All bets back on as lottery extended 12 years

The Texas Lottery Commission will live on. For now.

Following a frantic flip-flop a day earlier, the Texas House on Wednesday voted 88-54 to approve a bill extending the life of the lottery agency by 12 years.

Nonetheless, even after the House voted to keep the commission up and running, Republicans made one thing clear: They still would like to ax it and find a new revenue stream to help fund public schools.

"We can abolish the lottery next session," state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, said from the House floor to lawmakers still eager to bury the agency.

The final vote on House Bill 2197, authored by Anchia, wraps up a two-day tug of war in the House, which previously had managed to steer clear of the infighting that has consumed the chamber in past sessions.

Crafted as a bill to allow the lottery commission to continue operations, the measure quickly became a platform for House Republicans to blast the lottery system, labeling it a predatory tax that targets the poor.

Anti-lottery emotions ran so hot in the House on Tuesday that lawmakers initially voted against the bill to keep the commission going, only to reverse that vote hours later because it would have blown a nearly $2.2 billion hole in the state budget for education funding.

"I think we've got so many new people that some of them don't really understand what the repercussions were," said Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, the state House's top budget writer

After a roughly two-hour debate Wednesday, the House passed the lottery commission sunset bill with a key amendment from San Antonio Democrat Mike Villarreal.

The amendment calls for the formation of a 10-member joint legislative committee that will study alternative revenue sources to replace the lottery dollars that help fund public education. It also puts the Legislature on a path to dive deeper into how to dissolve the commission altogether.

"This allows us to evaluate how to wean ourselves off lottery revenue" to fund public education, Villarreal declared.

Several other amendments were rejected.

Two would have shortened the period until the commission's next sunset review from 12 years to four. They both failed.

A pair of separate amendments also sought to funnel lottery revenue to the Texas horse racing industry. Yet another would have barred lottery ads from TV, radio or the Internet. All failed.

Under HB 2197, the lottery commission would expand from three to five members. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.