On the 15th of December, a community of Christians that are the crusaders of the Alabama legislature, said “Illegal gambling is taking over this state”. The ALCAP, also known as the Alabama Citizens Action Program, is a type of organization that has many years of experience, almost 80 years in fact, and they have began to see their organization as the compass for moral guidance in Alabama. The organization is, as of this moment, being run by Dr. Joe Godfrey, the executive director. This group, that is against gambling, is one of the most active anti-gambling organizations to have been in Alabama.
Since the re-opening of the Macon County Casino (VictoryLand) began, it has become one of the things that Joe Godfrey will not stop fighting against.
The VictoryLand casino has been opening and closing a lot since they were almost raided by the state in 2010. Even though there are some amendments that are within the constitution of Alabama state that there is not allowed to be any gambling in the state. Some of the different counties of Alabama have had amendments put into action that are county-specific and some of these amendments are concerning the legalization of the different gambling types such as bingo and dog racing.
During Bob Riley’s tenure, the office of the attorney general was forced to enforce the gambling laws of the state, thanks to orders that came directly from the Governor. That order was then declared null and void by Bob Riley, who after that went onto create the Task Force for the Governor that was for Illegal Gambling.
Renewing the AG’S authority was considered to be the first thing put into effect by Bentley, the Governor, in the year 2011.This year in October on the other hand, brought much bad news for him when the orders that he put into place were declared to be unconstitutional by William Shashy, the circuit court judge. When Shashy declared them to be unconstitutional, he also stated that those orders were going directly against the laws that were set forth by the state and that they meant that laws were becoming unequally enforced within the areas of the state.
However, this was only focused on the casino VictoryLand, there are casinos that are a lot like the VictoryLand casino in Greene and Lowdes counties that are still aloud to run and do not run into the same problems with the authorities that the VictoryLand casino does. This ruling, which was put into place by the judge, made the Governor react by putting out another order that would allow for the AG office to have their authority taken away in terms of the laws that have to do with gambling.
