Battin 0 for 2 on Bills – Update on Cobell v. Kempthorne

Battin Bills Bomb

The Battin Bingo Bill has died in the Assembly after a Sacramento federal judge ruled electronic bingo machines could continue to be played while the case is fought in the courts.

Judy Mason, president of El Camino High School's booster club, said the news was "fabulous," adding, "I hope that it's dead for now. But I know it's going to rear its ugly head again."

Months after Sacramento County passed an ordinance spelling out which types of electronic bingo games were acceptable, the California attorney general's office raised doubts.

An order in August 2007 reiterated a long-standing state Justice Department position that bingo involves paper games, ink daubers and live callers.

But until May, the state had not taken any action. That ended with Attorney General Jerry Brown's office ordering several local bingo operations to stop using the machines within 30 days.

After winning preliminary injunctive relief yesterday, the bingo halls can continue to use electronic machines until the lawsuit, filed by machine manufacturer Video Gaming Technologies along with two local charities, is settled, which is months away.
Earlier Wednesday, two Hyatt Regency meeting rooms were turned into makeshift e-bingo halls where U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez was given a tutorial by two machine manufacturers.

The machines looked like Vegas-style slots right down to the cup holders. The dispute is whether the functionality and computer programming is a modernization of the old, human-called bingo game – or just a slot machine.

The majority of the touch-screen monitor displays had the familiar spinning wheels of a slot machine. A small portion of the screen displays had a bingo grid.
Harlan Goodson, one of Video Gaming Technologies' attorneys, said the spinning wheels and sounds are meant to entertain players while the bingo games are being played.

The machines' slot-like features were a key topic at the hearing before the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.

"They look eerily like slot machines. You can bet up and down, you can bet sideways, just like you can in Las Vegas," the bill's author, Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, told the committee. "These are slot machines."

Another losing Battin Bill - Senate Bill 1201- which was to allow tribes with one of the original 61 compacts signed in 1999 to operate 2,000 machines, was rejected by the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.

The 1999 compact set 2,000 as the maximum number of slot machines that any tribe could operate. But the number of machines that individual tribes may have is limited by a statewide cap imposed by the state gambling agency.

The Cabazon tribe now has 1,956 slot machines and the governor has said the tribe needs to renegotiate its compact to get the remaining machines, according to Battin.

"The bottom line on this is fairness," Battin said.

But opponents countered that it's unfair to allow some tribes to get more slot machines now without negotiating amended compacts after other tribes have taken that step to get more machines.

"We think it's terribly unfair to change the rules of the game," said Cathy Christian, a lobbyist for San Diego County in opposing the bill.

Update on Cobell v. Kempthorne

A federal judge indicated Wednesday that American Indians who have filed a lawsuit against the government for mismanagement of trust funds may not be awarded the $47 billion they have said they are owed.

The 12-year-old lawsuit — filed on behalf of a half-million American Indians and their heirs — claims they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887. They say the government has profited from money that should have gone promptly into individual Indian accounts, and claim they are owed tens of billions of dollars in restitution.

At the close of the latest two-week trial in the case, U.S. District Judge James Robertson suggested the amount owed to the plaintiffs is probably less than $10 billion, noting that the final amount will have to be based on estimates. He said he expects to issue a decision in August.

At issue is how much of the royalty money was withheld from the Indian plaintiffs over the years, and whether it was held in the U.S. treasury at a benefit to the government. Because many of the records have been lost or destroyed, it is now up to the court to decide how to best estimate how much the individual Indians — many of whom are nearing the end of their lives — should be paid.

"There is very little hard data on which to base an award that at covers 120 years," Robertson said of the trial.

During the course of the trial, plaintiffs reduced the amount they said they were owed based on documents that became available in the proceedings. Their estimate going into the trial was $58 billion, down from their original estimates of $100 billion.

"The amount is high but the years have been many," said William Dorris, a lawyer for the plaintiffs who presented closing arguments Wednesday.
The government has contended that if any money is owed, it should be less than $1 billion.

Robertson called the trial to determine how much the government should pay the Indians. He ruled earlier this year that efforts by the Interior Department to account for the trust money were inadequate.

Much of the trial focused on detailed analyses of historical records as both sides attempted to prove that their estimates are accurate.

The Indian plaintiffs called several budget experts — including Jim Miller, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan — to try and prove that the government profited from the trust money over the years.

Government witnesses disputed that testimony, saying the amount was grossly exaggerated.

If a dollar amount were awarded, it is uncertain how the government would pay it.

Congress may have to set the money aside, a tough sell in tight time. The Indian plaintiffs argue that the money could paid directly and does not require action by Congress.

Full Articles:
http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080626/NEWS01/806260363/1006/news01
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1040476.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/25/financial/f154929D63.DTL&hw=tribe&sn=003&sc=344