Under the current compact proposals, California holds no legal powers of regulation or enforcement of fair gaming practices on Class III Indian gaming operations. This lack of regulation leaves the state powerless to monitor casino operations, powerless to claim its promised money and powerless to seek punitive damages if the tribes don’t pay. Class III gaming consists of slot machines, roulette, blackjack and poker tables, as well as any other house banked games that have come to dominant Indian Gaming in California.

 

In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed amended compacts that promised the state $175 to $200 million per year. California has since collected a paltry $30 some million of that money. Meanwhile, the National Indian Gaming Commission lost its power to apply and enforce Minimum Internal Control Standards (MICS) as a result of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) decision.

 

“CRIT’s decision, basically, does not allow you [Chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission Phil Hogan], your agency, your commission, to enforce, to fine or cite any MICS violations…at the end of the day, we have lost the only [independent] enforcement citation fine mechanism for MICS,” said State Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, at a May 14 Assembly Hearing.

 

The CRIT decision came down following the Colorado River Indian Tribes challenging the National Indian Gaming Commission’s (NIGC) legal jurisdiction over drafting and enforcing MICS. The MICS were initially drafted and put into place to regulate Indian Gaming on a variety of levels. The standards mirrored those of Las Vegas in that they set up strict controls on fair gaming, collection of winnings, deposit of winnings and collections and audits of the net profits.

 

In the ruling, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia determined that NIGC had overstepped its boundaries as defined by the Congressional Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which set up the three classes of Indian Gaming. NIGC does hold regulatory powers over Class II Indian Gaming, such as high stakes bingo, but Class III gaming was left to state regulation through the compacts that would be individually negotiated with tribes seeking Class III gaming in the state.

 

According to IGRA, the state holds the right and power to enact regulations over Class III gaming to allow for state oversight of casino operations and state audits to ensure that an agreed upon percentage of the take was properly paid to the state. IGRA also stated that any gaming not currently legal in some capacity, i.e. casino slot machines and gaming tables in the case of California, was not legal on Indian land.

 

As a result, when Californians first passed Proposition 5 to allow Class III gaming in 1999, it violated its own state constitution and had to then pass Proposition 1A to amend the constitution to allow Class III gaming on Indian land.

 

“The voters in my view were never told, ‘Oh, by the way, you aren’t just voting to authorize the Governor to negotiate. You’re approving the 59 compacts that he already inked and sealed,’” said Jim Marino, an attorney specializing in tribal gaming issues representing various community groups throughout California. “So people voted in favor of Proposition 1A basically thinking that they were authorizing the same thing that was supposed to be authorized by Proposition 5 that was declared unconstitutional. But I don’t think any of the voters knew that they were basically putting their stamp of approval on these terrible compacts that Gray Davis had negotiated and had approved back in October, six months earlier.”

 

Those contracts lacked any state mandates or controls over worker’s compensation, environmental impact evaluation, fair gaming practices or women’s rights. The compacts signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004 and the compacts being negotiated today do nothing to add those controls or any punitive implications for lack of compliance as are specifically granted the state by IGRA. As a result, casinos such as the Chumash, have had free reign to change out electronic game boards to pay out at “60% or less” as opposed to the 90% pay out required in Las Vegas, as detailed in the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians General Council Minutes from June 11, 2000.

 

“They were supposed to negotiate the MICS back into the compacts,” said Kathryn Bowen, a spokesperson for Preservation of Los Olivos, an organization dedicated to limiting the growth and impact of the Chumash Casino on the Santa Ynez Valley. “I just don’t know how the state is going to get around that. That’s why we’re all just baffled as to why they’re even going forward with this vote because they really don’t have what Torrico refers to as the third leg of the stool.”

 

One of the greatest concerns for citizens in getting the state government to enact protections for Californians in the compacts has been the influence of political contributions and lobbying from the virtually endless funds of casino operations.

Indian tribes contributed some $28.76 million to Proposition 70 alone, a proposition that would give Indian Gaming exclusive rights to casino operations in California for the next 99 years, according to followthemoney.org.

 

The leading contributor was the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The Calientes also paid Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who has since pleaded guilty to Conspiracy, Honest Services Mail Fraud and Tax Evasion in part for his illegal coercion of elected representatives. The Calientes gave Abramoff some $5.4 million for the negotiation of a favorable gaming compact in California, with an additional $2 million budgeted “for advocacy efforts should the compact renewal campaign become intensive,” according to recently released memos between the Calientes and Abramoff’s associates.

 

As the casinos go unchecked and money floods into the campaigns of elected representatives to the tune of $683,650 in 2004 by the Calientes alone, California collects at a 15 percent return on compact-promised money and plans to sign 25-year compacts with no concrete powers expressed for the state’s protection, benefit or enforcement of the rules contained in the compact.