Casino compacts go bust

Deals that would have allowed four Inland tribes to operate mega-casinos with thousands of new slot machines are dead until at least next year.

After a massive labor union push against the agreements, the state Senate refused to bring three Inland tribes' gaming compacts up for a vote Thursday, the final day of the legislative session. Hours later, a fourth agreement failed again to win ratification by the Assembly.

The deals that tribes reached this month with Gov. Schwarzenegger will remain on hold until after the next legislative session gets under way in January.

"I'm not going to blame anyone. I mean, that's neither here nor there to blame anyone. It didn't work. The forces that were opposing us were stronger than we were," said Richard Milanovich, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of Palm Springs, minutes after the Assembly rejected the band's amended compact.

"We're not going to give up," Milanovich added.

Union officials hailed Thursday's outcome. They had argued that the Agua Caliente deal and other amended compacts contained insufficient protections for casino workers.

"It's a watershed moment in my view. If they want to expand, they need to realize that they need ... the workers with them," said Jack Gribbon, California political director for the hotel and restaurant employees union UNITE HERE.

A Schwarzenegger spokesman said the governor's office will continue to push the Legislature to ratify the agreements.

"The governor signs compacts when he feels he's getting the best possible deal for the state," spokesman Darrel Ng said. "He continues to support the compacts and will work to get them passed next year." Two other gaming compacts also died for the year Thursday. They covered the Sycuan tribe in San Diego County and the Yurok tribe in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, the state's largest and poorest tribe.

Yet it was the agreements with the four wealthy Inland tribes that were the focus of some of the most intense lobbying of any end-of-session issue. The Agua Caliente compact would allow the tribe to operate up to 5,000 slot machines at three casinos. Agreements with the Morongo Band of Mission Indians near Banning, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians near Temecula, and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians near Highland would let those tribes operate 7,500 slot machines each, more than any casino in the world.

In return, the tribes had agreed to pay the state at least a combined $147.6 million annually, along with potentially millions more depending on how many slot machines they added.

After allowing a vote last week on the Agua Caliente deal, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata refused to allow a vote on the other agreements.

"Because of the late date that the Legislature received the gaming compacts that the administration has been working on for months, and because of the importance and complexity of these compacts, the Senate cannot act on them until the 2006-07 session begins in December," said Perata, D-Oakland.

The state Senate approved the Agua Caliente deal last week. Ratifying the additional compacts, however, would have been a painful vote for Democratic senators following days of intense lobbying against the compacts by their traditional union allies -- particularly with no guarantee that the Assembly would act on the agreements. Assembly Democrats were irritated by the short amount of time they got to review the compacts, said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles. More than half of the Democrats are leaving the Assembly this year. Nunez said the compacts should wait for the next session when new lawmakers are in place.

"I think there are folks who quite frankly don't feel compelled to having to take a vote on this and would rather just like to pass this along to the next generation of legislators," he said. "I don't want to expose them to a vote that they don't want to take."

In a last-ditch effort to get at least one of the deals ratified Thursday, tribal leaders signed a letter announcing that they all backed the Agua Caliente deal pending in the Assembly.

"We consider a vote on the Agua compact a vote on all of our compacts, and urge your approval of this compact," the letter read. The thinking reflected the belief that getting the Assembly to ratify the Agua Caliente deal would undermine Perata's justification for refusing to take up the other compacts.

But after falling Monday in the Assembly, 33-27, the Agua Caliente agreement failed again Thursday, 35-23, short of the absolute majority of 41 votes necessary.

There was a sense that the Agua Caliente deal might have hurt chances for the other agreements because of the tribe's acrimonious history with UNITE HERE.

The union has spent less time trying to organize Morongo employees. The San Manuel tribe already has a collective-bargaining agreement with its workers.

And the Pechanga tribe gained a powerful labor ally for its compact. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which has a multimillion-dollar political war chest, came out in favor of the deal.

But state Sen. Jim Battin, R-La Quinta, praised Agua Caliente leaders and blamed Perata and Nunez for the compacts' demise. He and Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, were co-authors of the tribe's compact bill.

"This is an absolute assault on tribes by the speaker and the Democrats, no questions about it," Battin said.

Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said the governor and tribal leaders need to retool the compacts.

"This was setting an important precedent and we couldn't allow that to happen," Pulaski said. "That brought out the activism of our members."