Free Republic

In his victorious 2003 recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to exact financial concessions from wealthy casino tribes. He proceeded to negotiate lucrative tribal compacts that gave California a cut of the action from a major expansion of tribal gambling. But now many tribes – and the courts – are pushing back. And the governor is on a losing streak. The latest blow came Tuesday. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Schwarzenegger administration wrongfully strong-armed a San Diego County tribe during unsuccessful negotiations over a casino expansion. In a...

Wealth breeds 'poverty of soul' Ten years after the casino cash started flowing, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' good fortune is on display across the peaceful Capay Valley. Thanks to their Cache Creek Casino Resort – which makes about $300 million a year and is scheduled to expand – each of the 26 adults in the 60-member nation gets about $1 million a year after taxes, more if they're on the tribal council or committees. They get a travel allowance to expand their horizons to Tahiti, Europe or anyplace they desire. They own luxury cars, custom homes on the...

A $100 million campaign has four Indian gambling measures riding a wave of voter support, but a separate proposal to alter legislative term limits desperately needs a life jacket, according to a Field Poll released Sunday. With election day looming on Tuesday, the poll shows that support for the Indian gambling measures has risen consistently in recent weeks, while the term limits measure has fallen dramatically. Propositions 94 through 97, which would allow four wealthy Southern California Indian tribes to add up to 17,000 casino slot machines, is leading by 47 percent to 34 percent, with 19 percent of likely...

Just about every statewide election has a mega-million-dollar, special-interest issue that results in the public being swamped by brain-numbing commercials. This time out the prize goes to the $143 million (and counting) fight over four Indian gaming compacts - with the average TV viewer being subjected to about 69 ads a week coming from both sides of the fight. Negotiated by the governor and approved by the state legislators, the compacts would allow four Southern California tribes to add 17,000 slot machines to their reservation casinos. The compacts are being opposed by coalition of two other tribes that think the...

As state lawmakers Thursday voted to allow four of California's richest casino gambling tribes to add a total of up to 17,000 slot machines, the vote was a humbling defeat for organized labor. Before the final vote, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez declared that he had extracted verbal promises that unions could organize workers on tribal lands. But securing the last-minute statements -- which have no force of law -- was merely a face-saving gesture for many Democratic lawmakers long allied with labor. The result left Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, fuming. Even before the final vote,...

Accords bring Assembly Democrats on board as unions cry 'betrayal.' Four of California's wealthiest Indian gambling tribes and Assembly Democrats broke a prolonged stalemate Wednesday, striking a controversial deal that could trigger thousands of new casino slot machines and billions of dollars for the state treasury.The tribes, lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed off on side agreements that appear to provide political cover for the Legislature's approval of gambling compacts negotiated last year.Organized labor, which had lobbied Democrats to force union-friendly provisions on the tribes, criticized Wednesday's signing of separate "memorandum of understanding" accords as "an unbelievable betrayal." But the...

Hundreds of red-clad protesters Tuesday decried a lack of worker protections in pending agreements to allow major casino expansions for some of California's richest Indian gambling tribes. The spirited Capitol demonstration came as state lawmakers were laboring behind the scenes on a political compromise that may facilitate legislative approval of gambling agreements to allow five Southern California tribes to add up to 22,500 new slot machines. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing hard for approval of the accords, arguing that the state stands to receive $13.4 billion to $22.4 billion in casino revenue-sharing payments over the next 10 years. But members...

No warning. Just resigned. No further details.

SACRAMENTO – As congressional leaders and others call for new constraints on off-reservation Indian gaming, the Schwarzenegger administration is preparing to roll out its fourth such casino compact in two years. The pending agreement would allow the North Fork Rancheria band of central California to build a large casino-resort adjacent to busy state Route 99 just outside the city of Madera. The deal is expected to be announced within weeks, sources close to the negotiations said. The proposal is sailing into a stiff political head wind, with bipartisan opposition to off-reservation gaming building from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. Sen. John...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada began receiving campaign contributions from at least four American Indian tribes only after they hired Jack Abramoff, Republicans charged this week in an effort to tie the Senate Democratic leader to the disgraced lobbyist. On Thursday, Reid shrugged off questions about money he received from tribal clients of Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last month to three felonies after being accused of exchanging meals, travel and gifts for political favors. "I've said that I received money from Indians in the past and will continue to do so," Reid said. Asked what he would say...

Reid won't be returning lobbyist contributions Spokeswoman says senator sees no reason to return funds By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will not return campaign contributions he received during the past five years from lobbyists and clients associated with Jack Abramoff, a Reid spokeswoman said Friday. Federal officials are investigating whether Abramoff, a lobbyist, bilked millions of dollars from Indian gaming tribes. Reid, D-Nev., and other Democrats have been sharply critical of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who has close ties to Abramoff. About two-thirds of Abramoff-related campaign funds were given to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sided Friday with a local developer who is embroiled in a fight with Yolo County over the future of the 17,300-acre Conaway Ranch. The governor vetoed Assembly Bill 1747, a measure that would have allowed a casino-owning tribe to share management of the land if the county is successful in buying it or taking it through eminent domain. Developer Steve Gidaro, who bought Conaway Ranch for about $60 million last year, is fighting the county's efforts to take the land in court. He opposed AB 1747, written by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, because it would have allowed...

The future of gambling in San Pablo took a hit Wednesday when a bill that would stop an Indian tribe from operating gaming machines in this city handily passed a U.S. Senate committee in Washington. The vote by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on the bill, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D.-Calif., was 10-3. Some East Bay lawmakers said Tuesday's vote shows that Indian gaming's spread into urban areas through "reservation-shopping" thwarts the public will. But San Pablo officials, who count on electronic bingo to pump an extra $3.95 million into city coffers next fiscal year, denounced the bill as...

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...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A key House Republican wants to restrict Indian gambling's most controversial trend - tribes moving off their reservations, sometimes into urban areas, to build casinos. Instead, House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would create "Indian Economic Opportunity Zones" where numerous tribes could build casinos in one area, potentially creating mini-Las Vegases around the country. The ideas are contained in draft legislation Pombo's committee circulated Thursday in advance of a hearing set for March 17. Pombo said he is trying to respond to complaints about the spread of off-reservation gambling. "I don't want to take an opportunity...

The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma will be in Lordstown this morning to announce its fourth proposed casino in Ohio, amid mounting skepticism from gambling opponents. The tribe, which announced plans last week for a $100 million lakefront casino resort in Lorain, says it has an option on a 130-acre site off the Ohio Turnpike that could develop into a $300 million resort. The land is just west of the General Motors Corp. assembly plant and would be expected to draw gamblers from Ohio and Pennsylvania. The site is a one-hour drive from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, said Lordstown Mayor...

OAKLAND - The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to oppose a proposed Las Vegas-style casino near Oakland International Airport, despite pledges by a North Bay Indian tribe pushing the project that it will provide the city with $600 million in subsidies if it is approved. Members of the tribe, the Lower Lake Rancheria Koi Nation, said the 5-0 council vote was a setback for the proposal but asserted the project could survive without city support. They said they would continue work to obtain the federal approvals they need to have the 35-acre site put into trust for Indian gaming. "It's...

On the industrial western coast of Contra Costa County, a band of 277 Indians with no ancestral ties to the East Bay stands poised to open the Golden State's first urban casino. The Lytton Band of Pomo Indians has taken a circuitous, improbable and controversial route to the booming world of California Indian gaming and a San Pablo casino about to brim with slot machines. Sacred and sovereign is how they describe the San Pablo site -- home of an Arabian-themed card room that a British gaming company built and Congress turned into an Indian reservation exclusively for the band....

LOS ANGELES -- One month after supporting a defeated ballot initiative campaign, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians continued pushing television commercials attacking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to collect revenues from California tribes. The second in a series of ads aired statewide this week, saying the governor has not been fair in demanding that "tribal governments pay three times more taxes than any other business." That statement was a stab at Schwarzenegger's ongoing negotiations with tribes to pay as much as 25 percent of their gambling revenues to the state in exchange for rights to operate additional slot machines....

There wasn't any doubt who was at fault in the head-on crash that turned a high school football coach into a lifelong rehab patient. The question is whether Randy Reid and his wife will ever get any of the $2.5 million judgment they won suing the guilty driver. It's not that the defendant can't afford to pay. He has plenty of money as a member of an affluent East County gaming tribe. But that's what makes his funds hard to collect. Keith X. Wright, 28, was high on cocaine when his Lexus slammed into Reid's pickup on state Route 94...