as posted 5.24.07 at California Progress Report:
By Frank D. Russo
A fresh look at documents released during the Abramoff scandal reveals how one California tribe, now seeking to triple the slot machines at its lucrative casino, used millions in gambling profits to influence state and federal policy and expand its gambling empire. These include exhibits released by the US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, court documents and plea agreements, and other documents obtained pursuant to a Public Records Act request.
According to the documents, Palm Spring’s Agua Caliente Tribe paid Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon millions to help win an agreement to expand its gambling empire, including $5,000 monthly payments to Julie Doolittle, wife of Congressman John Doolittle and another $25,000 payment to get a meeting with President Bush in the Whitehouse.
A letter confirming the terms of representation reveals that the Agua Caliente Tribe in Palm Springs paid the law firm of convicted felon Jack Abramoff at least $150,000 per month to get an expanded gambling agreement with the State and remove a US Post Office from the path of its intended casino expansion. The Tribe also agreed to pay convicted felon Michael Scanlon a minimum of $5.4 million “to ensure successful re-negotiation of the Tribe’s gaming compact.”
Another invoice with a firm called “Grassroots Interactive, LLC” is for $2.3 million for research, script development, phone bank preparation, and a direct mail campaigning, among other efforts, on local players in California gambling.
According to memos released during the investigation, the Tribe had former California Member of Congress Richard Lehman assisting Scanlan here and high powered lobbyist Phil Recht, who was also a member of the State Lottery Commission working on their behalf for a new gambling agreement in Sacramento.
The hardball tactics apparently were shared by other tribes with deals now before the Legislature. One memo to the Agua Caliente Tribal Council from convicted felon Michael Scanlon alleges the Morongo and Pechanga Tribes successfully replaced a state official in the Davis administration responsible for forming state policy toward tribal governments:
"Furthermore, it is important to note that Rosenberg's departure was the result, in large part, of the efforts of two tribes' direct lobbying of the Governor. We believe that the Pechanga and Morango Bands directly called for, and received, Mr. Rosenberg's dismissal."
The same tribe and five others are now using similar hardball tactics to push the Assembly to agree to triple their lucrative casino empires.
At least $30,000 in payments to Julie Doolittle’s Sierra Dominion Financial Services are detailed (here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Interestingly, Scanlon twice warned the Tribe at least twice that its millions in lobbying expenditures would run afoul of California’s lobbying laws (in a letter of May 6, 2003 and in a memo of May 30, 2003 here), but the Tribe apparently never took Scanlon’s advice, according to this article in the Sacramento Bee. Not surprisingly, this same tribe currently rejects its responsibility to the rules of California’s politics. In his declaration in the Tribe’s case disputing the application of California’s laws, Agua Caliente Chairman Richard Milanovich said, “The Tribe will not simply submit to regulation by an agency of the state government.”
Using these hardball tactics, it is perhaps no surprise that the Agua Caliente Tribe and the other four rich southern California tribes got their expansion deals front and center in the California Legislature. The interesting question will be whether or not they will be successful.
I'm sure others will find information in these documents fodder for further analysis as they fill in the gaps and connect the California tribal compacts, events in our state, and people to the sordid scene and pattern in our nation's capital. There's a lot to look over here.
There most assuredly would be even more to look at if, and when the Tribe reports to the Fair Political Practices Commission on money contributed and where it has come from. The Supreme Court of California has ruled, 4-3 that they are required to comply with our state's laws on contribution dislcosure. After the appeals run out, we will know more of what is being hidden from view right now.
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