The Indian gambling non deal: What did Schwarzenegger know and when did he know it?

We just had quite a week on the money in politics front.  The Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee informed his reform-minded public that he was opting out of public financing for the general election because the system is broken.  This, unless you listen only to the Democrat's presumptive presidential nominee and his staff, is being seen as a flip-flop.  The Republican's presumptive presidential nominee, unless you listen only to him and his staff, had his own pas de deux with public money earlier this campaign season before deciding to go private. 

Friday, related to the joint appearance by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Unity, N.H., the analysis gave one the sense that the Clinton campaign's greatest desire was to have a joint checking account with the Obama campaign to pay down the former - and perpetual ("something could still happen") - candidate's $22 million debt. 

Even the Supreme Court of the United States weighed in last week, ruling that if you're a "millionaire" funding your own campaign for Congress and you spend a whole lot of your own money -- which qualifies as speech, SCOTUS has previously held -- then your opponent cannot have the playing field "leveled" so that he or she can spend more than the lower limits set by public financing laws (known as McCain-Feingold) because that would violate free-speech protections, presumably by giving more free speech/money to the candidate who had less of it which would, presumably, devalue the speech/money of the candidate who had more of it. Or something like that.

I mention all of these money in politics stories from last week because together they may have gotten so much attention that they obscured our view of the California case that comes closest of all of them to a quid pro quo, which is what the alleged "quid" and "quo" sides always call "a total coincidence."

As the story goes, the Sycuan Indian tribe "has avoided paying the cash-strapped state $30 million in gambling profits." The money is supposed to be paid at the end of July as part of the deal that we voters approved allowing four Indian tribes to expand their casinos for which they would pay to the state a larger share of the take.  The state that is more than $15 billion in the hole.  The state whose governor told the Sycuans that they could wait to pay the $30 million after "the Sycuan gave $45,000 to the campaign for a November redistricting initiative promoted by Schwarzenegger," the Los Angeles Times reported. "Quid" meet "Quo?"

"Sycuan spokesman Adam Day called the timing of the donation "a total coincidence," the Times story informed.  Pretty much ditto from the governor's office. 

Think back to the campaign last February in which the four tribes spent more than $100 million to persuade voters to bet on them, promising that approval of propositions 94 through 97 would reap the state more than $10 billion over 23 years.

The San Diego Union-Tribune had perhaps the most incisive take on the whole deal.  Relevantly, the Sycuan had not agreed to the deal before we all voted.

"But one of the tribes was keeping a secret - it had not yet approved its own gaming agreement, even though a deadline to do so had long since passed," the U-T reported.

"The Sycuan band of El Cajon still has not ratified its revised compact, and the delay is expected to cost the state at least $30 million, the Schwarzenegger administration recently disclosed."

It turns out that the Sycuan "invoked a clause that required the tribal council to approve the compact before December 15th, 2006, or else the governor could void the deal," reported Online Casino Sphere.  "Instead, Schwarzenegger decided to allow the delay, saying in the long run it was best for the state," the trade site reported.

"The Sycuan leaders, for their part, said they had merely delayed the council vote until the casino expansions could be planned, and that they will be happy to begin payment next year."

The issue is really more complicated.  Sycuan is calculating whether it should even add slot machines in a slow economy and, under the terms of the voter-approved deal, would reportedly owe the state $18 million before adding a single machine.  The bigger point seems to be that the tribe didn't comply with the compact by not approving it before the deadline and that the governor knew that.  Had to know.  The administration forecast in April of last year that the Sycuan would add 1,000 slot machines this year.  The administration clearly knew and went on to sell the deal anyway.

 So, how could the governor be selling a deal with the Sycuans that wasn't a deal yet?  Isn't that the question that needs to be asked in addition to what did the governor know and when did he lie about it?  Where is that reporting?

"Cheryl Schmit, president of the gambling watchdog group Stand Up for California, was among those surprised by the revelation about Sycuan's compact," the Union-Tribune noted.

"It's information I wished I had prior to the vote in February," she said.

Like the man said.  The system is broken.