By Chet Barfield and Caitlin Rother
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
July 30, 1998
DEL MAR -- A federal panel studying wide-ranging impacts of gambling heard hours of emotional testimony yesterday from supporters and opponents of Indian gaming, horse racing and other forms of gambling in California.
What members of the National Gambling Impact Studying Commission saw from their dais in a packed hotel ballroom room was yellow -- a sea of yellow T-shirts.
AFL-CIO organizers bused in union members from throughout Southern California in a show of opposition to an Indian gaming initiative on the November ballot. More than 200 union members -- at least a third of the standing-room audience -- wore yellow T-shirts carrying the message: "Live Better, Work Union."
They also sported "No on 5" buttons, referring to the proposition that would legalize the disputed video slot machines in Indian casinos.
The Viejas tribal chairman, Anthony Pico, told the nine-member commission that California tribes are being forced to accept a gambling compact negotiated between Gov. Pete Wilson and the Pala Indian band.
He said the pact, which includes provisions allowing casino employees to unionize, was "designed to divide" tribes.
"We see that here today when we see union people, good union people, (coming out) against the tribes," Pico said. "That is a sad, sad thing ... and it hurts me terribly."
Robert Smith, the Pala tribal chairman, defended the compact, as did the tribe's attorney and the governor's head legal counsel. The pact was criticized by the leader of a statewide association of gaming tribes.
The commission, formed by Congress in 1996, last summer embarked on a two-year national study on gambling. It is to submit a report next June to Congress, the president and the nation's governors.
The panel includes members from organized labor, the Nevada gaming industry and other interests affected by regulations on gambling. Three were appointed by President Clinton, three by the speaker of the House, and three by the majority leader of the Senate.
The commission is examining the social and economic impacts of gambling. A substantial expansion of gambling over the last 20 years has increased jobs and tax revenues, but it also has increased temptations for people with destructive gambling habits.
Yesterday's meeting, convened at a hotel next to the Del Mar racetrack, was the commissioners' first leg of a two-day fact-finding visit to California and Arizona.
They heard formal presentations from tribal leaders, racetrack operators and government officials. Gambling opponents were among the dozens of speakers who made brief remarks at the end of the daylong session.
Leaders of the area's gaming tribes told of getting their members off welfare and pumping millions of dollars into the local economy.
Howard Dickstein, an attorney for Pala and other California tribes, gave an overview of prolonged litigation in California over Indian casinos and their disputed gambling machines.
He said the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, passed by Congress in 1988, was vague, confusing and rife with shortcomings.
"Congress mandated agreements between states and the tribes and expected these agreements to come into place," he said. "There was a lack of understanding about the depth of adversarial relations between the state and the tribes. ... The parties have hundreds of years of mistrust."
Dan Kolkey, Gov. Wilson's head legal counsel, offered the state's view. He said the 1988 law compelled the state to negotiate casino accords with tribes even though "California is a non-casino state."
Kolkey said the pacts negotiated by Pala and adopted by seven other tribes in recent weeks provide reasonable compromises to the divergent interests of tribes and the state.
Although Indian gaming dominated most of the day's testimony, the morning session was devoted to horse racing concerns.
Racing industry officials complained about growing competition from other forms of gambling, such as the state lottery and tribal casinos.
Saying horse racing is struggling to make money, industry representatives asked the commission to recommend against expanding Indian gaming and imposing more regulations on horse-racing.
"We're not going to survive if this turns into another Nevada," said state Sen. Kenneth Maddy, R-Fresno, who owns and breeds race horses.
Advocates painted horse racing as a sport and entertainment and downplayed the gambling element.
Tony Chamblin, president of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, called handicapping at the track "a social and intellectual experience."
Tim Smith, commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, called it "the thinking man's wager." He compared it to poring over The Wall Street Journal in the morning.
Joseph Harper, president of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, said his private nonprofit organization, which runs the state-owned track, has paid more than $250 million in license fees since 1970. The group also has given nearly $5 million to charity since 1968, he said.
Harper said the racing industry has donated $39 million to equine medical research since 1967.
Kevin Barrett, representing the California Council on Problem Gambling, said he has seen suicides and lives destroyed by domestic violence and such gambling-related crimes as loan sharking.
"I believe the industry does not go far enough to help problem gamblers," Barrett said.