26-Apr-1998 Sunday
The comprehensive and controversial gambling agreement between San Diego
County's Pala Indian band and Gov. Pete Wilson cleared a major hurdle
yesterday, winning approval from the U.S. Interior Department.
However, Assistant Interior Secretary Kevin Gover stressed that other
tribes cannot and should not be bound by the pact, signed March 6 and
intended as a statewide model for Indian gaming in California.
As a condition of approval, Gover insisted on several amendments to address
objections raised by numerous tribes in what has turned into a
tooth-and-nail fight over state regulation and tribal sovereignty.
More battling looms in courts and the Legislature with the approach of a
crucial deadline. U.S. attorneys have given the state's 40 gaming tribes
until May 13 to accept the general terms of the Pala compact or shut down
their video gambling machines while pursuing alternative agreements with
the state.
The machines, which courts have ruled illegal, generate most of the tribal
gaming revenues. The Pala compact authorizes a new but unproven device
that, unlike a slot machine, operates on a lottery system.
Pala officials were elated with yesterday's Interior Department approval,
which two California tribes tried unsuccessfully to block Friday in a
District of Columbia federal court.
"I'm quite happy with (Gover's) decision," said Stan McGarr, tribal council
secretary for the Pala Band of Mission Indians. "It's not a surprise, but
it's a relief to finally see it out.
"What's next for us is to get up and get this thing going."
Pala intends to open a 45,000- to 60,000-square-foot casino early next year
on the banks of the San Luis Rey River north of Escondido. It will be built
and managed by the same East Coast firm that developed the nation's largest
and most successful Indian gaming enterprise, the Foxwoods Casino on
Connecticut's Mashantucket Pequot reservation, McGarr said.
"We want to be able to offer the people of California a class facility with
service you couldn't find any place else," he said.
But the leader of a tribal gaming coalition was dejected over the accord's
approval.
"The proposed Wilson-Pala compact is fundamentally wrong," said Sycuan's
Danny Tucker, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association.
"Clearly we are gravely disappointed and angry that the voice and
opposition of more than 54 tribal governments was ignored.
"We will continue our fight to obtain what is right and fair in the courts,
the legislature and at the ballot box."
Four gaming tribes and five legislators have drafted a suit they plan to
file tomorrow in San Francisco County Superior Court, challenging the
governor's authority to sign the compact without approval from the
legislature. A similar suit is pending in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, a state Senate bill authorizing Wilson's execution of the Pala
compact is expected to face fierce debate on the Senate floor early next
month, with even greater opposition in the Assembly.
The four U.S. attorneys in California, who have jurisdiction to enforce a
crackdown on Indian gambling, intend to press ahead with the May 13
deadline regardless of what happens on any of these fronts.
Gaming tribes have formally petitioned Attorney General Janet Reno to
intervene with the state on their behalf. At Justice Department
headquarters in Washington, gaming specialist Christine DiBartolo said Reno
had not reviewed the petition as of Friday, but the kind of mediation the
tribes have requested would be unprecedented.
"At this point, the tribes that are currently engaged in illegal gaming
have until May 13 to choose one of two options," embracing the Pala compact
or shutting down and embarking on negotiations, she said.
"If they don't, the U.S. attorneys will take action."
Gover's approval notice yesterday contained a stern warning that the Pala
compact must not be considered a blueprint for all tribes.
"I want to stress that this compact applies only to the future gaming
operation of the Pala Band of Mission Indians," said Gover, who heads the
Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs. "The state has an
obligation under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to negotiate in `good
faith' with each tribe requesting a compact.
"Our approval of this compact cannot and does not mean that the state meets
its obligation of good-faith negotiating merely by offering identical
compacts to other tribes."
The Pala compact set a cap on the number of gambling devices allowed
statewide, giving every tribe a base allocation of 199. It allowed tribes
to increase that number, to a maximum of 975, by leasing machines from
tribes not using their share.
However, Gover said a statewide allocation system goes beyond the accord's
authority. The cap approved for Pala, he said, "cannot be binding on other
tribes not parties to this compact."
No one on Wilson's legal or public affairs staff could be reached for
comment yesterday.
But leaders of the two Southern California gaming tribes that sued last
week to block the Interior decision issued a joint statement applauding
Gover's edict against binding other tribes to the Pala accord.
"The Interior Department has thus endorsed our long-standing view that the
state is required to negotiate in good faith with all California tribes,"
said Mark Macarro, chairman of Riverside County's Pechanga Band of Luiseno
Indians, and Ken Ramirez, vice chairman of San Bernardino County's San
Manuel Band of Serrano Indians.
"We intend to follow today's Interior Department decision by asking Gov.
Wilson to sit down with each of California's tribes and begin good-faith
negotiations."
Tribal leaders and their attorneys have yet to thoroughly review Gover's
amendments. The Interior Department's approval becomes effective when
published by the Office of the Federal Registrar -- probably Thursday.
The amendments were made "to address issues that arose during the review
process," Gover said yesterday in a statement. They were approved by Wilson
and Pala Chairman Robert Smith.
Responding to widespread tribal complaints of intrusions on their
sovereignty, the amendments fine-tune legal terminology to narrow the scope
of state authority in six key issues of dispute, said Pala attorney Howard
Dickstein.
Those issues include county supervisors' role in approving compact
agreements; the authority of state regulators to determine legal
classifications of gaming machines; and the terms under which tribes can be
sued in state courts.
In each instance, the changes in wording more clearly set limits on state
controls, Dickstein said.
"There's a tightening of the language," he said. "I hope that it gives
tribes assurances that this compact is not a wholesale invasion of their
traditional sovereign areas, and that it cannot be extended into other
areas of tribes' economic or political life."
But Pechanga Chairman Macarro remains skeptical.
"The devil is in the details," he said. "How much the amendments modify
what we found reprehensible in the Pala compact remains to be subjected to
legal analysis."
Pala's McGarr said he hopes the revised compact will be more palatable to
"tribes who are crying that Pala is selling them out."
"I would hope that it would" end some of the fighting, he said. "But there
are certain tribes out there that I don't think anything can be done to
placate them, other than giving them full-blown Las Vegas-type gaming."
McGarr said tribes should be willing to allow the state a limited role in
regulating casino gambling on Indian reservations.
"Although Native Americans can . . . govern just as well as any other
government, it's been very difficult for (the public) to believe that," he
said. "We think people who are going to be our guests should rest assured
that they're going to get a fair deal.
"If it takes state regulation, we have no problem with it," he said.
"That's good business."