Lottery Lawsuit: Game on
This e-mail just went out from the NC Institute for Constitutional Law:
Robert F.Orr, Executive Director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law (NCICL), announced today that NCICL, representing four individuals and two organizations, has filed a legal challenge to the Lottery Act.
NCICL filed the complaint on behalf of six plaintiffs: Charles Heatherly; Thomas Spampinato; W. Edward Goodall, Jr.; Paul Stam; Wake County Taxpayers Association; and the North Carolina Family Policy Council.The Declaratory Judgment action, filed today in Wake County Superior Court, alleges that the legislation constitutes an attempt to raise money on the credit of the State and to pledge the faith of the State directly or indirectly for the payment of any debt, and creates implicit and express taxes. The complaint further alleges that the legislation was not passed in compliance with provisions of the North Carolina Constitution which require that all such measures be read and passed by the General Assembly on three readings each of which must be on three separate days, and that the yeas and nays of each vote be entered on the journal of each house of the General Assembly. Further, the complaint alleges that the Lottery Act directs the drawing of public money without an appropriation made by law as required by the North Carolina State Constitution.
Depending on how the day goes, I may have more on this later. (News from earlier today.)