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California Tribes Launch Campaign

SACRAMENTO, California – As reported by the LA Times: "Indian tribes that own casinos launched a campaign Wednesday to pressure Sheriff Lee Baca to abandon a proposed initiative that would threaten their monopoly on Nevada-style gambling in California.

"Consultants for the tribes released a mailer sent to Los Angeles County voters denouncing the initiative — although it has not yet qualified for the ballot. And they held a telephone news conference to associate Baca, one of the measure's official proponents, with Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, one of its financial backers.

"…The mail will start arriving at voters' homes today, before petitions to place it on the ballot have even been submitted to officials and more than six months before voters go to the polls.

"Although the mailers don't name Baca or Blanas, the broadside is timed to pressure the elected officials to abandon the initiative by not authorizing the submission of the petitions. Once the petition signatures — which backers plan to submit Friday — are counted and validated, and if the measure is deemed qualified, backers cannot change their minds.

"..The initiative, supported largely by card clubs and horse racetracks, would require tribes that own casinos to pay a far larger share — 25% — of their revenue to the state than they now pay, and to comply with an array of other rules. If a single tribe declined, slot machines would no longer be restricted to Indian land, and 11 card rooms and five racetracks would win the right to divide 30,000 of the devices…"

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