Indian gambling debate comes to Capitol Hill

Sacramento -- The Lytton Band of Pomo Indians will come before Congress today hoping to keep alive the best chance of building a slot-machine casino in the heart of the East Bay, even as the same political body which lifted the tribe's fortunes long ago now sits poised to deal it a devastating blow.

The appearance of tribal chairwoman Marjie Mejia before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this morning -- which will unfold under the skeptical gazes of some of America's most powerful politicians -- will cap five halting, tumultuous years in which the tribe has moved ever closer to creating the first truly urban gambling emporium in California, only to come up just shy each time.

Today, the unusual underpinnings of the gambling deal made last year between the tribe and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to bring a 2,500-slot machine casino a mile from Interstate 80 in San Pablo will fall under direct attack from U.S Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is looking to advance a bill that would essentially dismantle it.

At an informational hearing on her bill, U.S. Rep. George Miller, D- Martinez -- who five years ago helped the tribe secure land and the casino bargaining rights that came with it -- will find himself defending the intent of his long-ago legislation. Miller's bill restored land to the Lyttons -- who decades ago were stripped of a federally recognized patch in Sonoma County's Alexander Valley -- by turning a modest card club in San Pablo owned by the tribe into federally recognized Indian land.

Feinstein's bill attacks the aspect of Miller's legislation that obliged the state to cut a full-fledged casino pact for the site. She has derided Miller's legislation as having been passed in the "dead of night," which Miller disputes.

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