The Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma is funding the anti-casino group Local Voters in Charge in Pope County. This situation correlates with a simple model that explains unlikely coalitions that form to support or oppose something.

The following article excerpts summarize the model concepts.

Regulation / SPRING 2021

Not-So-Unlikely Coalitions

“Bootleggers and Baptists” are alive and well in Arkansas. (excerpts)

BY JEREMY HORPEDAHL

Nearly four decades ago in the pages of Regulation, Bruce Yandle introduced a simple model for understanding the seemingly unlikely coalitions that form to support or oppose some law or regulation. (“Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist,” May/June 1983.) Successful coalitions essentially need two types of members: those that provide the money for political action and those that provide a good public face. Yandle, in a colorful story about Sunday closing laws for alcohol sales, gave these groups nice alliterative and illustrative names. The “bootleggers” had the money and were in it for the money. The “Baptists” were in it for advancing what they viewed as a moral good.

Why do the bootleggers need the Baptists? Moneyed interests, serving their own bottom line, don’t make for good publicity. They probably can’t convince legislators either, at least not in a public forum. (Perhaps they can do so behind closed doors.) That’s where the Baptists come in. They can provide the moral argument for the law or regulation. Baptists benefit by making the world a better place, at least from their perspective. Bootleggers benefit by securing an economic benefit, such as harming their competitor

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The temporary alliances between the groups were aptly described by a Baptist pastor in Arkansas in 2014. Speaking about his involvement in helping to defeat a statewide ballot measure to legalize alcohol in the state, he said that he had “joined with feminists to oppose pornography and cooperated with Mississippi casinos to fight gambling in Arkansas,” and so he was willing to join with liquor stores in wet counties. Similarly, when fighting an effort to legalize alcohol sales in the city of Jacksonville, a pastor there said he “utilized who was willing to help fight it. [The liquor stores] were honest with me, and I was honest with them.”

….(M)embers of these coalitions are not always willing to be so public about their cooperation in advancing their mutual goals, but the alliances exist nonetheless.

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I believe the last statement accurately describes our current situation. We are aware of the organizations opposing a casino in Pope County and suspect an alliance, but evidence is sparse.