Tribal Gambling Expansion Deals, investigation
not ratification!
The road to ratification leading to
An investigation is what is needed into the
negotiation and ratification of tribal gambling compacts and the Office of the
Attorney General should be calling for one. One problem.
The AG's office is playing politics like the rest of our elected officials. Turns out the Attorney General's office is busy assisting
the Governor with his privately brokered multi-billion dollar tribal gambling
deals.
What the state plans on doing to enforce
compacts with 5 powerful Indian gambling tribes that operate outside of U.S. Constitutional
law is a mystery to us all. Straight answers - any answers - would be helpful
to the citizens of
Although the Attorney General's office is
skeptical as to enforceability when they admitted compacts are difficult to
enforce because of the "sovereign nation" status of tribes, the
Assembly is still moving full speed ahead.
What
is going on?
Apparently dollars in the campaign bank accounts
of the Assembly is their sleep aid at night. How else could they move forward
with the ratification of gambling compacts with peace of mind and create
"partnerships" for the next 25 years between the State and casino
tribes knowing they are not worth the paper they are written on!
"Enforceability
is the question. It has got to be enforceable," Assemblyman Alberto Torrico told the Sacramento Bee on June 14 and concluded
this question is still "not clear yet."
The Assembly,
shockingly, seems hell-bent on ramming these compacts through with
Schwarzenegger being the little devil on their shoulder whispering threats that
California will lose millions every day the compacts are not ratified and the
other little devil on their shoulder promising more campaign contributions
floating into their bank accounts.
Hey, Governor, how
about your seriously questionable compacts costing
billions in liability for the state because the state didn't do its homework?
Who is going to pay for these hasty mistakes? Who is going to pay for the gross
negligence on the part of our elected officials whose solution to budgetary shortfalls
is signing every taxpaying citizen in California on to unenforceable gambling
compacts with a "co-signer" that is outside U.S. Constitutional law
and control?
The buzz out of
This band-aid approach is nothing more than a
dog-and-pony show to give the appearance the Assembly is actually addressing
the very serious issue of enforceability. MOU's are
the Assembly's attempt to placate their strongest opposition, the unions, who
are legitimately concerned about the vulnerability to challenge the MOU's validity.
Why would any business, let alone the State bind
generations to multi-billion dollar deals by entering into a 25-year deal
without a means to enforce the contract?
According to memos released by the U.S. Senate
Indian Affairs Committee in connection with super-lobbyist and convicted felon,
Jack Abramoff, the amount plunked down to Abramoff and another infamous lobbyist Michael Scanlon by
the Agua Caliente, just one
of the tribes with a pending compact, was over $10 million dollars for services
that included a "satisfactory outcome to gaming compact renegotiations,
environmental matters and other policy and political goals in California."
According to these same memos, the Agua Caliente was paying
$150,000.00 a month to Abramoff and Scanlon to advance
their gambling empire and asked that an additional $2 million be budgeted for
"advocacy efforts should the compact renewal campaign become
intensive."
Well, maybe that might have something to do with
the political orgy we are witnessing in
Haste makes waste and Californians will most
certainly get canned in the end of this continuing scandal.
It is clear that without enforceability, the
compacts will cost far more than they will ever generate in revenue.
Our elected officials have shown complete
disregard for the health and safety of our state by ignoring impacted
communities and the growing social cost of expansion of gambling in our state.
They also continue to turn a blind-eye to their "partners" who are
outside regulatory control and are increasingly violating the civil rights of
their own tribal members by banishing them from the tribe because of the
growing greed on the part of their leadership simply to keep a bigger cut of
the gambling profits.
Our elected officials
duty is to protect ALL citizens.
The brazen way our elected officials and tribal
leaders are operating is shocking and what the Assembly is considering truly
flies in the face of reason and secured Equal Protection. Every taxpaying
citizen continues to subsidize this burgeoning $9 Billion
An investigation to protect the people of