By Frank D. Russo click for more of the story
On Friday, the Pechanga Band of Temecula, one of the big four tribes who stand to gain from passage of Propositions 94 to 97 and 17,000 new slot machines, contributed $30.8 million in support of these propositions. This brings the total to the yes on 94-97 campaign to $68 million dollars, dwarfing not only the amount raised by opponents who seek to overturn the legislature’s approval of the slot machine compacts. But all contributions made on the other ballot measures being considered February 5, 2008—including term limits.
The last regular reports of campaign contributions on the California Secretary of State’s website are out of date. OP: Could Arnold be having Ms. Bowen drag her feet on this too?
One has to look at the late and over $5,000 contributions to get an idea of where the money is coming from and going to—at least so far—on the often overlooked ballot propositions that voters will (hopefully) be grappling with in addition to choosing a Presidential candidate for the November election. Billions of dollars—estimated to be as high as a net win of $60.2 billion for these four tribes are at stake.
This may be only the beginning of money spent, almost exclusively by the tribes on the yes side. The second largest amount of money on ballot propositions in this cycle is on the “no” side of the Prop 94-97 gambling propositions, and most of it also comes from tribes—those who are not part of the arrangement with the four tribes. At least $11.5 million of the opposition funding comes from “Tribes for Fair Play” out of what appears to be $28 million raised in opposition.
There is substantial money— millions each from race tracks and labor that make up the balance. A significant portion of the money raised by opponents was spent on qualifying the four referenda for the ballot.
By contrast, the “yes on 93” campaign to reform California’s term limit laws is a piker, coming in at $10.7 million with the “no on 93 side showing a over $3.5 million in contributions. The amount of money contributed to the yes side of the casino measures on Friday alone is triple the entire amount raised by those who want to reform term limits.
OP: Why would Pechanga have to spend so much on what they think is a "NO BRAINER" for California? Because they KNOW that their Proposition 94 has the biggest chance of LOSING. Californians are learning about what they have done to their tribe, violating civil rights, abusing elders, kicking our youth out of the school, terminating members, taking away health coverage, disenfranching them via loss of voting rights.
It's a reminder of : Dost thou protest too much? Guilt driven blood money? Why doesn't Pechaga say in their ads: "We are going to give you 32,000,000 Californians $9 billion and keep $28 BILLION for the 1700 of us. There would be more of us, but our tribe eliminated 25% of our members.
VOTE NO ON 94
30.8 million?? WOW their money would be better spent on reinstating those who were unjustly removed...just another reason Mark Maccarro needs to bring the tribe together! NO on 94,95,96,97
ReplyDeleteIt looks like they're trying to pull the wool over everyones eyes again! All the money in the world can't clean a guilty heart... like Macarro's. This will fail, just like his dictatorship at Pechanga!
ReplyDeleteWhen these tribes spend so much money just to pull the wool over California voters eyes then there must be an unbelieveable amount of money to be gained for themselves. Gov.Schwarzenegger and the political whores are trying to convince Us, the puplic, that this is a good thing, after they where wined and dined by these tribes, especially by the Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro.Do they think that we are all so stupid that we cant figure this out? Lets all vote NO ON 94-97 to show these tribes that we can think for ourselves. VOTE NO ON THE COMPACT.
ReplyDeleteIf it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
ReplyDeleteShould the tribes get this much gambling AND have exclusivity? Doesn't it make more sense to expand gaming across CA and not give some tribes so much power?
Funny how the jealousy of the other two tribes against these compacts comes into play, and know one even looks at it. Pala and the other tribe have new compacts that allow for an unlimited amount of machine to be added to their casinos. This could by far be an unprecidented expansion of machine in the history of the United Staes. The only difference is that they agreed to pay a flat rate on ALL their machines of 18.5%. Once again Pala made a bad deal and are jealous of a good deal that pays everyone, not just the tribe. But I guess some of you want to omit some truths.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you use the term jealousy. So, did Pala make a bad deal or did Arnold make a good deal?
ReplyDeleteAnd, with the big 4 sweetheart deal, the special mitigation fund goes away, so it's not "paying everyone".
Keep posting, thanks.