How S.C. won the fight against VLTs

Mar 11, 2003
JONI B. HANNIGAN
Managing Editor

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (FBW)-It didn't happen overnight, and it was the result of years of careful planning, but Joe Mack, director of the Office of Public Policy Issues for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said he has seen the tide turn against gambling-one church and one person at a time.

"It was the first time a lot of our churches were actively involved in a campaign," said Mack, detailing a wide-spread effort in 1999 to mobilize S.C. Southern Baptist churches to rid the state of video poker.

Mack told Florida Baptist Witness many in South Carolina had witnessed the devastation caused by the video lottery terminal (VLT) industry, which had grown to 34,000 machines operating in 7,500 separate establishments. Statistically, there was one machine per mile in the state of S.C. and four poker machines for every one church.

A former state government worker, Mack said he was hired by the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1999. Previously, he and other volunteers, mostly pastors, worked tirelessly as lobbyists on a volunteer basis to getting the S.C. Legislature to ban the machines. In 1995, a newly elected governor joined in the effort and, by 1999, an organization "Changing South Carolina" finally was able to help get a referendum to vote on the issue in 2000.

Engaged in a "full-blown" campaign with rallies and voter registration drives-many churches joined with the state Chamber of Commerce and other religious groups in order to get the word out to "vote no" on video lotteries. Buttons, bumper stickers, and yard signs rounded out the ammunition-along with facts and information sent to pastors and leaders.
After first hesitating at being involved in so-called "politics," many S.C. Baptists joined in when Mack told them, "no, this is not politics. This is a social and moral issue and we have every right to stake a stand on social and moral issues."

Pastors, including Steve Hogg, pastor of Rock Hill First Baptist Church, developed sermon outlines, wrote articles for South Carolina's state Baptist newspaper, The Baptist Courier, and gained the attention of Focus on the Family's Gambling News.

Mack said over a 100,000 new voters were registered as a result of the push to make sure voters showed up at the polls. With one in five S.C. citizens a Southern Baptist in one of 2,000 churches in the state's largest denomination, Mack said the group adjusted strategy as it went and learned "it's all about communication."

What happened next was surprising, Mack reported, but in the end what mattered was that video poker was abolished.

Just three weeks before the election, the gambling industry sued to halt the election, claiming the state did not have the power to pass binding referendums. Meanwhile, it was discovered the committee responsible for pushing through the bill to get the measure on the ballot for a referendum had added language to the bill specifying that if the issue did not come to a vote-video poker would be a thing of the past.

The State Supreme Court did rule in favor of the gambling industry-ironically, cutting video poker off at the knees.

"Because we had that severability clause, poker is abolished," said Mack. "As smart as they were as many lobbyists and lawyers [the gambling industry had], their suit to block the election insured our success."

Already ahead in the polls, Mack said his side would have "overwhelmingly won" anyway, but the other side thought "they had nothing to lose by trying to stop the election."

Unfortunately, Mack said while S.C. voters focused on ridding themselves of video poker, a state lottery snuck in the back door. Approved by voters in 2001, Mack said the state-wide lottery caught voters trying to fight two issues at the same time.

"Of the two, video poker was much more insidious," Mack said. "We heard about the harm it caused every day. There were people committing suicide, and a child died after being left in a hot car.

"The lottery was somewhere out in front of us ... and ended up passing," said Mack.

The lottery and two gambling "boats to nowhere" are Mack's focus now in keeping S.C. Baptists updated on gambling concerns. He said "rumblings" of VLT's coming back springs up every so often and his task is to make sure Baptists are informed and know who to share their concerns with in state government.

"I don't ever think it's over. There are always people who would like to reintroduce [VLTs]," Mack said. "We have to be on our guard."

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