21-Apr-1998 Tuesday
SACRAMENTO -- California tribes have collected about 800,000 signatures,
which should be more than enough to qualify a high-stakes initiative for
the November ballot to legalize their existing gambling operations, sources
said yesterday.
Signature gathering in the brief but intense effort concluded yesterday.
Meanwhile, California's U.S. attorneys issued a stark warning to tribes
weighing their options in the protracted gambling dispute with the state.
California tribes were given 60 days to accept a proposed "model" gambling
compact or shut down existing video slot machines and enter into separate
negotiations with the state. The 60 days runs out on May 13.
Those tribes that accept the terms of the compact, an agreement negotiated
by San Diego County's Pala Band of Mission Indians, would be allowed to
operate their existing games for up to a year longer, while a new
electronic game moves into mass production.
All but a handful of the state's 40 gaming tribes oppose the Pala
agreement.
The initiative is an effort to preserve and allow unlimited expansion of
all the games Indian casinos now offer.
The signature-gathering effort opened less than a month ago with an
expensive direct mail blitz to millions of registered voters, followed by
phone calls to the same households.
Officials at Winner-Wagner Mandabach, a Santa Monica firm handling the
campaign, declined to comment before a planned submission of the signatures
to the California secretary of state next week.
But several sources said the effort collected roughly 800,000 signatures,
at up to $2 each. That is nearly double the 433,269 needed to qualify.
Bill Arno of Arno Professional Consulting, one of the state's oldest
signature-gathering firms, predicted the measure will qualify easily for
the November ballot.
"Especially with mail," Arno said. "Mail (petitions) generally have a
higher validity rate than street collection."
Campaign workers will spend the next week checking signatures to insure the
measure qualifies, sources said.
The initiative would legalize video slots, which a series of courts have
ruled illegal, and blackjack, which is expressly prohibited by state law.
The initiative also would give all tribes off-track betting on horse races.
If the initiative qualifies and is approved by voters, the state would have
30 days to approve, "without preconditions," any application for a compact
from a federally recognized tribe.
Tribes would pay a percentage -- between 5 and 6 percent -- of net winnings
into three trust funds set up for general public benefit. But those
contributions would continue only as long as Indian casinos enjoy a
monopoly on video slots and similar electronic games.
Tribes would control the trust funds, which would be earmarked for other
nongaming reservations, "emergency medical needs" for the elderly,
compulsive gamblers and unspecified "community needs."
Attorneys and others involved say the initiative may have a fundamental
flaw. Although a statutory measure, it appears to address constitutional
restrictions on casino-style gambling.
It takes substantially more signatures to qualify a constitutional
amendment for the ballot and tribes were up against an unusually tight
deadline for November.
"The bigger question is not whether it qualifies, but whether it is worth
the paper it is printed on," one rival political consultant said.
Meanwhile, all four of California's U.S. attorneys signed a letter that
warned they will not extend the 60-day deadline or defer enforcement action
even if the U.S. secretary of the interior rejects the Pala compact.
"It is time," the letter declares, "for Indian gaming in California to be
conducted in strict conformance with federal law."