Gambling on Tribal Lands. Legislative Constitutional Amendment.
	Argument in Favor of Proposition 1A

Arguments on this page are the opinions of the authors and have not been checked for accuracy by any official agency.

VOTE YES ON PROP 1A AND ENSURE THAT INDIAN SELF-RELIANCE IS PROTECTED ONCE AND FOR ALL

As tribal leaders of California Indian Tribes, we have seen first-hand the transformation that Indian gaming has made in the lives of our people. Indian gaming on tribal lands has replaced welfare with work, despair with hope and dependency with self-reliance.

We are asking you to vote YES on Proposition 1A so we can keep the gaming we have on our reservations. We thank you for your past support and need your help now to protect Indian self-reliance once and for all.

We are joined by a vast majority of California's Indian Tribes that support Prop 1A, including the 59 Tribes who signed gaming compacts with Governor Davis.

For the past several years, a political dispute has threatened to shut down Indian casinos in California. To resolve this dispute, California's Indian Tribes asked voters last year to approve Proposition 5, the Indian Self-Reliance Initiative. With your help, Proposition 5 won overwhelmingly with 63 percent of the vote.

But big Nevada casinos that wanted to kill competition from California's Indian Tribes filed a lawsuit, and Prop 5 was overturned and ruled unconstitutional on a legal technicality.

So Prop 1A has been put on the March ballot to resolve this technicality and establish clearly that Indian gaming on tribal lands is legal in California.

For more than a decade, Indian casinos in California have provided education, housing and healthcare for Indian people, as well as jobs that have taken Indians off welfare. Today Indian gaming on tribal lands benefits all Californians by providing nearly 50,000 jobs for Indians and non-Indians and producing $120 million annually in state and local taxes. After generations of poverty, despair and dependency, there is hope. On reservations with casinos, unemployment has dropped nearly 50%; welfare has been cut by 68% and, in some cases, eliminated entirely.

Proposition 1A:

• Is a simple constitutional measure that allows Indian gaming in California. It protects Indian self-reliance by finally providing clear legal authority for Indian Tribes to conduct specified gaming activities on tribal lands.
• Shares Indian gaming revenues with non-gaming Tribes for use in education, housing, health care and other vitally needed services.
• Provides revenues for local communities near Indian casinos, for programs for gambling addiction and for state regulatory costs.
• Provides for tribal cooperation with local governments and for tribal environmental compliance.

If Proposition 1A fails, tribal gaming would face being shut down. This would be devastating for California Indian Tribes--and bad for California's taxpayers.

We are asking voters to protect Indian gaming on tribal land, so that we can preserve the only option most Tribes have to get our people off welfare. We are asking you to let us take care of ourselves and pay our own way. We urge you to vote YES on Proposition 1A.

ANTHONY PICO
Tribal Chairman, Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians

PAULA LORENZO
Tribal Chairperson, Rumsey Indian Rancheria

MARK MACARRO
Tribal Chairman, Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians

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