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Many readers said that my last letter was anti-gambling. Gambling was the means I used to point out how ineffective the enforcement of our laws has become. That enforcement is ineffective for two reasons:

1. Our officials and bureaucrats don't want to make anyone mad because they want to keep their jobs. (Arresting people can make people mad.) One example is U. S. Attorney John Kelly. He makes $115,300 per year. Kelly says casino gambling is a crime, but spends all his time trying to find ways to do nothing about it. That's called job security.

2. Our business people and civic leaders love to bend the law so they can make money.

Example: The media advertising illegal gambling.

This is happening in a lot of counties in New Mexico, in fact, it's all over. Ex-Governor Toney Anaya once said, "New Mexico is a banana republic." It looks as if he was right.

Here is some information about gambling: Two hundred fifty (250) groups have signed on with the New Mexico Coalition Against Gambling. Among the 250 groups around the state that came out against gambling, there are Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, Lutherans, Mormons and even teachers' unions. Ninety (90) groups have been added to help since the last letter, but of the four major business groups in Albuquerque, only the Albuquerque Economic Forum has come out against the casino cartel. The Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Commerce and Industry both came out for more casino gambling. I do not know how the Hispano Chamber of Albuquerque stands.


It is interesting to note that the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Fe School Board have the backbone to come out against the expansion of casino gambling. (Santa Fe is right in the middle of the casino corridor and has learned the hard way what casino gambling does to their local business and to the children.)

Why do the two Albuquerque business groups oppose all of these churches and even oppose their business friends in Santa Fe? Can you understand why these two groups went with the Casino Cartel and not with the churches, school board, unions or the Santa Fe Chamber?

Speaking of the Casino Cartel, every time we have been in court, there are the same lawyers representing different tribes. One of the lead lawyers has been a gentlemen named Bill Haltom from Albuquerque. He
represented Santa Ana and San Juan. This last winter Bill Haltom decided to run for the Supreme Court against Justice Pam Minzner. She just happens to have written the four opinions that went against gaming interests. It turned out that when Haltom filed, he did not have enough petition signatures to legally get on the ballot so he was disqualified. He then turned around and is now running a write-in campaign with the blessing of the GOP. I have wondered if he would have run for the Supreme Court if Justice Minzner had ruled the other way.

Listed as major contributors in the Republican Lincoln Day Dinner program were Haltom and a couple of tribes that support him that own illegal casinos. Santa Ana and Pojoaque Puebloes even gave more money than Sunwest Bank of New Mexico, Bank of New Mexico, U. S. West, Intel Corporation and Navajo Refining.

In my mind I have questions whether the Republican Party is living up to the standards of Lincoln by standing in line to take money from the owners of the illegal casinos. The Republican Party is not the only group taking money. The Albuquerque Journal reported that the Democrat State Party received $1,000 more in contributions from the casinos than did the GOP. Also in the newspaper, Bill Clinton had a $1,000 a plate dinner in Denver and some of the casino tribes went. U. S. Congressman Bill Richardson admitted in the newspaper that he had taken $23,000 from them. He said that he took the money because the illegal casinos had been around and weren't going to go away. I wonder if Congressman Richardson will next be hustling money from brothels? After all they've been around much longer than the casinos. In fact, if we don't set some standards now, both parties may find they can get financed by the cocaine industry. I've heard it is probably the biggest cash industry in the state.

I think both parties are putting money before principle. This could be the reason that so many people are registering Independent, or not registering at all, which causes low voter turnout at the polls.

I will bring you up to date on the "Great Gasoline-Tax Loophole Saga." The media has not quite correctly explained what happened. A year ago, the U. S. Supreme Court made a ruling concerning the collection of various states' gasoline taxes. The N. M. Interim Tax Committee chaired by Representative Jerry Sandel and the late Senator Eddie Lopez last year studied how this ruling would hit our gasoline taxes.

There was testimony before the Interim Tax Committee and other committees, that if the Native Americans set up gasoline distributorships, the state could lose between $50 and $120 Million dollars in state gasoline taxes. If this happens, it would gut the road fund, force the lay off of 900 State Highway Department employees and stop most road construction in the state.


When the 30-day session started there was a committee bill, HB-47, carried by Democrat Jerry Sandel that would have closed the loophole of 17 cents per gallon state tax on gasoline distributed off Native American land. It passed the House by vote of 54 to 13 and went to the Senate. It ended up going through the Senate Ways & Means Committee and Senate Finance. On the last day, the Democrat leadership (Aragon and friends) made a motion to kill HB-47 after it sat for five days and was passed over again and again.

At the same time in the Senate, Senator Lee Rawson, a Republican, also had a similar bill, SB-43, to close the gas tax loophole.. It would have accomplished the same thing that Representative Sandel's Bill, HB-47. But on the 11th day of the session, it failed in the Senate 14 to 20. Those who voted for it were: Carraro, Donisthorpe, Duran, Ingle, Kidd, Lyons, McKibben, Rawson, Reagan, Rhodes, Scott, Smith, Vernon and Wiener. All except two are Republicans.

Because both of these bills failed, Governor Johnson was forced to call a special session a month later to pass another bill to protect the road fund! In calling the special session, the Governor made Native Americans angry with him because they were just starting to see how much money they could make selling untaxed gasoline to the rest of the state. It helped break up the Johnson-Indian honeymoon which developed because of the gambling
compacts. (Just what Manny Aragon wanted.)


During the special session, March 20 to 22, the House again passed a bill to close the loophole, but this time the Native Americans fought its passage. All Republicans but one voted for it. Instead of only 13 Democrats voting against it, this time 21 Democrats voted against it, but it still passed.

It went to the Aragon Senate. This bill was once again killed by Democrat Votes... three Republicans and 19 Democrats voted to kill it.

After considering the following, I will make a prediction.

1. Right now the gambling issue is in the Federal Courts. Anti-gamblers have won everything in the State Supreme Court.
2. Governor Johnson is talking about a meeting with Native Americans and the state to solve their differences on many issues.
3. Manny and Ray love taxes even though they both voted to give away the gasoline tax.
4. We still need to close the gasoline-tax loophole to save our highway system so there is talk of another special session.

My prediction: The public will be told by Manny and Ray, "Give the Native Americans gambling and then the gasoline tax loophole can be closed to save the roads." This is not a back room deal, it is extortion! This will be the end of the "Great Gasoline-Tax-Loophole Saga."

The business community and the great political leaders will say, "What a great deal it is for New Mexico, a win, win," but we will be stuck with casino gambling given to us by Manny and Ray. Manny and Ray get the win-win. The rest of the state gets the lose-lose.

Sincerely,

George Buffett

P.S. A final story not in your local paper.... on November 30, 1995, eight long-term Democrats (four Senators and four Representatives) charged the state between $1153 and $1488 each to go to a Council of State Government Leadership Forum in Puerto Rico. The tab was $10,346 for just air fare. No Republicans nor Democrat women were included. What bothers me is that they probably spent their time listening to what other states are doing to increase taxes and learning about creating new projects to spend more tax dollars with money that isn't there.

SANTA FE COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

PRESS RELEASE

DATE: December 8,1995

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
BRUCE HERR, CHAIR OF THE BOARD 982-3873
CATHERINE E. ZACHER, PRESIDENT 988-3279 FAX: 984-2205

TOPIC: GAMBLING IN SANTA FE COUNTY

The Santa Fe County Chamber of Commerce voted at a special board meeting on December 7, to reaffirm its historic position against gambling in Santa Fe county, which has been consistently stated for the past several years.

The Chamber urges the New Mexico Attorney, the United States Attorney for New Mexico, and the tribal governments to enforce the laws of the state, as articulated by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

After months of study by a specially appointed task force, and after lengthy discussion, the Board concluded that on and off reservation gambling has and will have a negative economic and social impact on Santa Fe County and the State. Therefore the Board urges the
legislature not to expand through legislative action the level of gambling currently permitted, as defined by the New Mexico Supreme Court on November 30, when the Court held that all forms of electronic gambling are illegal in New Mexico.

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