Free Republic

In 2006, Democrats successfully won back control of Congress by highlighting corruption scandals involving Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist specializing in Indian tribes. But does one Democrat in particular have a problem of her own with her interventions on behalf of a California tribe that now operates a casino just outside of San Francisco? Barbara Boxer pushed a bill reinstating a tribe designated as “defunct” by the BIA 40 years earlier through legislation that she also amended to remove a prohibition on gaming on any land the tribe owned. Rick Manning at The Hill says the deal — and what ensued...

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...

This is an upcoming book, available on Amazon.com for pre-sale,presumably due to release closer to the November 2008 election to do more harm to McCain. Here is the book description, as provided on Amazon: The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Jack Abramoff (Hardcover) by Gary S. Chafetz (Author) Product Details Hardcover: 480 pagesPublisher: Martin & Lawrence Press (September 5, 2008)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 097738988XISBN-13: 978-0977389889 Product Description Gary Chafetz is a liberal Boston journalist who set out to chronicle the scandal involving conservative gun-for-hire and super-lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Instead he uncovered a Shakespearean tragedy of deceit, betrayal and political...

Just a few months ago, images of smiling children, police officers and firefighters filled TV screens and mailboxes across the state, urging voters to support major casino expansions for four Southern California tribes. Gov. Schwarzenegger and other government officials promised that the tribes would help balance the state's troubled budget with an influx of gambling dollars. The casino riches would help protect state funding for schools, police and fire departments, health care and roads, the tribes and their supporters said. Voters approved the deals, but recent signs suggest the promises may not pan out. Deals touted as a sure-fire way...

In another sign of the flagging economy, Pechanga Resort and Casino said yesterday that it plans to lay off more than 8 percent of its work force, or roughly 400 of its nearly 4,800 employees. The layoffs, to begin at a date still to be determined, will be the first in the 13-year history of the Temecula casino, which ranks among the biggest and most successful in the nation. With the move, Pechanga joins a number of Indian casinos in San Diego County and elsewhere that have trimmed their work force as attendance begins to reflect growing unemployment and soaring...

SACRAMENTO – A bipartisan measure that authorizes a large group of California Indian tribes to operate up to 2,000 slot machines each sailed out of the state Senate yesterday despite late opposition from San Diego County. The legislation would redefine terms of 61 compacts negotiated in 1999 to grant each of the tribes up to 2,000 slot machines. That includes local tribes such as Rincon, San Pasqual and Jamul, which are itching to expand or build new casinos. “It's a truth-in-advertising measure,” said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Temecula Republican whose district includes the Rincon and San Pasqual reservations. “The tribes...

SACRAMENTO – California's first inspection of slot machines at Indian casinos has found widespread software lapses that could be short-changing tribes, the state and millions of gamblers, the state's gambling commission warns in a new report. State inspectors approved just 60 percent of the slots that were examined last year at seven casinos, which included some of the most successful and sophisticated in the nation. But tribal representatives and commission staff members disagreed sharply about the severity of the software shortcomings flagged in nearly 500 machines examined at the casinos, including those operated by the Pala, Pauma and Viejas tribes...

SACRAMENTO - As the nation prepares to celebrate Problem Gambling Awareness Week, the head of California's small program is preparing to move on. Steve Hedrick, director of the state's Office of Problem Gambling, will be joining the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in its division of addiction and recovery services. Hedrick presided over the formative years of an operation that has subsisted on a meager, $3 million budget and drawn persistent criticism for being ill-equipped to deal with a problem believed to afflict more than 1 million California adults and their families. On Hedrick's watch, the office conducted the...

Several of California's largest gaming tribes have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a little-known body to successfully speed up their land applications - a necessary step for casino expansion, Capitol Weekly has learned. The California Fee to Trust Consortium was established under the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs Pacific Regional office in 2000 in order to expedite land claims, many of which have languished for years. The consortium arrangement allows tribes to pay into a fund that pays the salaries of the BIA employees who evaluate these claims. Documents about the little-known governmental organization came to light following...

PALM SPRINGS – A state senator has introduced legislation that would enable a large group of Indian tribes to expand existing casinos or build large new ones without further negotiations with the state. Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, said his proposal would allow all 61 tribes that negotiated gambling agreements, or compacts, with former Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 to have up to 2,000 slots each, the number many tribes believe were promised by the deals. But the California Gambling Control Commission had voted to limit all tribes in the state to roughly 60,000 slots, based on the commission's interpretation...

The Santa Ysabel casino overlooking Lake Henshaw opened in April to much fanfare, but it has been hampered by a bad economy, wildfires and torrential rains that closed roads leading to it. The San Ysabel Band of Diegueño Indians, which owns the 349-slot gambling hall in North County, has fallen $410,144 behind in payments to the county for sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, ambulance service, fire protection and treatment for problem and pathological gamblers. “It hasn't been what we expected,” Santa Ysabel Tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez said. “Look at what we've been through. “You just have enough money to keep yourself open....

Southern California gamblers can try their luck this weekend on shiny new slot machines just days after voters approved four Indian gambling expansion plans. Workers have been busy installing some of the 17,000 slot machines allowed in new deals approved by voters Tuesday for four tribes. The new deals, known as amended compacts, allow the tribes to expand in exchange for sharing their slot-machine revenue with the state. The first payments, expected to be more than $40 million, are due to the state at the end of the fiscal year June 30, according to the governor's office's lowest estimates. That...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he's counting on four wealthy Indian tribes and their expanding gambling operations to help close California's massive budget shortfall. Voters gave their blessing Tuesday to the deals allowing the tribes to add thousands of slot machines. Now the question is: will the money really make much of a difference? Propositions 94-97 give the tribes rights to 17,000 additional slot machines in exchange for promises to share hundreds of millions of dollars annually with the cash-strapped state. With about 96 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning, the measures were leading by a margin of 56 percent...

SACRAMENTO – When Californians vote on Indian gambling agreements tomorrow, much more than the fate of those four deals may be hanging in the balance. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who negotiated the compacts, disclosed in recent days that he wants to approve a lot more tribal gaming before he leaves office in three years. “I'm interested in one thing, and one thing only, that . . . the Indian gaming tribes pay their fair share, and . . . that we in California get the money, because we need the money,” Schwarzenegger said last week. Schwarzenegger said he expects future agreements...

The California Republican Party is struggling to get out of debt, creating a potential drag on voter registration and other party-building efforts in the midst of a heated campaign season, records showed Thursday. As of last week, the state GOP's main account had a balance of $3.2 million but $3.4 million in unpaid obligations. The party's federal account - used to finance activities that support congressional candidates - listed a balance of $34,000 but nearly $460,000 in debts, according to records filed last month. The shaky finances are due in large part to sluggish fundraising. The party collected $5.6 million...

(snip) In television ads that began airing the first week of January, Governor Schwarzenegger urges voters to endorse Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97, which would expand gambling operations. ... The agreements allow four tribes [Agua Caliente, Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan] ... to add 17,000 slot machines to the existing 8,000. In exchange, the tribes will give the state between 15 and 25 percent of the revenue from the added machines. Last May, Schwarzenegger estimated that the compacts would generate $293 million just this fiscal year, but state finance spokesman H. D. Palmer says this figure has since been revised downward...

A staggering amount of money is being spent to persuade state voters to ratify four Indian gambling deals. If approved, Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 would authorize 17,000 more slot machines for four of the state's wealthiest gambling tribes. The deals would catapult California into the gambling big leagues, well beyond the modest increase voters were promised when they first authorized Nevada-style gambling for tribes in 1998. This page has consistently opposed the expansion of gambling, beginning with the state lottery. We oppose the new gambling deals contained in these referendum initiatives, too. Gambling is the wrong way to...

Ballots, are being sent. What are your thoughts for Props: 91 - Transportation funds, Constitutional Amendment 93 - Limits on legislators Terms in in Office - Constitutional amendment 94, 95, 96 and 97 - Referendum on amendment to Indian gaming

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,...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that the state could balance its budget next year with revenue from bigger Indian casinos is unrealistic, a report released Friday by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst says. Schwarzenegger's proposal to let tribes install some 22,500 new slot machines and then collect more than $500 million in new fees and taxes from them is critical to his plan to wipe out the state's chronic budget deficit next year. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who in recent weeks has blasted the governor's spending plan for relying on rosy revenue projections, on Friday took aim at its...