AG confident gaming bill will pass in ‘97

Friday, Jan. 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Democratic Assemblywoman Deborah Ortiz of Sacramento and Republican Assemblyman Bruce Thompson of Fallbrook joined Lungren at a Capitol news conference Thursday as sponsors of the bill. Versions of the measure have died in the Legislature in each of the past four years.

The measure would create a state Gambling Control Commission; impose state background checks on people applying to open card clubs; set advertising standards for clubs; and require that voters decide whether to expand card-club gambling at the local level.

The nearly $9 billion annually wagered in California's 203 card clubs is almost double the amount bet on the state lottery and the horse racing industry combined. Both the lottery and horse racing already are overseen by state regulatory bodies.

The attorney general, who is the state's top law enforcement officer, said the clubs are increasingly linked to a wide-variety of crimes. Federal treasury officials have identified card clubs as a favored method of laundering money from illegal activities, he said.

"We expect this will be the year this measure makes it to the governor's desk for his signature," Lungren said. "Every year, we get just a little farther along the road toward passage."

In the waning minutes of the 1996 legislative session, the measure was caught up in a dispute between former Democratic Assemblyman Phil Isenberg of Sacramento and Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, a Hayward Democrat.

The measure needed only a final Senate vote to concur with Assembly amendments, but Lockyer adjourned the upper house without considering the bill.

Isenberg and others have accused lawmakers of delaying passage of the legislation in order to milk campaign contributions from affected interests.

Isenberg said of Lockyer: "This is a Democrat who wants to run for attorney general, who has killed law-enforcement supported gambling regulation for the third year and accumulated massive campaign contributions from the gambling industry."

Lockyer denied any connection.

Asked Thursday about fund raising, Lungren said, "If you're saying that this provides an opportunity for interested groups to pony up, I think it has been an opportunity that very few (lawmakers) had the fortitude to resist.

"But I don't want to cast aspersions on the motivations of any member and frankly I would hope that we could get them to vote for the bill," he said. "If they vote for the bill, I'm not going to ask why."

A spokesman for Lockyer said the Senate leader has introduced his own version of the legislation for 1997.