news-record.com

The House and Senate Finance committees continued their series of meetings on tax reform today, even though there is gathering consensus that this isn’t the year for sweeping tax changes.

But that didn’t stop Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat, for making the pitch for his favorite hobby horse: video poker.

“We’ve got a half-billion dollars that can be captured by state government,” Jones told the committee, urging them to look at “tax law” changes that would allow video poker companies to operate in the state without relying on legal gray areas and judicial injunctions.

Jones has been the lead, often the only, lawmaker speaking out on behalf of the video poker industry. Of course, there’s a reason most lawmakers avoid associating themselves with the industry.

Video poker operators attracted law enforcement attention earlier in the decade for giving illegal payouts and running unlicensed machines. The industry picked up another black eye when investigations into former House Speaker Jim Black, now serving time in jail or an unrelated transgression, started with probably illegal campaign contributions from the video poker industry. Then there were two separate bills, passed in separate years, aimed at stomping out video poker. And finally, state and local law enforcement have been pursuing court challenges that would stamp out the last vestiges of the industry that operate as “video sweepstakes.”

So what are the odds Jones will get his ideas heard?