Assembly committee hears briefing on Big Sandy Rancheria gaming compact; SB 49 to go to Assembly floor

Assembly Member Blanca Rubio, chair of the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization, convened an informational hearing on a tribal-state gaming compact between Governor Gavin Newsom and the Big Sandy Rancheria of Western Mono Indians. The committee was briefed on the contents of a negotiated compact and on SB 49, the Senate bill to ratify that compact, but the committee did not take a formal vote.

The compact before the committee is substantially the same as a previously negotiated agreement that the federal Department of the Interior disapproved last year, Matthew Lee, senior advisor for tribal negotiations in the Governor’s Office, told the committee. Lee said the revised compact places two items explicitly within the compact’s text — certain California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemptions and a guarantee of exclusivity that…