Free Republic

A telling trend has emerged in California over the last year -- California voters from the ranchlands of Glenn and Colusa counties to the desert prairie of Barstow have said "no" to developers looking to exploit a tribe's legal status and establish casinos on non-Indian lands -- what is known as "off-reservation gaming." All over California, developers are looking to move tribes off of their historical ancestral lands and move them -- oftentimes hundreds of miles and even across state lines -- to gaming markets identified by the developers. The message sent by voters in recent elections is particularly ripe...

Gov. Schwarzenegger has angered Legislative Democrats, Republicans and the Department of the Interior by negotiating gaming compacts with Indian tribes to run casinos off reservation land. But with rumors in the Capitol that another major compact deal is imminent, Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, chairman of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, is trying to stop the new compact before it is introduced. The new gaming deal with the North Fork tribe in Madera County has some powerful proponents-including Las Vegas gaming interests. Among them is Station Casinos, a Nevada gaming company that has a deal to manage the North Fork tribe's...

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...

North County's Los Coyotes Indian band is considering a partnership with a Northern California tribe to get the governor's OK for an off-reservation gambling complex in Barstow. A spokesman for BarWest Gaming, a Michigan firm backing the project, said Los Coyotes, which has been pursuing the Barstow project since 2003, is now discussing a joint venture with Humboldt County's Big Lagoon Rancheria. BarWest spokesman Tom Shields said the tribal partnership is being encouraged by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose blessing is essential for any off-reservation Indian casino. "It's a marriage put together by the state," Shields said. Neither Los Coyotes nor...

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...