Schwarzenegger Is a Sure Bet as He Steps Up Fight to Beat Gambling Measures

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back doing what he loves best about politics -- campaigning, entertaining, promoting. Competing.

Basking in the cheers.

Wearing another black jacket -- this one embossed with “No on 70.” Schwarzenegger’s movies all had personalized jackets, and these days so do his political causes. “I make a lot of money for the jacket people,” he says.

The governor sees himself as fulfilling a running pledge: “If the special interests push me around, I will push back.”

The special interests that now have Schwarzenegger riled are some very wealthy Indian gambling tribes.

The governor is incensed at these tribes -- principally the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in San Bernardino -- for trying, through Proposition 70, to expand gambling in California without dealing with him. Ditto for the card rooms and racetracks that have been attempting to piggyback onto the Indians’ gambling fortunes with Proposition 68.

“We have to terminate Proposition 68 and Proposition 70 -- a jackpot for special interests and a bust for California,” Schwarzenegger told a carefully screened group of roughly 200 cheering supporters at a so-called “town hall” meeting in Irvine on Wednesday.

The California public was sympathetic in 1998 when it was asked to amend for past sins and allow Indians to prosper by building gambling casinos on their rural reservations.

Now some of the richest and most ambitious tribes seem to be squandering the voters’ goodwill, based on polls.

“It is tremendous greed,” Schwarzenegger told me. “They want to rip off the people.... Pull the wool over people’s eyes.”

A mid-September survey of likely voters by The Times Poll found only 33% supporting Prop. 68, with 46% opposed. The figures were even worse for Prop. 70: 28% to 48%.

Propositions 68 and 70 are very different and, in fact, pit one interest (racetracks and card rooms) against another (Indians). But, strategically, Schwarzenegger is lumping them together as one common opponent; a flaw in one is a flaw in both -- even if the Prop. 68 camp did call it quits Wednesday.

“They would allow casinos to spread like wildfire everywhere in California, including our cities and towns,” he contends.

Yes and no.

Prop. 68 would pave the way for 30,000 slot machines at five racetracks and 11 card rooms in urban areas, including Los Angeles.

Prop. 70 would allow unlimited Indian casino expansion on reservations throughout California. Existing limits would come off the number of slot machines and types of games.

Schwarzenegger meshes it all together. “They’re changing the rules and starting urban casinos,” he asserts. “We don’t want to turn California into one big Vegas. That brings a lot of other problems. Social problems.”

The worst thing about Prop. 70 is that it would be locked in for 99 years. Think back 99 years to 1905. Most people still were getting around by horse and buggy. Radio broadcasts hadn’t even begun. Deals shouldn’t be tied up for 99 years.

“If they had their druthers,” says spokesman William Rukeyser for the Prop. 70 Indians, “they’d have a compact that says, ‘As long as the sun shall rise and the grass shall grow .... ‘ “

California currently has 54 Indian casinos. The tribes negotiated compacts with former Gov. Gray Davis. Running for election last fall, Schwarzenegger claimed the Indians weren’t “paying their fair share.”

He has renegotiated a few pacts and added others -- 10 in all -- and garnered for the state $1 billion in one-time transportation money, plus perhaps $400 million a year in general funds.

All that -- the pacts and the money -- likely would be lost if Props. 68 or 70 passed.

Under Prop. 68, the urban gambling houses would pay a third of their winnings -- more than $1 billion -- to local governments. Prop. 70 would require the tribes to pay the state 8.8%, same as the corporation tax. Schwarzenegger is getting 15% from his deals.

If voters reject the ballot measures, the governor says, “we can sit down with all the Indian tribes, and the state can make billions of dollars. They prosper. We prosper. This is very important.”

This is his No. 1 election priority. At stake are billions in state revenue, control over California gambling, local environmental and labor regulations written into state compacts, flexibility for this century -- and the governor’s political prestige.

So determined is Schwarzenegger that last weekend he scolded Republican legislators at a private GOP retreat for taking political money from Indians and endorsing Prop. 70.

He was still fired up about it when I talked to him Tuesday. The Indians, he said, “are paying off the politicians.”

Indeed, since 1998, casino tribes have pumped $175 million into California elections -- a much bigger political investment than any other special interest.

As for these GOP lawmakers, the Republican governor said: “Some legislators who take the money and then also endorse Proposition 70 are doing so knowing this will be a worse deal for California.”

Asked how the legislators reacted to his lecture, Schwarzenegger replied: “They got the message. Trust me.”

There’s one thing Schwarzenegger loves doing even more than campaigning and competing. It’s winning. And on the gambling props, he’s a good bet to win.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george .skelton@latimes.com.