“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” – Marc Antony in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”

The most high-profile issue hanging over the heads of state legislators during the two-and-a-half years of their terms has been the topic of gambling and a state lottery.

It may not be the most important topic the legislature is dealing with, but it is the one carrying the most attention from the public and media outlets. There has not been this much speculation about will they or won’t they since Rachel and Ross got back together during the final season of “Friends.”

Luckily, we do not have to wait until the final season – er, I mean year – of this legislature’s four years of service to know the answer on the lottery and gambling is they will not.

You may be thinking, “Woah there, we are not even through this year’s legislative session. Isn’t it a tad early to be burying a lottery and gambling until 2027?”

I am not only burying it, but I am also shooting it with a silver bullet, driving a stake through its heart and salting the earth around its grave.

Earlier this month president pro tempore of the Senate Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, announced the Senate would not be moving forward with a revamped lottery-and-gambling bill introduced a few days prior by Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore.

Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, shared the same sentiment for the House of Representatives soon afterward.

When the leaders of both the House and the Senate say a bill is not going anywhere, you can go ahead and administer the funeral rites for it. This is true in every legislative branch in American government.

Because a gambling-and-lottery bill came within an eyelash of passing last year, some people were hopeful there would be momentum to push the legislation over the top this year. It turned out the opposite was true.

The drawn-out and bitter negotiations over last year’s unsuccessful bill left many legislators with a sour taste in their mouths. Fewer were willing to go through the process again this year than were willing last year.

Albritton gamely tried to rally support to this year’s version by offering concessions and incentives to get more senators on board, but a formula for getting enough senators to vote yes could not be deciphered.

Albritton hoped introducing the bill – even without enough senators committed to pass it – would stir up some more interest, but by the time he introduced the bill, this year’s session was already more than halfway finished.

Gudger said there likely would not be enough time to work through all the negotiations to get the bill across the finish line before the legislature ran out of days. This was probably the right call.

As the de facto leader of the Senate, Gudger has quite a bit of leverage in deciding what bills will be discussed and voted upon by the Senate.

But what about next year? If you are holding out hope this edition of the legislature will rally for one last attempt to push through a gambling and lottery bill before next year’s election, you should cut bait now.

A longstanding tradition of legislatures throughout the country is never vote on a policy that could be even mildly controversial when entering an election year. Historically, Alabama is no exception.

Most voters tend to have short memories, so if legislators are able to keep the vibes positive in the months leading into an election, it bodes well for them to keep their seats.

Alabama’s legislature even begins its election-year session in January – earlier than it begins its sessions in the other three years – in order to finish the session quickly and get back home to their districts to ramp up their campaign activities.

A disappointed Albritton declared to AL.com’s John Sharp that it would take at least 20 more years for a gambling-and-lottery bill to have any chance to pass. That sounds more like the fresh sting of defeat talking more than a measured political analysis, however.

Every new election brings in some fresh blood. This changes the calculus when it comes to passing legislation.

Though my preference on the topic of gambling and a lottery would be for Albritton’s assessment to be correct, I think you will see this issue again be hotly debated in the State House in the not-too-distant future.

But you will have to wait at least a couple of more years for this spooky specter to regenerate.