Interior secretary took call on compacts

By James P. Sweeney, COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
January 18, 2008

SACRAMENTO CA – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the self-proclaimed “people’s governor” and advocate of direct democracy, appears to have ditched his populist roots in the fight to save four big Indian gaming deals he negotiated.

The governor personally urged U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne early last month to push the agreements through the final step of the federal approval process, even though they still face a statewide vote on Feb. 5.

He also supported a tribal lawsuit last fall aimed at keeping the referendum measures on the compacts off the ballot.

The multibillion-dollar deals for Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula and two other tribes were automatically approved by the Interior Department when they mysteriously turned up after reportedly having been lost for 80 days at the agency.

Interior officials said they still don’t know what happened to the agreements during that time. Federal law gives the agency 45 days to act on gaming compacts. If they’re neither approved nor rejected during that time, the deals must be “deemed” approved. Because of this rule, the four compacts were approved without any federal review.

Some at Interior wanted to delay a final step in the approval process – publishing a notice in the Federal Register – to buy time to confer with the state and assess other legal options.

That’s when Schwarzenegger stepped in, asking Kempthorne during a telephone conversation to finish the process.

If the compacts are rejected on Feb. 5, it is unclear whether the federal approval may prevail and render the California vote meaningless on Propositions 94 to 97.

Even before his phone call with Kempthorne, Schwarzenegger had moved aggressively to support the compacts, sending a letter backing a tribal lawsuit seeking to block a vote on the gaming measures. The governor has a history of taking major public policy questions to the voters.

“The people are the ones who wield the power,” Schwarzenegger said in June 2005 as he called a special election on his broad “Year of Reform” package. “The people are the ones who can cut through the chains of politics and the past. It is from the people that a democracy gets its strength.”

Schwarzenegger has said voters should decide a variety of difficult questions, including physician-assisted suicide and same-sex marriage.

In a 2005 television interview, Schwarzenegger said he would accept same-sex marriage – currently illegal in California – if voters approve it.

“Absolutely. If the people decide, I’m the people’s representative,” he said at the time. “I am perfectly fine with that. The important thing is that it’s the people that vote on it.”

But following up his phone call with Kempthorne, Schwarzenegger said in a Dec. 10 letter to the secretary that sometimes political leaders simply need to take charge.

“I appreciate your quick follow-through with the issues we discussed relating to our Indian compacts,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “We both know that sometimes it takes our getting involved personally on these things to make the real action happen, and this was clearly one of those situations.”

The governor said yesterday that he saw no contradiction in his penchant for direct democracy and his actions in regard to the compacts, which promise a large new revenue stream for the strapped state budget.

“Not at all,” he said during an interview yesterday with the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Californians have already voted twice in support of tribal gaming, Schwarzenegger said. Those votes also set up a structure that gives the governor the power to negotiate compacts, which then must be ratified by the Legislature, he noted.

The pending deals will give California a larger cut of gaming revenues, roughly 10 percent on existing slot machines and up to 25 percent on additional devices, which the governor said fulfills his campaign promise to make tribes pay their “fair share.”

The tribes said they will pay the state more than $9 billion over the life of the 23-year agreements.

“Now why would I not go and protect my compacts that I have rightfully and legally done,” Schwarzenegger said yesterday, “and do everything I can to make sure that they can be ushered through back in Washington . . . (and) make sure that we get these agreements?

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I believe in follow-through like in tennis, where the coach says follow-through, follow-through. That’s what this is.”

Aides to the governor said the compacts’ fate still depends on the Feb. 5 vote. But others suggest the governor may have helped undermine the election.

“There is a simple lack of consistency,” said Tony Quinn, a veteran California political analyst. “In this case he wants the money, so he’s opposed to the referendums.

“I frankly believe there is going to be a court case if these things go down,” Quinn said, adding that the tribes with the compacts “are going to claim that they were preapproved.”

The ballot measures have been bankrolled by two other big gaming tribes, including Pala of San Diego County, a casino workers union and the owner of two racetracks.

Regardless of who is backing the measures, Quinn said, there are “legitimate reasons why the public might want to vote on the compacts,” which authorize a major expansion with up to 17,000 more slot machines at the four reservations. In addition to Sycuan and Pechanga, the agreements authorize expansions for the Morongo tribe near Banning and Agua Caliente of Palm Springs.

“There is a growing backlash against casinos,” Quinn said. “They are the cause of traffic problems, environmental problems . . . so it’s a decent public issue.”

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to voter education, said she found the situation disconcerting.

“It’s hard for voters to wrap their heads around referendums anyway,” she said. “Then, when you throw into the mix this possibility that, regardless of what voters do, the final outcome may be determined by agreements with the federal government, it’s frustrating.”

Overview Background: Legislation ratifying four Indian gambling agreements was suspended when opponents filed initiatives to overturn them. The compacts were still sent to the U.S. Interior Department for approval.What happened: A 45-day period lapsed, giving the compacts automatic approval even though they never received federal review.

What’s new: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he contacted the secretary of the interior to urge federal approval of the compacts, even with a statewide vote on the measures pending Feb. 5. The governor, who negotiated the compacts, earlier supported a lawsuit trying to get the referendum measures off the ballot.

Staff writer Matthew T. Hall and Copley News Service correspondent Michael Gardner contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2007 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Posted on January 18th, 2008 by hunwut
Filed under: Gaming