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Wealth breeds 'poverty of soul' Ten years after the casino cash started flowing, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' good fortune is on display across the peaceful Capay Valley. Thanks to their Cache Creek Casino Resort – which makes about $300 million a year and is scheduled to expand – each of the 26 adults in the 60-member nation gets about $1 million a year after taxes, more if they're on the tribal council or committees. They get a travel allowance to expand their horizons to Tahiti, Europe or anyplace they desire. They own luxury cars, custom homes on the...

This is an upcoming book, available on Amazon.com for pre-sale,presumably due to release closer to the November 2008 election to do more harm to McCain. Here is the book description, as provided on Amazon: The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Jack Abramoff (Hardcover) by Gary S. Chafetz (Author) Product Details Hardcover: 480 pagesPublisher: Martin & Lawrence Press (September 5, 2008)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 097738988XISBN-13: 978-0977389889 Product Description Gary Chafetz is a liberal Boston journalist who set out to chronicle the scandal involving conservative gun-for-hire and super-lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Instead he uncovered a Shakespearean tragedy of deceit, betrayal and political...

Just a few months ago, images of smiling children, police officers and firefighters filled TV screens and mailboxes across the state, urging voters to support major casino expansions for four Southern California tribes. Gov. Schwarzenegger and other government officials promised that the tribes would help balance the state's troubled budget with an influx of gambling dollars. The casino riches would help protect state funding for schools, police and fire departments, health care and roads, the tribes and their supporters said. Voters approved the deals, but recent signs suggest the promises may not pan out. Deals touted as a sure-fire way...

In another sign of the flagging economy, Pechanga Resort and Casino said yesterday that it plans to lay off more than 8 percent of its work force, or roughly 400 of its nearly 4,800 employees. The layoffs, to begin at a date still to be determined, will be the first in the 13-year history of the Temecula casino, which ranks among the biggest and most successful in the nation. With the move, Pechanga joins a number of Indian casinos in San Diego County and elsewhere that have trimmed their work force as attendance begins to reflect growing unemployment and soaring...

SACRAMENTO – A bipartisan measure that authorizes a large group of California Indian tribes to operate up to 2,000 slot machines each sailed out of the state Senate yesterday despite late opposition from San Diego County. The legislation would redefine terms of 61 compacts negotiated in 1999 to grant each of the tribes up to 2,000 slot machines. That includes local tribes such as Rincon, San Pasqual and Jamul, which are itching to expand or build new casinos. “It's a truth-in-advertising measure,” said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Temecula Republican whose district includes the Rincon and San Pasqual reservations. “The tribes...

SACRAMENTO – California's first inspection of slot machines at Indian casinos has found widespread software lapses that could be short-changing tribes, the state and millions of gamblers, the state's gambling commission warns in a new report. State inspectors approved just 60 percent of the slots that were examined last year at seven casinos, which included some of the most successful and sophisticated in the nation. But tribal representatives and commission staff members disagreed sharply about the severity of the software shortcomings flagged in nearly 500 machines examined at the casinos, including those operated by the Pala, Pauma and Viejas tribes...

SACRAMENTO - As the nation prepares to celebrate Problem Gambling Awareness Week, the head of California's small program is preparing to move on. Steve Hedrick, director of the state's Office of Problem Gambling, will be joining the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in its division of addiction and recovery services. Hedrick presided over the formative years of an operation that has subsisted on a meager, $3 million budget and drawn persistent criticism for being ill-equipped to deal with a problem believed to afflict more than 1 million California adults and their families. On Hedrick's watch, the office conducted the...

Several of California's largest gaming tribes have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a little-known body to successfully speed up their land applications - a necessary step for casino expansion, Capitol Weekly has learned. The California Fee to Trust Consortium was established under the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs Pacific Regional office in 2000 in order to expedite land claims, many of which have languished for years. The consortium arrangement allows tribes to pay into a fund that pays the salaries of the BIA employees who evaluate these claims. Documents about the little-known governmental organization came to light following...

PALM SPRINGS – A state senator has introduced legislation that would enable a large group of Indian tribes to expand existing casinos or build large new ones without further negotiations with the state. Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, said his proposal would allow all 61 tribes that negotiated gambling agreements, or compacts, with former Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 to have up to 2,000 slots each, the number many tribes believe were promised by the deals. But the California Gambling Control Commission had voted to limit all tribes in the state to roughly 60,000 slots, based on the commission's interpretation...

The Santa Ysabel casino overlooking Lake Henshaw opened in April to much fanfare, but it has been hampered by a bad economy, wildfires and torrential rains that closed roads leading to it. The San Ysabel Band of Diegueño Indians, which owns the 349-slot gambling hall in North County, has fallen $410,144 behind in payments to the county for sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, ambulance service, fire protection and treatment for problem and pathological gamblers. “It hasn't been what we expected,” Santa Ysabel Tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez said. “Look at what we've been through. “You just have enough money to keep yourself open....

Southern California gamblers can try their luck this weekend on shiny new slot machines just days after voters approved four Indian gambling expansion plans. Workers have been busy installing some of the 17,000 slot machines allowed in new deals approved by voters Tuesday for four tribes. The new deals, known as amended compacts, allow the tribes to expand in exchange for sharing their slot-machine revenue with the state. The first payments, expected to be more than $40 million, are due to the state at the end of the fiscal year June 30, according to the governor's office's lowest estimates. That...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he's counting on four wealthy Indian tribes and their expanding gambling operations to help close California's massive budget shortfall. Voters gave their blessing Tuesday to the deals allowing the tribes to add thousands of slot machines. Now the question is: will the money really make much of a difference? Propositions 94-97 give the tribes rights to 17,000 additional slot machines in exchange for promises to share hundreds of millions of dollars annually with the cash-strapped state. With about 96 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning, the measures were leading by a margin of 56 percent...

SACRAMENTO – When Californians vote on Indian gambling agreements tomorrow, much more than the fate of those four deals may be hanging in the balance. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who negotiated the compacts, disclosed in recent days that he wants to approve a lot more tribal gaming before he leaves office in three years. “I'm interested in one thing, and one thing only, that . . . the Indian gaming tribes pay their fair share, and . . . that we in California get the money, because we need the money,” Schwarzenegger said last week. Schwarzenegger said he expects future agreements...

The California Republican Party is struggling to get out of debt, creating a potential drag on voter registration and other party-building efforts in the midst of a heated campaign season, records showed Thursday. As of last week, the state GOP's main account had a balance of $3.2 million but $3.4 million in unpaid obligations. The party's federal account - used to finance activities that support congressional candidates - listed a balance of $34,000 but nearly $460,000 in debts, according to records filed last month. The shaky finances are due in large part to sluggish fundraising. The party collected $5.6 million...

(snip) In television ads that began airing the first week of January, Governor Schwarzenegger urges voters to endorse Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97, which would expand gambling operations. ... The agreements allow four tribes [Agua Caliente, Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan] ... to add 17,000 slot machines to the existing 8,000. In exchange, the tribes will give the state between 15 and 25 percent of the revenue from the added machines. Last May, Schwarzenegger estimated that the compacts would generate $293 million just this fiscal year, but state finance spokesman H. D. Palmer says this figure has since been revised downward...

A staggering amount of money is being spent to persuade state voters to ratify four Indian gambling deals. If approved, Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 would authorize 17,000 more slot machines for four of the state's wealthiest gambling tribes. The deals would catapult California into the gambling big leagues, well beyond the modest increase voters were promised when they first authorized Nevada-style gambling for tribes in 1998. This page has consistently opposed the expansion of gambling, beginning with the state lottery. We oppose the new gambling deals contained in these referendum initiatives, too. Gambling is the wrong way to...

Ballots, are being sent. What are your thoughts for Props: 91 - Transportation funds, Constitutional Amendment 93 - Limits on legislators Terms in in Office - Constitutional amendment 94, 95, 96 and 97 - Referendum on amendment to Indian gaming

As state lawmakers Thursday voted to allow four of California's richest casino gambling tribes to add a total of up to 17,000 slot machines, the vote was a humbling defeat for organized labor. Before the final vote, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez declared that he had extracted verbal promises that unions could organize workers on tribal lands. But securing the last-minute statements -- which have no force of law -- was merely a face-saving gesture for many Democratic lawmakers long allied with labor. The result left Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, fuming. Even before the final vote,...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that the state could balance its budget next year with revenue from bigger Indian casinos is unrealistic, a report released Friday by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst says. Schwarzenegger's proposal to let tribes install some 22,500 new slot machines and then collect more than $500 million in new fees and taxes from them is critical to his plan to wipe out the state's chronic budget deficit next year. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who in recent weeks has blasted the governor's spending plan for relying on rosy revenue projections, on Friday took aim at its...

TEMECULA – Seeking to reverse recent setbacks and improve their long-range political position, California's gambling tribes moved yesterday to establish common ground with labor-backed Democrats who blocked five new gambling compacts last summer. The tribes not only invited Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to speak at a national gaming conference at Pechanga Resort and Casino, but also embraced him as someone who “could be one of our own,” and then gave him an extended standing ovation. Afterward, tribal leaders and others lined up to have pictures taken with the mayor. Just six years ago, some of the same tribes helped...

Once steeped in poverty, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians has become one of the nation's wealthiest tribes thanks to casino gambling. Now the Southern California tribe is using its riches to fund a potentially precedent-setting legal fight contending that tribes are exempt from federal labor laws because they are sovereign governments. A ruling against San Manuel could open the door for unions to organize an estimated 250,000 workers - dealers, servers, cooks - at the nation's 400-plus tribal casinos. Except for a handful in California, tribal casinos are generally not unionized; unions say it's difficult to make inroads...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to announce a deal Tuesday to permit one of the state's richest tribes to open a third casino in the Palm Springs area, a pact that could open a new round of gambling expansion in California. Top Schwarzenegger administration officials said today that the governor and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are expected to sign a deal that would permit the tribe to have up to 5,000 slot machines. The tribe, which in recent years has been one of the governor's main antagonists, is currently authorized to have 2,000 slot machines in...

A telling trend has emerged in California over the last year -- California voters from the ranchlands of Glenn and Colusa counties to the desert prairie of Barstow have said "no" to developers looking to exploit a tribe's legal status and establish casinos on non-Indian lands -- what is known as "off-reservation gaming." All over California, developers are looking to move tribes off of their historical ancestral lands and move them -- oftentimes hundreds of miles and even across state lines -- to gaming markets identified by the developers. The message sent by voters in recent elections is particularly ripe...

Trying to appease another well-heeled political enemy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger held a closed-door meeting last week with representatives of 68 California Indian tribes, offering to negotiate new gambling compacts. The Republican governor fielded questions from tribal leaders -- some who operate casinos and others who want to -- in a hotel conference room across the street from the Capitol. Schwarzenegger apologized for not meeting personally with the members of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association earlier to discuss the scope of gambling in the state, which is home to 56 Indian casinos. "He said he was open to negotiating with...

Gov. Schwarzenegger met for the first time ever with Inland tribal leaders Wednesday, signifying a marked change in his approach to tribes he once accused of "ripping off" taxpayers and not paying their "fair share" into the state's general fund. Tribal leaders emerged from the nearly 80-minute private talk with cautious praise for the governor but with no promises of new agreements on gaming or other issues. Schwarzenegger told the tribes he wants to talk to them individually about renegotiating the pacts that allow them to operate casinos, which the tribes said they are willing to consider. Mark Macarro, chairman...

SACRAMENTO – Three years after bashing Indian gaming tribes on the way to the governor's office, Arnold Schwarzenegger is quietly reaching out to California's most powerful tribal leaders as he prepares for what could be a difficult re-election campaign. The overtures, similar to those the Republican governor has made in recent months to other special interests he has battled, could lead to another round of gambling expansion while chilling possible tribal opposition to his bid for a second term. “Schwarzenegger may never convince these tribes to be his biggest backers, but if he can talk them down to neutral, that...

Gov. Schwarzenegger has angered Legislative Democrats, Republicans and the Department of the Interior by negotiating gaming compacts with Indian tribes to run casinos off reservation land. But with rumors in the Capitol that another major compact deal is imminent, Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, chairman of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, is trying to stop the new compact before it is introduced. The new gaming deal with the North Fork tribe in Madera County has some powerful proponents-including Las Vegas gaming interests. Among them is Station Casinos, a Nevada gaming company that has a deal to manage the North Fork tribe's...

Last year, California Indian gaming stole the gambling crown, generating more profits than Nevada's iconic casinos. Unfortunately, this barely-regulated new economy has holes big enough and pockets deep enough to swallow entire communities like San Pablo, California and the entire East Bay. In 2000, Congressman George Miller of Contra Costa infamously slipped into a House budget omnibus bill an amendment to the 1988 Indian Gaming Affairs Regulatory Act, retroactively giving the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians a nine-acre reservation smack in the center of San Pablo. They have since installed almost 1,000 slot machines at Casino San Pablo. This is...

SACRAMENTO – As congressional leaders and others call for new constraints on off-reservation Indian gaming, the Schwarzenegger administration is preparing to roll out its fourth such casino compact in two years. The pending agreement would allow the North Fork Rancheria band of central California to build a large casino-resort adjacent to busy state Route 99 just outside the city of Madera. The deal is expected to be announced within weeks, sources close to the negotiations said. The proposal is sailing into a stiff political head wind, with bipartisan opposition to off-reservation gaming building from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. Sen. John...

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) - The chairman of a Southern California Indian tribe that gave $10 million to indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff apologized Wednesday to other tribal leaders for the ensuing scandal that has tainted many tribes. Richard Milanovich, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, said tribal officials had only good intentions when they hired Abramoff. He told delegates at the Western Indian Gaming Conference that fallout from the scandal already is hurting the image of tribes in Washington. Abramoff pleaded guilty last week to felony charges involving influence peddling. "It really pains me. It hurts...

$1 billion issue may still face additional legal challenges SACRAMENTO – The state moved yesterday to cash in on the public's biggest prize from gambling agreements negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – a $1 billion transportation bond financed by five Indian tribes, including three from San Diego County. Initial preparations for a bond sale that could take place early next year were approved by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank although the bonds still may face legal obstacles. The state's major horse racetracks and a large Los Angeles-area card club have blocked the bonds for nearly a year with...

Saying he questions a sovereign Indian tribe’s role in a local government process, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger late on Friday vetoed the bill that would have made the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians an official partner in managing Conaway Ranch, if Yolo County officials acquire it through eminent domain. The legislation, AB 1747 by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would have made the tribe a member alongside Yolo County officials and others of the joint powers authority created for Conaway Ranch. The tribe has offered to loan the county money for the acquisition. The county and tribe say the veto does not...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has launched his fall offensive to turn the polls around, pass key reforms and regain momentum. The stakes are high and both sides are spending every dime to influence voter and pundit opinion. But Arnold would be wise to set aside his recent tactics and learn instead from the California tribal experience. The strange journey taken by California's Indian tribes is a profound lesson about how far and fast the popular can fall in the realm of public opinion. In 2000, the tribes were granted permission to erect casinos in California, thanks to voters driven in large...

Powerful gaming tribes' "control" of the Legislature is behind lawmakers' opposition to recent tribal-casino agreements negotiated by his administration, Gov. Schwarzenegger said Tuesday. "What has happened is that every time we come to agreement on a compact, we have the big tribes lobby up here and they control the legislators," Schwarzenegger said. The governor spoke during an afternoon of interviews with Capitol reporters for The Press-Enterprise and other newspapers. He touted his "year of reform" agenda on the November special-election ballot. Campaigning for office in 2003 with a promise to extract a "fair share" of tribal-casino revenue for the state,...

Hiding beneath the cloak of sovereign immunity federally recognized Indian tribes can ignore virtually any state law, many federal laws and violate the Constitutional rights of non-Indians with seeming impunity. While I am not a legal expert on tribal sovereignty, based upon my own first-hand experience as a Commander of a State Police unit monitoring tribal gaming on a Connecticut reservation, I do not believe this is the outcome or state of affairs that either Congress or the courts expected or anticipated. I have analyzed numerous state-tribe gaming compacts that allow tribes in most instances to create and apply their...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A bill already working its way through the California Legislature seeks to allow the state Gambling Control Commission the right to conduct some of its business behind closed doors. Senate Bill 919, which comfortably passed the state Senate by a 30 - 2 margin May 2, seeks to allow an exemption of some of the open meeting rules required under state law. Supporters of the bill say that it would allow commissioners access to more information to better inform them for decisions. "Our intent was to give the commission the tools that they needed to better do...

A Minnesota company with millions of dollars invested in a controversial plan to build a casino and hotel 25 miles east of San Diego has placed its bet on one well-connected man. It hired lobbyist Tom Foley, a former commissioner of the federal agency that oversees American Indian casinos, the same agency that must approve the company's partnership with the Jamul tribe. Foley waited three years before lobbying his former employer. Such restraint isn't always the case when government officials go to work for tribes. At least nine former officials of the National Indian Gaming Commission now lobby the federal...

North County's Los Coyotes Indian band is considering a partnership with a Northern California tribe to get the governor's OK for an off-reservation gambling complex in Barstow. A spokesman for BarWest Gaming, a Michigan firm backing the project, said Los Coyotes, which has been pursuing the Barstow project since 2003, is now discussing a joint venture with Humboldt County's Big Lagoon Rancheria. BarWest spokesman Tom Shields said the tribal partnership is being encouraged by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose blessing is essential for any off-reservation Indian casino. "It's a marriage put together by the state," Shields said. Neither Los Coyotes nor...

Hearing probes casino snafus Billion in transportation funds delayed by bad Indian gaming compacts SACRAMENTO — The state and racetracks are in a legal standoff with about a billion dollars in transportation funding caught in limbo until somebody blinks, lawmakers heard Wednesday. The state Senate Governmental Organization Committee was probing how much money the state can expect from Indian gaming compacts, but few clear answers were to be found. Compacts the governor signed last year withfive tribes were supposed to create two income streams. In one stream, those tribes were going to pay the state $100 million per year for...

Gaming revenues miss goal TRIBES: The governor said Indian casino money would help close California's budget gap. A year after Gov. Schwarzenegger pledged to extract money from California's gaming tribes, the state has collected a slim fraction of what he promised with no guarantees of getting more money for the coming budget. Schwarzenegger, who initially wanted $500 million from the tribes, signed a budget that banked on $300 million in casino revenue this fiscal year from new gaming compacts. The summer agreements also called for a $1 billion bond financed by tribes to repay transportation loans to the general fund....

SACRAMENTO – Rejecting advice from its attorneys and the prevailing sentiment of tribes in California, the state's gambling commission recently defined a key compact term in a way that appears to benefit a select group of established casinos. The move, taken on a split vote last month, means there will be few if any licenses available anytime soon for additional slot machines under gambling agreements, or compacts, negotiated by former Gov. Gray Davis. That could turn up the pressure on expansion-minded tribes, including several in San Diego County, to negotiate deals with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who faces a multibillion-dollar budget...

Changing of the guard (Giant Casino Coming To Town) Mackenzie vows new openness in city dealings Sunday, December 19, 2004 By Clark MasonTHE PRESS DEMOCRATcmason@pressdemocrat.com Jake Mackenzie: Rohnert Park's new mayor, wearing a kilt in a nod to his Scottish heritage, represents the power shift on the City Council that occurred when voters ended its developer-friendly majority.Zoom Photo Newly selected Mayor Jake Mackenzie wore a kilt and tie for his swearing-in this past week, but it was the ceremonial dagger attached to his calf that raised more eyebrows. "We let you in with that?" one city staffer jokingly asked. As...

LOS ANGELES -- One month after supporting a defeated ballot initiative campaign, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians continued pushing television commercials attacking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to collect revenues from California tribes. The second in a series of ads aired statewide this week, saying the governor has not been fair in demanding that "tribal governments pay three times more taxes than any other business." That statement was a stab at Schwarzenegger's ongoing negotiations with tribes to pay as much as 25 percent of their gambling revenues to the state in exchange for rights to operate additional slot machines....

Nearly six months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced five new deals with gambling tribes to share more of their revenue with the state, California still has little of that money to show for it. The governor said in June that the renegotiated agreements, or compacts, would give the state $1 billion for transportation this year, plus an estimated $150 million to $200 million each year and $2 million more for poor and non-gambling tribes in the state. Thus far, the state does not have the $1 billion and is estimated to receive about $10 million in slot fees. The money...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made improving the state's business climate a top priority, but he has not done the same for two business-related measures on the Nov. 2 ballot. The governor has been putting most of his effort into defeating two Indian gaming initiatives that are far behind in the polls, while the business community is hoping for come-from-behind victories on two other measures. One of the measures would curb certain kinds of lawsuits filed against small businesses, and the other would require some businesses to provide health insurance for their employees. A consumer advocate whose group has...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office warned two Riverside County Indian tribes that they were violating state gambling compacts by operating games that look and play like slot machines. Peter Siggins, the governor's legal affairs secretary, wrote in Nov. 4 letters to the Morongo and Pechanga bands that their video lottery terminals were "virtually indistinguishable from slot machines" and unauthorized under the gambling deals. Even if they were permitted, he argued, the number currently in use would increase the tribes' total gaming devices beyond the legal maximum. He accused the Morongo tribe of operating at least 225 of the...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have beaten back ballot measures aimed at expanding gambling in California, but he hasn't succeeded in striking deals with a majority of casino-owning American Indian tribes to share revenue. After the divisive election, the governor and tribes remain in a standoff, with neither side willing to be the first to head to the bargaining table. The tribes are still bitter over Schwarzenegger's campaign remarks that they were "ripping off" the state. Their demand for an apology has gone unanswered. "Let them come to me and negotiate," Schwarzenegger said soon after the election,...

Few pieces of land in California have generated as much controversy lately as 9 acres in San Pablo near Interstate 80. The land beneath Casino San Pablo, a cardroom voters approved in 1994, was placed in trust for the landless Lytton Band of Pomo Indians under a little-noticed amendment that Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, added to a 2000 omnibus Indian bill. But nobody could miss the furor when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a compact in August allowing the Lyttons to build a 5,000-slot casino at Casino San Pablo -- much larger than any Nevada casino and the third-largest in the...

Non-stop ads and campaigning portray next week's double-barreled initiative battle over gambling as a bellwether that will decide whether California becomes the nation's biggest casino mecca. The reality is more nuanced: Even if both ballot measures fail, gambling in California is poised to become a major industry. And with the state hungry for revenue and many Californians eager to spend their time and money pulling slot machine handles, many experts predict the industry here could soon overtake Nevada's. ``California is going to be one of the most significant gaming markets in the U.S. They have a truly deep population. They...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, under fire from American Indians for telling voters that tribes were "ripping off" the state with their casinos, refused on Friday to back down. Schwarzenegger has invoked the "rip off" theme as he campaigns against a Nov. 2 ballot measure, called Proposition 70, that would permit rapid expansion of Indian casinos in California and side-step the governor's effort to manage them. "Read my lips: The Indian gaming tribes behind Proposition 70 are trying to rip off California. I will say it again and again and again," a defiant Schwarzenegger said in Los...