Posted on 04/06/2005 7:59:11 AM PDT by SmithL
Whether Congress mistakenly granted federal gaming rights in San Pablo to a small Indian tribe, and whether it should reverse it, drew sharp disagreement but no clear outcome Tuesday at a U.S. Senate committee hearing.
The leading figures on both sides of West Contra Costa's urban casino drama met in Washington, D.C., before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs led by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.
He called the hearing for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is pushing a bill that could set the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians and city officials back to square one in their six-year casino odyssey.
The bill would undo an amendment that Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, inserted into a broad Indian bill in 2000, handing the Lyttons tribal gaming land where the Casino San Pablo card club sits.
The tribe had faced long odds with federal regulators, who must approve gaming on tribal land acquired after 1988. Miller's bill hurdled that process.
Feinstein's bill would keep it a reservation, but the tribe could not game on it, or even run the card club as it does now, without Interior Department approval, a top Interior official said.
McCain repeated his view Tuesday that Miller's bill was the wrong approach. "The question before us, however, is what to do about it." On that, he was noncommittal.
The hearing came as McCain and other lawmakers try to build momentum to address an explosion of Indian gaming and concerns that more tribes are angling for casinos far from their ancestral lands. Since Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 17 years ago, tribal gaming has boomed to an $18 billion industry, a third of it in California.
Lytton chairwoman Margie Mejia said her 275-member tribe shouldn't be trapped in that debate.
"If this body wishes to address various issues associated with Indian gaming, so be it, but we ask that you not go back and retroactively do it to us."
San Pablo City Councilwoman Sharon Brown and City Manager Brock Arner joined her. Noting the city's high poverty rate, they touted a Lytton casino as an engine for local, entry-level jobs.
Just a few months ago, the Lyttons stood poised for huge mega-casino profits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to a compact for the tribe to operate as many as 5,000 slot machines, in exchange for 2 percent of gaming revenue, then sliced it to 2,500 slots when the Legislature balked.
But the Legislature stalled, and last month the tribe conceded defeat. It now plans to fill the card club with fewer than 1,000 electronic bingo machines that do not require state approval while it waits for a future Legislature to ratify the compact.
After the hearing, Miller blamed Schwarzenegger for stirring a hornet's nest.
"This wasn't controversial until the governor put the compact on steroids," he said.
Feinstein, who has slammed Miller's bill as "stealth" legislation, testified that letting it stand "would set a dangerous precedent not only for California, but every state where tribal gaming is permitted."
Miller said Feinstein and other lawmakers had plenty of chance to object to his bill. He said it followed a long history of Congress granting benefits to tribes in special situations.
The Lyttons sold their Alexander Valley property in the 1950s. They later joined other rancheria tribes in a lawsuit, claiming the federal government reneged on promises of roads and other assistance.
A court settlement granted them tribal status, but prohibited them from seeking a casino near their former land thanks to objections in Sonoma County. Then Interior officials told the tribe it did not meet the criteria for casino approval in San Pablo.
"The Lyttons had a special circumstance that I believe distinguished them from most other tribes in California and that necessitated congressional action," Miller testified.
Still, he opposes the Schwarzenegger compact, saying he was sold on a "modest" casino with maybe 1,000 slots.
"A 1,000-slot machine casino is a modest casino?" asked McCain, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes ... that was about what was taking place in other sites in the state. It's a big state," replied Miller.
"A thousand slot machines is a lot of slot machines," said McCain.
Mejia argued that Feinstein's bill would violate the tribe's constitutional right against government "takings" under the Fifth Amendment. George Skibine, the Interior Department official, disagreed. He also said he could not recall Congress ever before specifically skirting the regulatory approval process to allow tribal gaming.
Feinstein and Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, argued that an urban casino was not what state voters intended when they authorized tribal gaming with Proposition 5 in 1998 and Prop. 1a in 2000. One casino tribe leader from Southern California echoed concerns among some tribes that the Lytton situation hurts the gaming tribes statewide.
"Tribes in California pledged that the passage of those (initiatives) would not authorize urban gaming," testified Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians.
McCain pledged more hearings on the impact of Indian gaming nationwide, calling a review of federal regulations "long overdue."
Why can't I have a casino ?
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