California’s Slot Machine Compacts 

There has been talk that the legislature may reconvene over the compacts to bring in 20,000 slot machines into the state of California. The compacts that Governor Schwarzenegger had signed have been sitting in the legislature, and will continue to sit there until January when they are scheduled to reconvene. The governor had sent the compacts in at the last moment and the democrats felt they did not have enough time to do their due diligence before signing them and thus refused to do so. 

Republican leaders are demanding that the democratic leaders call back both the Assembly and the Senate so that the compacts can be signed. The governor’s office also has the power, although they have not said whether or not they will exercise that power. Opponents of the slot machines are up in arms at the thought that they might actually come back to sign the compacts. They think that it is completely money driven and that if they come back to sign them it will only be to ensure that they get re-elected, as the tribes have a lot of weight behind who they will throw their money to in order to help election and re-election campaigns. 

"Does this letter truly represent the soul of the California Republican Party? If so, it appears one of our two major political parties has sold its soul for gambling money," said the California Coalition Against Gambling Expansion. 

The democrats feel that the compacts were sent through last minute on purpose, that there was no way they could have signed them and that the governor knew that. They think that he was simply trying to make it look as though he was in support of the compacts and of bringing in more slot machines, but in reality he just wanted to put on a show, and hurt the democrats in the process. The governor’s office disagrees, they say that the amount of money that would come in from slot machine revenue would be more than enough to help out the state and that is what really matters.

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