Tribes sue over California gaming compact

Amanda Riddle

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

LOS ANGELES -- Two Southern California Indian tribes sued the state in federal court Monday for allegedly violating the gambling compacts that allow them to operate Vegas-style casinos on their reservations.

The breach-of-contract lawsuit claims California has been too slow to distribute gaming fees from a general fund to poorer tribes and altered some of the compacts' provisions without consent of the tribes, circumventing tribal sovereignty.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Riverside by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians.

"The state is not living up to its end of the bargain," said Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga tribe, which operates the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula in Riverside County.

The San Manuel tribe operates the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino in Highland in neighboring San Bernardino County.

A message left with the governor's office was not immediately returned.

Gov. Gray Davis negotiated the Tribal-State Gaming Compacts with tribes in 1999. Voters ratified the agreement in 2000.

The compacts require tribes to pay a fee to operate slot machines on their land. The fees are deposited into a Revenue Sharing Trust Fund and then distributed by the California Gambling Control Commission to about 75 tribes.

But the state's non-gaming tribes aren't receiving their portion of the fees in a timely manner, the suit claims.

As a result, Los Coyotes Indian Reservation lacks money to install power lines, Macarro said. And the Mesa Grande Indian Reservation laid off its full-time firefighters and is using volunteers.

The suit also alleges that the state usurped tribal authority by switching authority to administer and approve slot machine licenses from California's tribes to the Gambling Control Commission.

"Clearly tribes negotiated and won the right to administer the license draw for slot machines by all the tribes," Macarro said.

Tribal officials and representatives of the governor's office, attorney general and gambling commission met three times last year to try to resolve the disputes, Macarro said.

He said the tribes asked for another meeting this summer and, when the state declined, began drafting the lawsuit.