Ah, but which casinos? Las Vegas casinos want you to vote one way, Indian casinos another.


Arghghh.

Well, I live in California. I don't care what Vegas wants.

This may be awfully racist and stupid of me, but I think it's high time we stopped treating native americans as some sort of separate nation. Um, yeah, it's been 300 years. I know they are oppressed, but they are not a nation unto themselves and they should not have separate laws and a separate, illegal economy (which "in" tribes use to oppress the other tribes).


Bah.

I'll be interested to see if Helen has a response to that and what it is.

Just realized that sounds kind of like a "fight, fight, fight" taunt. Didn't mean it to, just honestly curious to see her respond since she's much more educated on the issue than me. Though my own opinion is one of disagreement (and would go the other way and stop infantilizing them by placing all kinds of hoops and restrictions on their own use of their own land).

Why the hell did this thread just put the song "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood into my head?

Because you were dreaming of gay men?

I don't know why it'd make you "suspicious", it's pretty obvious that it would benefit the casino. "Hmm, they want me to pass this for some reason, what could it be??"

Each of those would bump a specific Indian Band's number of slot machines allowed from 2,000 to 5,000 for two of them, and from 2,000 to 7,500 for two others.

Payments to the gov't would increase - by a lot. In the instance of prop 94, Pechanga currently pays $29 million to the state, but if this passes, they'll pay at least $42.5 mil, and there are additions to this minimum.

The props include environmental impact requirements, required audits, operating guidelines, etc.

I'm having trouble finding a reason to oppose them - especially because I don't live with one of these tribes in my backyard. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I lived there. But if I did, I'd probably move. I'm not a fan of gambling and the environment it engenders, but people love it, and I prefer letting people be free, as long as I have the option of being away from it. And yes, the gov't should get their chunk.

I just found the Indians on the vote No ads less attractive than the vote Yes Indians

I'm just happy that Indian law is now on the WA bar - it's so new that we're all pretty equally disadvantaged, and hopefully I'll get an Indian law question instead of something totally sucky - like corporations.

So if I was there I'd vote yay, give 'em whatever they want.

Of course, if I was there I probably wouldn't be taking the WA bar.