occiblu -- I need the same information!! Actually, I just want someone to tell me how to vote on these, but instead I'll share the LWV site.

Groups opposed. Groups supporting.

The Bay Guardian is saying No (scroll down a bit). But they're rather reflexively anti-business most of the time, so... I don't know.

Thanks for the link!

And the other links! :-)

On an only semi-related note: The SFPD is running recruiting ads during Sex and the City reruns. That seems...odd.

Weird, the list of who opposes seems to be down now. But when I opened it before I saw that Sheila Kuehl is in opposition. That's good enough for me.

It was working when I opened it.

Maybe I broke it.

I don't know anything about your situation in California, but I lived in Connecticut during college, when the Mashantucket Pequots got permission to open Foxwoods, and then again in the late 90s, when Mohegan Sun opened.

These casinos are unquestionably boons for the members of the tribe who get to directly benefit. All of them are now quite wealthy. They are also boons for the campanies of gambling investors who use the tribal exceptions as the front for what is a pre-planned, sophisticated operation that uses little tribal leadership. For everyone else, they're kind of crap. The casinos were sold to the local populace with the idea that they'd generate added tourism revenue for nearby hotels, restaurants and attractions. That has not materialized in CT - gamblers and casino vacations go right to the hotels, stay in the casino hotels, eat in the casino restaurants, and when they're out of money they head immediately back to wherever they came from (NY and Boston, in these cases). The local towns ended up bearing a burden everyone had failed to predict: that of increased activity on the roads and highways due to DWIs and the additional violence/contraband situations and court costs associated with DWIs and what they often reveal. The local emergency services, ERs, and hospitals also have been impacted by events that happen at casinos.

Because they're tribally run, labor conditions are iffy. They basically are whatever the tribe wants; OSHA and other federal regulations seem not to apply. People who work in the casinos can't bring any sort of labor dispute up in local, state, or federal courts. There were often stories of managers insisting that staff work extreme shifts - 20, 24, 30 hours - or get fired. Sexual harassment, too, was an issue in some news stories - there was really no recourse if you experienced it beyond complaining to the supervisors.

For all this, many casino jobs are low-wage and casino workers ended up living in motels and trailer parks nearby, in substandard and insecure housing. There was an impact on WIC and other county programs as well as on school systems, as droves of new people seeking low-wage work and low-income housing arrived at the doorstep of small and formerly rural communities. This population has also been transitory, and contains many immigrants, including illegals, which poses its own set of problems on local systems, including the need for more translators and special education.

They haven't had a great record here.

I don't know what's to be done, though; this is a case of the US suffering for its own idiocy with the BIA and the total horrific mismanagement of Native relations for centuries. There's a lot of money involved in not closing the loopholes, and it's not Indian money.

I don't know what's to be done, though; this is a case of the US suffering for its own idiocy with the BIA and the total horrific mismanagement of Native relations for centuries. There's a lot of money involved in not closing the loopholes, and it's not Indian money.

Which is why I'm having such trouble sorting through the whole thing. I just feel like any legislative action on any of this is basically, "Do we screw over Indians this way, or that way?"

This legislation isn't to build brand-new casinos, though, but to allow certain tribes to expand the casinos they already have. So it seems to be a serious case of "These tribes benefit with a Yes, but other tribes are screwed over," which just... ARGH. The whole situation's so fucking fucked up.

Well, I've faced the same issue, and I based my opinion by getting as many sources as I could. Mainly, I started by googling around and just reading different opinion pieces.

My own Frankenstein opinion is that they're bad, despite helping the budget. I strongly suggest at least perusing the actual proposal's text (if you can tolerate the legalspeak), because it basically lets the tribes decide everything on their own volition (including the size of the cut that the state gets). It all just seems like a colossally bad idea.

I think the benefit to the tribes is much less than the benefit to their private, non-Indian financial backers, at least that was true out here. I'm not sure who's backing this push for the Cali tribes, but Donald Trump's company was one the investment groups out here, basically using the Indian groups to try to leverage license expansions.

I'm sympathetic to the economic plight of the native groups, but these bedfellows, and the resulting negative impact of the big casinos, took the shine off of it for me.

What's cute out here is that the ads have become accusations of who's paying for what ads, which is confusing. One accusation is that the "big money backers" here are *against* the proposition and funding anti advertising in order to keep the money in Las Vegas.

Yeesh!

This is why I hate propositions. You pretty much just end up voting for the ads. Some editorial I was reading said something like Californians would vote to murder their firstborn sons if they got enough mail about it.