PALM SPRINGS — While saying that California Indian tribes reap $4 billion annually from their casinos, the chairman of the gambling tribes' trade group on Wednesday called Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request that they pay their fair share to the state "amusing and troubling."
Anthony Miranda, chairman of the California Indian Nations Gaming Assn., stopped short of rejecting Schwarzenegger's opening bargaining position that tribes pay at least $500 million annually to the state.
But Miranda and others, gathered here for an annual convention and trade show, criticized the Republican governor and raised questions about his understanding of the legal and historical relationship between state and tribal governments.
"Tribes are governments," Miranda said. "Governments don't tax other governments."
Miranda's comments, made in a speech and in interviews, came as tribes face what many of their leaders see as serious political perils. In addition to Schwarzenegger's request, card rooms and racetracks are pushing to place an initiative on the November ballot that could end tribes' monopoly on Nevada-style gambling in California.
The measure would authorize five tracks and 11 card rooms to have a total of 30,000 slot machines, the most lucrative game at any casino, and would pay $1 billion a year to state and local governments. Currently, 53 Indian tribes operate about 55,000 slot machines in California.
Miranda's statements and those by others at the conference amount to the tribes' first concerted response to Schwarzenegger's position and come as they set about organizing a campaign to defeat the initiative.
"From our perspective," Miranda said, "the governor's concept of 'fair share' is amusing and troubling. It clearly shows that he doesn't understand a very simple fact: that the state does not pay a single dime in compensation to the tribes. Nothing."
Miranda explained afterward that, while state and local governments do provide a variety of services used by all Californians, tribes by custom and treaty deal most directly with the federal government.
Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians, who have a new casino in Temecula, criticized Schwarzenegger's comments during the recall campaign, and since his election, that tribes should "pay their fair share" to the state.
