Voters supporting gambling measures

Measures to uphold an expansion of gambling at Indian casinos were winning solid voter support in early election returns Tuesday, while an initiative to adjust the Legislature’s term limits was lagging slightly.

Another measure, to guarantee community college funding, was losing more sharply.

As expected, voters also appeared to be rejecting a transportation funding measure, Proposition 91, that had been abandoned by its authors months ago.

A strong lead opened early for the gambling measures, which would give state taxpayers a share of slot machine revenues.

“Right now it looks like the voters are saying yes to hundreds of millions of new dollars each year,” said Roger Salazar, spokesman for the Yes on Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 campaign. “We hope when the final tally comes in that will still be the case.”

Scott Macdonald, spokesman for the campaign that opposed the casino measures, acknowledged that the early returns “don’t look good.”

The battle was hard-fought, Macdonald said, even though opponents of the gambling propositions were outspent 4 to 1, because “people have serious reservations about what’s in these compacts.”

The gambling propositions asked voters to uphold or nullify four agreements negotiated by the governor and approved by the Legislature.

The pacts were forged to allow four Riverside and San Diego county tribes to add 17,000 slot machines to the 8,000 they already operate. In return, the tribes would pay the state a combined minimum of $123 million a year and up to 25% of the revenue from the new machines.

Advertisements for and against the measures have dominated airwaves for weeks. The campaign came within a few million dollars of breaking a record. Both sides raised a total of $147 million, just shy of the $152 million campaign over a 2006 oil-tax initiative.

The four tribes with agreements at stake -- the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Morongo Band of Mission Indians and Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation -- said the deals could be worth $9 billion to the state over the next 22 years.

Opponents called that a rosy assumption, and argued that the agreements would further enrich four tribes without increasing payments to tribes without gambling operations or with small casinos.

The four referendums were financed by Terrence Fancher, who manages companies that own California horse racetracks and have a stake in a Las Vegas casino; the casino workers’ union Unite-HERE, which dislikes labor provisions in the compacts; and two tribes that struck different gambling agreements and different revenue-sharing arrangements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004.

The term limits initiative was championed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) -- who subsequently became the poster boys for the “No on Proposition 93” campaign. Ads reminded viewers that Perata is the subject of a federal corruption investigation and Nunez’s campaign spending is being scrutinized by a state ethics panel.

Proponents argued that by shortening the overall length of time a person can stay in the Legislature from 14 to 12 years but allowing all of that service in one house, Proposition 93 struck a smart compromise that would enable legislators to gain experience and get off the merry-go-round of running for a new office every few years.

Last year Nunez and Perata pushed to advance California’s presidential primary election from June to February, a move that would enable them to run for reelection in June if Proposition 93 passed.

The “yes” side was funded largely by public employee unions, individual legislators and corporations with business before the Legislature. Major funders of the opposition were the state correctional officers’ union, a national nonprofit that advocates for political term limits and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, an independently wealthy Republican.

With Proposition 92, community college advocates sought to boost and stabilize funding by cutting college fees from $20 to $15 per unit, limiting the ability of lawmakers to increase fees and setting a minimum level of state funding for the state’s 109 community colleges.

The legislative analyst’s office pegged the cost of the measure at an additional $300 million a year for at least the next two years.

The “yes” side was financed largely by the California Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers, which represent community college workers. They asserted that the measure would make higher education more affordable and align community college spending with changes in California’s population.

Opponents argued that a constitutional commitment to community colleges would siphon money from other priorities, including elementary and secondary school students. The California Teachers Assn. and state worker unions financed the opposition campaign.

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nancy.vogel@latimes.com

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STATE PROPOSITIONS

*--* PROP. 91 PROP. 92 Gasoline sales tax spending Community colleges Yes No Yes No 43% 57% 40% 60%

PROP. 93 PROP. 94-97 State office term limits Indian gambling Yes No Yes No 48% 52% 56% 44% *--*

31% of precincts reporting