Agua Caliente tribe signs Indian gambling compact with governor

The compact which Davis signed Tuesday with the wealthy Agua Caliente tribe, which operates a casino with 1,200 slot machines near Palm Springs, also includes an agreement to allow unions to organize casino workers, a key issue sought by Davis and previously resisted by most of the state's tribes.

Davis signed compacts with 57 other tribes Friday. But the Agua Caliente tribe balked at conditions which tribal leaders said violated their sovereignty or which limited casino expansion.

"In the 11th hour of the 20th century, we have sought to make right with the first Americans," Davis said as he stood beside Richard Milanovich, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. "This took a lot of hard work and a lot of faith and good will."

"We have gone over a lot of documents in the past, and we have been bitten," Milanovich said, explaining his delay in signing. He added that he is confident that the compact with Davis is "equitable."

The Palm Springs tribe is a leader of California's tribal gambling movement and had considered bankrolling a ballot initiative in March aimed at reinstating a 1998 initiative overturned by the California Supreme Court.

That measure would have allowed a nearly unlimited increase in casino-style gambling on Indian reservations. The pact with Davis allows expansion from the current 18,000 slots to about 43,000.

Davis said he believes the compacts are true to his campaign promises to support "a modest, not excessive, increase" in tribal gambling in California.

Although not part of the written compact, Milanovich and Davis said the tribe agreed that it would not seek a new ballot initiative next year.

Milanovich's tribe is the first one to agree to the union provision, which Milanovich said he accepted after concluding that it "doesn't infringe on tribal sovereignty."

Other changes from the pacts signed last week with other tribes allow Agua Caliente to renegotiate how much revenue it shares with the state if a court overturns the portion of the proposal giving tribes the exclusive right to operate video slot machines in California.

Davis said that provision was added as a matter of fairness to the tribes because their revenues would decline if they lost the exclusive right to those games. He also said that other tribes could amend their agreements to include similar provisions contained in the Agua Caliente compact.

The agreements ward off a U.S. Justice Department threat to enforce a federal court order that would have shut down the tribes' slots and low-stakes blackjack games in mid-October. Even before that ruling, a federal judge in Los Angeles had ordered some casinos closed.

But federal prosecutors said that if tribes and the state demonstrated a good-faith effort to reach agreements, they would hold off enforcing the order until voters could consider a new constitutional amendment on the ballot next March. Passage of that measure is required for the agreement with the tribes to take effect.

Nevada casinos, which have more than 200,000 slot machines, have fought the introduction of Las Vegas-style gambling at Indian casinos because they do not want the competition. Indian tribes say they desperately need the money, although many have already become rich from casino gambling.

Davis said the signing should put to rest the long and contentious negotiations both he and his predecessor, Pete Wilson, had with the tribes over gambling. The campaign by the tribes for Proposition 5, the Indian gambling initiative overturned by the courts, cost $92 million last year.

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