By Steve Lawrence
ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 24, 1998
SACRAMENTO -- Trying to break a roadblock in the state Assembly, the Senate on Monday again approved a controversial Indian gambling compact opposed by most California tribes.
The upper house, by a 23-9 vote, sent the Assembly a bill that would ratify compacts signed by the Pala Band of Mission Indians and 10 other tribes.
A similar measure passed the Senate earlier this year but was defeated in the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.
Richard Zeiger, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Los Angeles, said the new ratification bill by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, could avoid a committee hearing.
"It goes to the floor and I suspect it will come up for a vote either in the form of that bill or another bill," he said. "It possibly could be referred back (to committee) but the subject matter has been heard by the requisite committees so it may be allowed to be taken up."
Federal law allows Indian tribes to operate casinos if they negotiate gambling compacts with the states involved. Some California tribes have operated casinos for years without such agreements.
But the Pala Band, a San Diego area tribe, negotiated a compact earlier this year that Gov. Pete Wilson said could serve as a model for other tribes.
Since then, 10 other tribes have signed essentially the same compact, reluctantly, according to opponents of the Cedillo legislation.
Signing the compacts enables the tribes to keep the operating slot machines that Wilson contends are illegal until they can be replaced with new lottery-style machines.
The Pala compact has generated bitter opposition from most California tribes, despite assurances from the agreement's proponents that other bands are free to negotiate their own pacts and aren't bound by Pala's provisions.
"It's very clear that the rest of the tribes may take their own course," said Sen. Ken Maddy, R-Fresno.
But many other tribes fear the Pala compact could lead to a statewide limit on the number of machines Indians would be allowed to operate, according to a Senate analysis of Cedillo's bill.
Sens. Charles Calderon, D-Montebello, and Steve Peace, D-El Cajon, said that by approving the bill lawmakers would add to the long list of injustices suffered by American Indian tribes since Europeans came to North America.
"Think how this vote will be viewed 50 years from now," said Peace.
Calderon urged senators to let voters and the courts resolve the dispute, referring to a pending federal court case and a November ballot measure that would allow tribes to keep their existing gaming machines.
Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles, said that Democrats shouldn't let pro-union provisions in the Pala compact convince them to support the bill.
He said a vote for the bill would aid Nevada casinos while hurting California tribes.
But Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, characterized the fight over the bill as an attempt by big casino-operating tribes to block competition from smaller bands.
Monday's vote sent the bill back to the Assembly for a vote on Senate amendments. The measure originally passed the Assembly in a much different form.