SACRAMENTO -- As congressional leaders and others call for new constraints
on off-reservation Indian gaming, the Schwarzenegger administration is
preparing to roll out its fourth such casino compact in two years.

The pending agreement would allow the North Fork Rancheria band of central
California to build a large casino-resort adjacent to busy state Route 99
just outside the city of Madera. The deal is expected to be announced
within weeks, sources close to the negotiations said.

The proposal is sailing into a stiff political head wind, with bipartisan
opposition to off-reservation gaming building from Sacramento to
Washington, D.C.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who like Schwarzenegger is a Republican, held
a hearing on the subject this week. He is expected to outline a stringent
new set of rules for off-reservation casinos in legislation that could be
introduced this month.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced last year that she will no longer
consider compacts for such casinos until the desired site is taken into
trust, a legal status that makes it eligible for gaming.

McCain and others, including some tribal leaders, say Indian gambling was
intended to provide an economic boost for existing reservations and that
casinos are proliferating in places where they were never intended to be,
particularly in or near urban areas.

Some tribes and their financial backers have engaged in what critics call
"reservation shopping" for lucrative new casino sites.

The pending North Fork agreement surfaces less than a year after
Schwarzenegger signaled that he was taking a harder line by issuing his
own edict on off-reservation casinos.

With some of California's big gaming tribes openly opposed to
off-reservation competition, the three compacts that Schwarzenegger
already has signed for such casinos -- one in suburban San Francisco and
two in Barstow -- remain in limbo awaiting ratification by the
Legislature.

However, North Fork -- one of the state's largest tribes, with nearly
1,400 members -- believes that its project is different.

"I have trouble characterizing it as off-reservation," said John Maier,
North Fork's attorney. "This is the tribe's ancestral lands. It's not
Barstow. They are not moving 700 miles away."

Maier was alluding to the Big Lagoon tribe of Humboldt County, which
secured one of the two compacts Schwarzenegger approved for Barstow. The
Los Coyotes Band of remote San Diego County has the other one. North
Fork's move would be about 40 miles away.

The casino, a $250 million project that includes a 200-room hotel, has
been welcomed by Madera County, which would receive up to $100 million
under an agreement already negotiated and signed by the tribe.

"This is not reservation shopping," said Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up for
California, a grass-roots organization that has challenged the spread of
tribal gambling all over the state. "This is the state exercising its
authority to locate gaming where it is wanted."

Schmit said she has taken no position on the project. Others say it will
be a tough sell.

"The chances of that compact moving in the Legislature, I think, are very
slim," said Howard Dickstein, a prominent tribal attorney who has been
close to the Schwarzenegger administration. "I don't know why they would
do it."

An administration spokesman declined to comment on the status of the
negotiations. But insiders noted that Station Casinos, the Nevada company
that would develop and manage the project, is represented by lobbyist
Darius Anderson, who served as best man at the commitment ceremony of
Susan Kennedy, Schwarzenegger's new chief of staff.

The North Fork compact has been in the works for months and reportedly was
about to be introduced late last summer. In what may be a similar
situation, the Quechan tribe of Imperial County disclosed in a recent
lawsuit that the administration finished its new compact in January 2005
but waited six months to submit it to the Legislature. Quechan's compact
remains stalled there.

Indian gaming has grown into a $20 billion industry, with more than 400
casinos scattered across the nation, including 55 in California, which has
more than any other state. San Diego County has eight casinos, with more
on the way.

Federal law generally restricts tribal gaming to reservations and other
Indian lands that existed when the law was adopted Oct. 17, 1988. However,
exceptions in the law have been used to build at least 26 casinos on new
lands, according to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The North Fork band takes its name from a Sierra foothills community. The
tribe has no reservation, although some of its members own 80 acres near
the town of North Fork that have been designated Indian lands and could be
used for gaming, said Maier, the tribe's attorney.

Schwarzenegger took what appeared to be a tough new stance on the
off-reservation casinos in a proclamation issued last May. The governor
said he would not consider off-reservation proposals unless they are
outside urban areas, have local support and serve some other "clear,
independent public policy, separate and apart from any increased economic
benefit to the state, community or Indian tribe."

With the Barstow compacts, the administration's attorneys noted that the
deals resolved a long-standing lawsuit in which the Big Lagoon tribe had
been attempting to develop a casino in an environmentally sensitive
area.

The 80 acres North Fork could use for gaming borders the Sierra National
Forest and also may be considered environmentally unsuitable for a casino
development. The preferred site is about 20 miles north of Fresno, just
outside Madera, a city of about 50,000 people.

"This is one of the largest tribes in California and among the poorest of
them," Maier said. "I understand the times they are a-changing, but this
is a project that will benefit Madera County and the larger community."

While the project apparently has broad local support, it has drawn
formidable opposition from state Sen. Dean Florez, a Kern County Democrat
who is chairman of the Governmental Organization Committee, which screens
all tribal-state compacts.

"Indian casinos should remain on Indian lands as promised to the voters,"
Florez said in an e-mail. He has introduced legislation that would require
a countywide advisory vote on the proposal.

The Picayune Rancheria, which operates a large casino in nearby
Coarsegold, also has financed a media campaign against the project.
Another big Fresno-area gaming tribe, Table Mountain Rancheria, also has
questioned North Fork's plans.

"Table Mountain is concerned about the proliferation of off-reservation
gaming," said Dan Casas, the tribe's attorney.