Free Republic

TEMECULA – Seeking to reverse recent setbacks and improve their long-range political position, California's gambling tribes moved yesterday to establish common ground with labor-backed Democrats who blocked five new gambling compacts last summer. The tribes not only invited Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to speak at a national gaming conference at Pechanga Resort and Casino, but also embraced him as someone who “could be one of our own,” and then gave him an extended standing ovation. Afterward, tribal leaders and others lined up to have pictures taken with the mayor. Just six years ago, some of the same tribes helped...

Once steeped in poverty, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians has become one of the nation's wealthiest tribes thanks to casino gambling. Now the Southern California tribe is using its riches to fund a potentially precedent-setting legal fight contending that tribes are exempt from federal labor laws because they are sovereign governments. A ruling against San Manuel could open the door for unions to organize an estimated 250,000 workers - dealers, servers, cooks - at the nation's 400-plus tribal casinos. Except for a handful in California, tribal casinos are generally not unionized; unions say it's difficult to make inroads...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to announce a deal Tuesday to permit one of the state's richest tribes to open a third casino in the Palm Springs area, a pact that could open a new round of gambling expansion in California. Top Schwarzenegger administration officials said today that the governor and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are expected to sign a deal that would permit the tribe to have up to 5,000 slot machines. The tribe, which in recent years has been one of the governor's main antagonists, is currently authorized to have 2,000 slot machines in...

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...

Trying to appease another well-heeled political enemy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger held a closed-door meeting last week with representatives of 68 California Indian tribes, offering to negotiate new gambling compacts. The Republican governor fielded questions from tribal leaders -- some who operate casinos and others who want to -- in a hotel conference room across the street from the Capitol. Schwarzenegger apologized for not meeting personally with the members of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association earlier to discuss the scope of gambling in the state, which is home to 56 Indian casinos. "He said he was open to negotiating with...

Gov. Schwarzenegger met for the first time ever with Inland tribal leaders Wednesday, signifying a marked change in his approach to tribes he once accused of "ripping off" taxpayers and not paying their "fair share" into the state's general fund. Tribal leaders emerged from the nearly 80-minute private talk with cautious praise for the governor but with no promises of new agreements on gaming or other issues. Schwarzenegger told the tribes he wants to talk to them individually about renegotiating the pacts that allow them to operate casinos, which the tribes said they are willing to consider. Mark Macarro, chairman...

SACRAMENTO – Three years after bashing Indian gaming tribes on the way to the governor's office, Arnold Schwarzenegger is quietly reaching out to California's most powerful tribal leaders as he prepares for what could be a difficult re-election campaign. The overtures, similar to those the Republican governor has made in recent months to other special interests he has battled, could lead to another round of gambling expansion while chilling possible tribal opposition to his bid for a second term. “Schwarzenegger may never convince these tribes to be his biggest backers, but if he can talk them down to neutral, that...

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...

Last year, California Indian gaming stole the gambling crown, generating more profits than Nevada's iconic casinos. Unfortunately, this barely-regulated new economy has holes big enough and pockets deep enough to swallow entire communities like San Pablo, California and the entire East Bay. In 2000, Congressman George Miller of Contra Costa infamously slipped into a House budget omnibus bill an amendment to the 1988 Indian Gaming Affairs Regulatory Act, retroactively giving the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians a nine-acre reservation smack in the center of San Pablo. They have since installed almost 1,000 slot machines at Casino San Pablo. This is...

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...

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) - The chairman of a Southern California Indian tribe that gave $10 million to indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff apologized Wednesday to other tribal leaders for the ensuing scandal that has tainted many tribes. Richard Milanovich, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, said tribal officials had only good intentions when they hired Abramoff. He told delegates at the Western Indian Gaming Conference that fallout from the scandal already is hurting the image of tribes in Washington. Abramoff pleaded guilty last week to felony charges involving influence peddling. "It really pains me. It hurts...

$1 billion issue may still face additional legal challenges SACRAMENTO – The state moved yesterday to cash in on the public's biggest prize from gambling agreements negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – a $1 billion transportation bond financed by five Indian tribes, including three from San Diego County. Initial preparations for a bond sale that could take place early next year were approved by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank although the bonds still may face legal obstacles. The state's major horse racetracks and a large Los Angeles-area card club have blocked the bonds for nearly a year with...

Saying he questions a sovereign Indian tribe’s role in a local government process, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger late on Friday vetoed the bill that would have made the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians an official partner in managing Conaway Ranch, if Yolo County officials acquire it through eminent domain. The legislation, AB 1747 by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would have made the tribe a member alongside Yolo County officials and others of the joint powers authority created for Conaway Ranch. The tribe has offered to loan the county money for the acquisition. The county and tribe say the veto does not...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has launched his fall offensive to turn the polls around, pass key reforms and regain momentum. The stakes are high and both sides are spending every dime to influence voter and pundit opinion. But Arnold would be wise to set aside his recent tactics and learn instead from the California tribal experience. The strange journey taken by California's Indian tribes is a profound lesson about how far and fast the popular can fall in the realm of public opinion. In 2000, the tribes were granted permission to erect casinos in California, thanks to voters driven in large...

Powerful gaming tribes' "control" of the Legislature is behind lawmakers' opposition to recent tribal-casino agreements negotiated by his administration, Gov. Schwarzenegger said Tuesday. "What has happened is that every time we come to agreement on a compact, we have the big tribes lobby up here and they control the legislators," Schwarzenegger said. The governor spoke during an afternoon of interviews with Capitol reporters for The Press-Enterprise and other newspapers. He touted his "year of reform" agenda on the November special-election ballot. Campaigning for office in 2003 with a promise to extract a "fair share" of tribal-casino revenue for the state,...

Hiding beneath the cloak of sovereign immunity federally recognized Indian tribes can ignore virtually any state law, many federal laws and violate the Constitutional rights of non-Indians with seeming impunity. While I am not a legal expert on tribal sovereignty, based upon my own first-hand experience as a Commander of a State Police unit monitoring tribal gaming on a Connecticut reservation, I do not believe this is the outcome or state of affairs that either Congress or the courts expected or anticipated. I have analyzed numerous state-tribe gaming compacts that allow tribes in most instances to create and apply their...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A bill already working its way through the California Legislature seeks to allow the state Gambling Control Commission the right to conduct some of its business behind closed doors. Senate Bill 919, which comfortably passed the state Senate by a 30 - 2 margin May 2, seeks to allow an exemption of some of the open meeting rules required under state law. Supporters of the bill say that it would allow commissioners access to more information to better inform them for decisions. "Our intent was to give the commission the tools that they needed to better do...

A Minnesota company with millions of dollars invested in a controversial plan to build a casino and hotel 25 miles east of San Diego has placed its bet on one well-connected man. It hired lobbyist Tom Foley, a former commissioner of the federal agency that oversees American Indian casinos, the same agency that must approve the company's partnership with the Jamul tribe. Foley waited three years before lobbying his former employer. Such restraint isn't always the case when government officials go to work for tribes. At least nine former officials of the National Indian Gaming Commission now lobby the federal...

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...

Hearing probes casino snafus Billion in transportation funds delayed by bad Indian gaming compacts SACRAMENTO — The state and racetracks are in a legal standoff with about a billion dollars in transportation funding caught in limbo until somebody blinks, lawmakers heard Wednesday. The state Senate Governmental Organization Committee was probing how much money the state can expect from Indian gaming compacts, but few clear answers were to be found. Compacts the governor signed last year withfive tribes were supposed to create two income streams. In one stream, those tribes were going to pay the state $100 million per year for...