Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Tribes pay $2 per signature on casino petitions

They say it means the difference between poverty and the middle-class - or better.

Professional signature gatherers have been combing the state to get enough signatures to qualify the "Tribal Government Gaming and Economic Self-Sufficiency Act" for the November ballot.

The measure is intended to counter efforts by the governor to force casino-owning tribes into a gambling compact that they claim will financially hurt their casinos and threaten their sovereignty.

The tribes need 477,000 registered voters' names by this week. They've been paying signature collectors bounties of $2 to $4 per signature - well above the political industry norms of 35 cents to 75 cents.

The California Secretary of State must certify the signatures before the measure could make the ballot. Because some signatures are always thrown out, collectors plan to gather at least a third more than the required number.

The signature drive, which would cost at least $1.4 million at that rate, comes on top of an aggressive television and mailing campaign that is costing millions more.

All this for an effort that could fail at the polls or, later, in the courts.

But the possible payoff is worth the risk to the state's 107 tribes, 42 of which have gambling, according to Daniel Tucker, chairman of the California Indian Nations Gaming Association.

"Just when the American dream is in their grasp, now they have go back to scraping and scrimping like they were before," Tucker said. "It could even go to the point where some tribes would have to close their facilities. It's that critical."

Since the measure has yet to qualify for the ballot, there has been no organized campaign against it. But Gov. Pete Wilson, who has been battling Indian tribes over video slots that he says are illegal, has made it clear he dislikes the proposed initiative.

"It attempts to turn California into a casino state without any safeguards for the state of California," said Wilson spokeswoman Lisa Kalustian.

If it makes the ballot, passes and survives a probable court fight, the measure would maintain all current Indian casino games, including video slots, poker, bingo and a form of blackjack.

The measure would reimburse the state for regulatory costs, establish rules for operation and management of casinos, and set up trust funds for health programs, community groups and tribes that don't have gambling.

The campaign comes as Indian tribes face the biggest threat to their gambling operations in the decade since tribal casinos started sprouting on the mostly remote desert and mountain reservations.

A March 6 agreement between Wilson and the Pala Band of Mission Indians in San Diego County would allow a wide range of gambling, including a new form of video slots still under development, but restrict the number of those machines and outlaw the kinds of machines now employed by other tribes.

Wilson hopes to use the agreement, which won federal approval over the weekend, as a model for subsequent tribal agreements.

The Pala Band has no casino yet, but many tribes that do see Wilson's compact as a death knell for their casinos.

The tribes have spared no expense, mailing expensive petition packages to registered voters and flooding the airwaves, even in the expensive LA market.

"For over 100 years, the once-proud Indian tribes of California were assigned to live in a world of obscurity, beset by poverty, welfare dependency and despair," the narrator says on one commercial.

Mark A. Macarro, tribal chairman of the casino-operating Pechanga Indian reservation, says in an ad that Indian gambling has changed all that.

"We've been coming back," he says.

Gambling is vital to the economic health of many Indian tribes because the reservations have few, if any, natural resources or other economic opportunities. What non-casino businesses do exist on Indian land, including restaurants and gas stations, are usually started by gambling funds.

Tribes contend gambling has generated 15,000 jobs statewide and helped the tribes attain economic self-sufficiency.

Under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, tribes may offer forms of gambling that are legal in their states, as long as the tribes and the states enter into agreements.

For years, California Indian tribes have run casinos without such a compact, contending the governor has refused to negotiate with them in good faith. The governor has said the Indians are violating the law by installing machines without the compact, and refused to negotiate with tribes which were operating them.

For tribes that already have casinos, the proposed ballot initiative would essentially bypass negotiations with the governor's office and keep the disputed video machines in place.

But even if the measure passes, a number of issues will remain unresolved and probably require litigation.

Pala tribal Chairman Robert Smith, who hopes to soon start building a casino in what is now an oak-shaded campground, said he believes the measure is overridden by the federal Indian gambling law.

"I don't think it's worth the money they're spending on the campaign," he said.

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