What a racket! The Indians are running ads in California backing McClintock in order to pull down the vote for Arnold and let Cruz win. Shades of what Grey Davis did in the primaries last year. The Indian Money is about to take over the state.
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Indian Givers--II
Tribes that run California casinos aim to run the whole state.
John Fund - WSJ.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2003 12:01 a.m.
California state judge Loren McMaster ruled this week that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante violated campaign laws by paying for a TV ad campaign with more than $3 million from Indian casinos and unions, donated in violation of state contribution limits. Richie Ross, Mr. Bustamante's campaign manager, says the campaign has already spent the money and thus can't comply with the judge's order to return it to the donors. The controversy will dog Mr. Bustamante's campaign as well as raise questions about the disproportionate influence that Indian casinos now exercise in California government.
When Californians voted in 2000 to give Indian tribes a monopoly on casino-style gambling in the state it was in part out of guilt for the exploitation and poverty that are part of the tragic history of indigenous Americans. But now the tables have turned, and massive political contributions from Indian tribes may determine who the state's governor will be and give the Indians unassailable political clout. Mr. Bustamante, the Democrat who is leading in the polls for the Oct. 7 recall election, is totally supportive of tribal interests. His own brother manages an Indian casino.
Key Indian tribes aren't satisfied with pumping more than $5 million into Mr. Bustamante's campaign. Polls suggest that Mr. Bustamante has stalled, so the only way to prevent a surge from Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger may be to shift some of his conservative support to maverick State Sen. Tom McClintock, who is running between 14% and 18% in the latest surveys. Last Friday the Morongo Band of Mission Indians began airing independent-expenditure ads in support of Mr. McClintock. The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation has also ponied up a large sum for a similar independent expenditure.
John Stoos, Mr. McClintock's campaign manager, told me that his boss has nothing to do with the ad campaigns but welcomes them as appropriate support given the senator's longtime backing of tribal sovereignty. Jon Fleischman, a former president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, says "it makes sense that Bustamante would have his Indian tribe allies 'use' McClintock's candidacy to plow into Schwarzenegger from the right, and pull down his numbers."
The Indians apparently agree. The Morongo TV ad touts the news that "independent polls show that McClintock has the momentum to win." Sources tell me they have seen a memo from David Quintana, the legal counsel for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, that was sent to tribal leaders. In it Mr. Quintana raised a warning flag about Mr. Schwarzenegger's positions and his reliance on several aides to former governor Pete Wilson, a skeptic on the expansion of Indian gambling. "This is war, we're going after Arnold Schwarzenegger," the memo concluded. The decision to invest in an effort to stop Mr. Schwarzenegger was made at a private strategy meeting last month, from which several more-moderate tribes were excluded. Participants discussed the need to keep Mr. McClintock in the race on "life support."
In an interview, Mr. Quintana complained that Mr. Schwarzenegger has directly attacked Indian tribes as "a special interest" but added that "any internal memo written by me about him should not be viewed as representative of the position of the tribes." But since that memo was written, millions in Indian casino money has flowed to promote Mr. Bustamante and Mr. McClintock at the expense of the Republican front-runner--at least until Judge McMaster's order halted some of the most brazen expenditures.
The irony is that Mr. Quintana is a Republican who previously served as tribal liaison for Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte. Worried that Indian tribes were giving exclusively to Democrats, Mr. Brulte had Mr. Quintana organize a summit with Indian leaders in 2001 to make a pitch for them to back Republicans also. Mr. Brulte remains a strong supporter of tribal sovereignty but admits he now has concerns about Indian interference in politics.
Indeed, Republicans are in danger of becoming as addicted as Democrats to Indian money. This summer, GOP state Sen. Jim Battin sent sales pitches to three Indian tribes offering them the services of his consulting firm in public relations and advertising. Mr. Battin sits on a committee that oversees gambling issues and represents a San Diego district with several Indian casinos. At first he defended his solicitations and noted that California law permits lawmakers to have outside business interests. Then mounting criticism from fellow senators, including Mr. Brulte, prompted him to drop his effort at rustling up business from the tribes.
But savvy Republicans say they can never compete with Democrats in pandering for Indian support. Last year Indian tribes made a large independent expenditure on behalf of the Libertarian candidate in a key state Senate race in an unsuccessful effort to steer votes away from the Republican nominee. That political play resembles the one the Indians are now making to keep Mr. McClintock in the race for governor.
The Indians' tactics are reminiscent of Gov. Gray Davis's intervention in the GOP primary for governor last year, when he spent some $10 million on TV ads attacking former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan in a successful effort to derail his candidacy and in favor of conservative Bill Simon. Mr. Davis went on to defeat Mr. Simon narrowly, only to face a recall effort this year after he was accused of covering up the severity of the state's fiscal crisis.
The Indians have also used their clout to punish Democrats. In 2001, Antonio Villaraigosa was on the verge of becoming the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles. But the Indian tribes recalled that in 1998, when Mr. Villaraigosa was Assembly speaker, he backed a bill to force the tribes to grant collective-bargaining rights to their employees, most of whom are non-Indian. The tribes plowed $350,000 into an effort to defeat Mr. Villaraigosa, who narrowly lost. This year they also contributed heavily to an effort to deny him a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. He won nonetheless. "Even the dimmest politicians in this state are fully aware of the Indians' ability to put them out of a job," concluded the Los Angeles Times.
So too are regulators. John Hensley had a long career in law enforcement and retired in 2000 as the No. 2 man at the U.S. Customs Service, where he had specialized in money-laundering investigations. A member of the Comanche tribe of Oklahoma, he was tapped in 2000 by Gov. Davis to chair the state's new five-member Gambling Control Commission, which theoretically has oversight responsibilities over Indian casinos. He told me the state body is especially needed because the National Indian Gaming Commission has a grand total of only 65 employees, including only two investigators and one auditor for the entire West Coast. But Mr. Hensley's commission was starved of both funds and cooperation. It never had more than four members, and the office of Attorney General Bill Lockyer said that enforcement of Indian gambling was the responsibility of local sheriffs rather than the AG's office.
After two years of unrelenting attacks, a frustrated Mr. Hensley announced he was leaving last year. He reluctantly stayed on until May of this year in hopes that Mr. Davis would name a suitable replacement. When he didn't, Mr. Hensley left. He is appalled that the governor has now promised the tribes that if he isn't recalled from office he would allow them to name two of the members on the Gambling Control Commission.
Gov. Davis has gone further and also promised to sign a bill that would give Indian tribes the power to stop development on private land within five miles of a sacred tribal site. The Indians would themselves be allowed to select the sacred sites and then keep their location secret. The potential for abusive shakedowns of developers is obvious to anyone. The bill failed at the 11th hour in the state Legislature this month, but even its opponents say it will likely pass and become law if either Mr. Davis or Mr. Bustamante is the governor.
The Indians are seeking all these additional advantages at a time when they are already sitting pretty. The Los Angeles Times calls them "California's principal growth industry." Because they enjoy tribal sovereignty and pay no property, sales or corporate taxes, the state's 54 Indian casinos rake in over $5 billion a year, a sum bigger than the take in Atlantic City and more than half that of neighboring Nevada. Indian slot machines can legally offer a payout of only 70 cents on the dollar, compared with 90 cents at Las Vegas casinos. They can allow gamblers under 21, and they also make a pretty penny selling tax-free cigarettes.
To protect all that loot, the tribes have become the biggest political givers in the state by spending $125 million on California politics since 1998. Untold millions that can't be traced have been contributed by individual tribal members who are flush with cash from payouts of casino profits. Indian tribes are also exempt from the contribution and issue-advocacy bans in the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.
Of course, only a small minority of Indians benefit from any casino bounty. The New Republic reports that of 300,000 Californians who identify themselves as Indians only 32,000 are members of federally recognized tribes who can offer gambling. Less than a third of that number belong to the tribes that now operate casinos. Some of the wealthiest casino tribes have very few members: Rumsey has 42, Cabazon has 25, and the Augustine tribe has only one adult member. The tribes with casinos do contribute to a fund that doles out some money to other tribes, but Indians from unrecognized tribes don't benefit at all.
Opponents say that nationwide gambling has developed problems that call into question its claims as economic self-sufficiency program. Leo McCarthy, a former Democratic lieutenant governor, worries that the Indians are on the verge of winning approval for new gambling palaces that are much closer to cities. He fears that the number of problem gamblers in California could double to 1.4 million, a tremendous social burden the tribes will do little to pay for. "If gambling isn't properly regulated it attracts loan sharking, money laundering, drugs and organized crime," says Mr. Hensley. "Groups of dubious Indian descent often act as front-men for powerful non-Indian investors hoping to reap gambling riches," says journalist Micah Morrison. "They often influence politicians into looking the other way at whatever they do."
Jill Stewart, a syndicated columnist, says that Indians should be concerned that their image is quickly changing from that of people who deserve a helping hand to become self-sufficient to one of "sneaky, backroom players in politics who are increasingly viewed as bad neighbors." Most Indians don't benefit from gambling, but all are tarred by the tactics of the casino owners. Neal McCaleb, the head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, also is concerned about the hardball tactics he sees in California. "It makes me wonder what's next."
An ever more powerful Indian gambling lobby, it would appear. Just last week the Pauma Indian Band, which has 176 members, announced it had inked a $250 million deal to build a giant Caesar's Palace casino and 500-room hotel on tribal land in San Diego. Should Mr. Davis survive or Mr. Bustamante succeed him, the betting is that the Indian casino owners would become the lobbying kingpins of state government. "In Sacramento, the tribes never lose," says Dan Walters, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee and the dean of the Capitol press corps. "They always get their way. That may be even more true after the election in October."
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