Senate committee reviews amendments to four tribal gaming compacts, no vote taken

The California State Senate Committee on Governmental Organization held an informational hearing to review amendments to three tribal-state class III gaming compacts and a proposed new compact, administration and tribal officials said. The hearing was informational only; the committee took no vote.

Matthew Lee, senior adviser for tribal negotiations in the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, told the committee the compacts and amendments reflect changes required by the Ninth Circuit’s recent “Chicken Ranch” decisions and the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). “We no longer bargain for those off‑list prohibited terms under Chicken Ranch,” Lee said, identifying environmental review requirements, broad tort provisions and obligations to enforce state child and spousal support orders as examples of provisions the courts found to be overbroad.

The updated agreements presented include compact terms that Lee described as broadly consistent with the state’s recent compacts: a mechanism to defray state regulatory costs (the special distribution fund), a separate impact mitigation fund that applies when a tribe operates more than 350 gaming devices, and narrowly defined revenue arrangements that avoid appearing as a state tax on tribes. Lee said the state’s regulatory appropriation for tribal gaming…