin County. They're conservative when they come here. They are political refugees from whatever liberal vote policies are happening, wherever else, you know, wherever they came from. The Baldwin County is still very conservative, and let me be clear on this. There's nothing conservative about gambling. None of it. The extra government spending, the extra entitlement programs, that we need more money for this, the, you know, for, you know, retirees or schools, or what nothing is conservative about gambling. But what I hear from my constituents here in Baldwin County is twofold. One, we really do wish we could find a way to get a lottery, but we don't want any of this other stuff, not even a hint of it. And so if you can figure out a way to get us a lottery, that'd be great, but not at the expense. Absolutely, not at the expense of widespread expansion of casino gambling in the state of Alabama. That's where they seem to draw a hard line. But, but you, I mean, the way I've grown to understand it, you're never going to get just a lottery. You're always going to have to deal with the other. That's the only way it passes. It's the only way because it requires three fists on the Alabama legislature, and you've got to get enough votes to tag along, right? So like, whatever, whatever I hear, like, well, we'll just, I just want to clean lottery. It does, for now, for the foreseeable future, Senator, it's just not obtainable. I agree with your analysis, and if that's the case, then so be it. And that's what I talk to my constituents with, when I speak, you know, rotary clubs or the Eastern Shore Republican women or wherever, I talk to them, you know, what? Okay, so I can't achieve this clean lottery. I don't think the politics will line up to make that work. And their answer is, well, okay, but don't do all that other stuff just so we can have a lottery. Don't ruin our way of life. Don't, you know, invite in all the things that Americana enumerated, just so we can go get a strict health ticket or a lottery ticket. Don't do that. And so I think that's the mood of certainly the voters, at least in a Republican primary, involved in counting. They'd like to have a lottery, but they don't want all the other stuff that comes with it if that's the only way we can get it passed. I just, I don't, it feels astroturf to me. I don't feel this grassroots, organic thing, even for just a lottery. And the way you get the public supporting it is, if someone just happens to respond to some kind of survey that there are so few people out there who are just like hell bit on this. I'm not, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I'm no one out of touch, but I don't think people are like, you know what would be great if a Montgomery would get off its butt and pass us a lottery. I mean, every now and then you'll hear that, but it's not something people are thinking about on a daily basis. - Not at all. And certainly when you explain it to people and you say, listen, you know, the only way to get this done politically is to, you know, just to encumber that this with every, all these other, you know, these other things that nobody else wants. I mean, it's almost parasitic, right? And the lottery conversation is a host. And in the parasite, you know, that's hanging on to the host won't let the lottery go because they know that they're their meal ticket, right? And they gotta go with the lottery. So they'll kill the lottery in order to keep, you know, their piece of it, you know, living. And it's just, it's a, it's one of these things that just makes me shake my head. It's such an unsavory conversation to have. And when I explain to people and talk to them about, you know, the reality, political realities, they say, yeah, it'd be nice to have the revenue to do this or, you know, or be able to go, you know, buy a lottery ticket, but it's not worth all that other stuff. What I don't hear is, oh, we need to figure out a way to get the government a whole bunch more money and grow the size of government and do a bunch of entitlement expansion and stuff like that. I sure don't hear that from my constituents. - Well, I don't even hear, I mean, I hear this for some of my, my, my textures like, well, that money's just going on to other states to be spent, but you know, there's this mythology that if you build it, they will come and referring to the lottery because the reason like Florida, Georgia did well with the lottery early on, because no one else had any people would travel from out of state. No one is, if Alabama finally gets a lottery and you know, everybody has a convenience of playing it, but the idea that it's going to generate as much revenue as it anticipated is kind of a conard. - You are spot on. I mean, the idea that, you know, that I hear sometimes, well, we could build the I-10 bridges, you know, if we just had a lottery or we could do the West Alabama quarter or we could pay all I-65 or we could fix, you know, all of our education, you know, challenges. And everybody could go to college for free and all these things that we could, everything we could do if we just had a lottery. Isn't it not a step? This is not a fantasy. It's, you know, it's $300 million in the lottery. You start adding all these sportsmen stuff and casinos. You know, you give away all your, you know, you give away all the good things in the state and what makes us, you know, Alabama and sell out. And yeah, you get a billion dollars. What are you going to do with a billion dollars? I mean, I'm not saying that's nothing, but you can't, you can get a fourth of a 9-10 bridge, you know. You know, you can get half of a West Alabama quarter. You just can't, you can't fix all of the problems with that. So all those people that say, you know, if we just had a lottery or we could fix this or if we just had this rather than we could do that, you know, I challenge you to start putting a pencil to paper and realize just how far that won't go. And to your point about Georgia and Florida, they're different. Florida just passed a $111 billion state budget. Our two budgets combined are $11 billion. We're just, we're just under a billion dollars shy. We just have so few people and it's just a different, it's different, it's not a major American cities and things like that, you know, it's just, it's right. But the Florida lottery, you know, back in the 1980s, when it was kind of a new thing, when you struck gold, in 2024 or whatever, no one's like, no one's like, oh, wow, I'll be able to lottery now. Well, let me book my vacation for a Coleman or whatever. I mean, it's just, or anything, any other kind of gambling. It's just kind of old hat now. It is, I think it is and I just, I think that the dangers that come along with it, just like Mayor Kenning said the other day, are just not worth selling out. We will, we will end up changing our, you know, the lifestyle, our sense of place and what we've developed here, this family-friendly environment that is thriving in Baldwin County. You know, we're adding 7,000 people a day. They're not coming here for no reason. This is a great place to raise a family. And I don't want to mess that up. And I don't think adding gambling or casinos or even a lottery makes us any less, or excuse me, any more attractive. I don't think that does anything for our brand at all. So they're going to leave it there, but we always appreciate your time. And let's do this again real soon. - We will do it, thank you. - All right guys, we got to get a break in here. We'll be right back. This is the Jeff Porte Show on the FIT Talk 10065. (upbeat music) ♪ Oh, and she's gone guess I got too soon today ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Now she's all so simple and slow ♪