Holdout tribe debates signing Indian gambling compact with governor

About 200 tribal members met Sunday with their council and chairman, Richard Milanovich, who planned to return to Sacramento Monday and make a final decision, a spokesman for the chairman said. The tribe has a 1,200-slot casino, one of the biggest in the state.

The Agua Caliente leader was among more than 300 tribal leaders from throughout California who spent the last two weeks in closed-door marathon talks with a Davis negotiating team.

Leaders of other tribes finally signed 20-year compacts with Davis on Friday, ensuring them a monopoly on slots and Nevada-style blackjack despite a recent court ruling against Proposition 5, the Indian gambling ballot measure approved by voters last year.

As the Agua Caliente tribe weighed its next step, Davis, in a statement published Sunday, rejected criticism that he acted too quickly in coming to an agreement with the other tribes.

"This quick action was the right thing to do," Davis said. "It restores stability and economic security to the gaming tribes and extends real opportunity to non-gaming tribes. Finally, it keeps faith with the electoral mandate in Proposition 5 and my public commitment to responsibly manage the growth of tribal gaming."

The agreement includes a constitutional amendment that will go to the voters next March. The Agua Caliente tribe says it has enough signatures to qualify a broader constitutional change, but Davis said it probably would fail a constitutionality test just as Proposition 5 did.

The ballot plan endorsed by the governor and approved Friday by lawmakers would double the number of Indian slots, capping the total at about 43,000. Those signing included tribes that have or plan to have casinos. There are 107 tribes in California, and 40 already have clubs.

Milanovich said he balked at signing on Friday because troublesome compact provisions include state controls over Indian gambling which overrule tribal authority.

A key element in getting the compacts signed on the last day of the 1999 legislative session was a decision to put aside for another month the controversial issue of union rights for casino workers.

Under the final plan, the labor proposal would have to be endorsed by each tribe by Oct. 13 or the newly signed compacts would be nullified.

That will give all sides more time to work out terms acceptable to unions, which want strong protections for casino employees, and for tribes, which fear that including such a requirement in the compacts infringes on their sovereignty.

Also, any tribes that didn't agree to compacts Friday could sign up through that date - although they wouldn't have legislative ratification until Jan. 3, when California lawmakers open their next regular session.

As long as they sign by mid-October, tribes with casinos wouldn't have to worry about U.S. attorneys enforcing an earlier federal court order to shut down. But Davis said he was assured that federal officers would move against non-signers with casinos after that.

The compacts set up a system of fees and taxes, based on numbers of slots in each casino and on acquisition of slot rights from non-gambling tribes, that would generate about $100 million a year. Part of the money would be used by the state to cover regulatory costs and to fund gambling addiction programs.

Tribes could have up to 2,000 slots and two casinos apiece, and under a revenue-sharing arrangement each tribe that decides not to open casinos would get $1.1 million a year.

The tribes were forced to the bargaining table when the state Supreme Court last month overturned Proposition 5 on grounds the measure allowed Nevada-style gambling banned by the state constitution.

Proposition 5 was approved by 63 percent of the voters last November after a campaign that cost nearly $100 million, a national record for a ballot measure.

About two-thirds of the money came from tribes who sponsored the initiative. The opposition campaign was largely bankrolled by Nevada casinos, whose owners feared competition from the Indians' casinos.

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