Gov. Schwarzenegger Counts Casino Deals
Posted on January 19, 2008 - Filed Under NEWS
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA– Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the people’s governor abandoned his democrat roots in the fight to save four big Indian gaming deals he negotiated. Governor Schwarzenegger’s principal argument in favor of the casino expansions is that they will generate new money for the state’s General Fund.
The governor contacted the US Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, to urge federal approval of the compacts throughout the entire state to vote on the measures pending until Feb. 5, 2008. The governor, who negotiated the compacts, earlier supported a lawsuit trying to get the referendum measures off the ballot.The US Interior Department automatically approved the multibillion-dollar deals for Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula and the two other tribes when they enigmatically proved after reportedly having been lost for 80 days at the agency but the Interior officials said they still don’t know what happened to the agreements during that time.
The Federal law gives the agency 45 days to move the gaming agreement. These four tribal compacts were approved without any federal review if they’re neither approved nor rejected during that time, the deals must be “deemed” approved.
Gov. Schwarzenegger is asking Sec. Kempthorne to finish the process during their telephone conversation. He urged to the Secretary that sometimes political leaders simply need to take actions of it. If the compacts are rejected on Feb. 5, it is unclear whether the federal approval may prevail and render the California vote meaningless on Propositions 94 to 97.
Schwarzenegger aggressively support the four compacts, sending a letter endorsing a tribal lawsuit seeking to block a vote on the gaming measures.
“I appreciate your quick follow-through with the issues we discussed relating to our Indian compacts,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “We both know that sometimes it takes our getting involved personally on these things to make the real action happen, and this was clearly one of those situations.”
The governor said yesterday that he saw no contradictions in his preference for direct democracy and his actions in regard to the compacts, which promise a large new revenue stream for the strapped state budget. He added that Californians have already voted twice in support of tribal gaming.
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