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Three new measures designed to control the spread of casinos took forward steps this week, including one federal law and two proposed amendments to the California Constitution. 

The federal measure, which was debated Thursday in the House Resources Committee, is the brainchild of U.S. Rep Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee. His 6th District includes the southwest portion of San Joaquin County and parts of Contra Costa and Alameda counties. 

Oakland City Councilmember Jean Quan attended Thursday’s hearing to testify about the impact of casinos on her city and the East Bay. 

Pombo’s proposal would restrict off-reservation casinos to “Indian Economic Opportunity Zones,” restricted to a maximum of two per state. 

Pombo’s bill doesn’t stop the construction of new casinos, and multiple tribes could concentrate their new gambling ventures into what some critics have called “mini-Las Vegases.” 

In California, two proposed constitutional amendments calling for a moratorium on new casino construction are in the works, one jointly sponsored by Bay Area Assemblymembers Joe Nation and Loni Hancock, and the other by a collection of local elected officials spearheaded by Fairfax City Councilmember Frank Eggers. 

Both proposals call for creation of special task forces to examine gambling related issues during the moratorium. 

Nation’s amendment would bar the governor from concluding any new tribal gambling compacts until January 2008 and inaugurate a 13-member commission to examine issues of local governmental control, social and economic impacts and the possible consolidation of several tribes into one casino operation. 

“Instead of 10 casinos spread through the Bay Area, there might be only a couple,” Nation said. “One tribe with a proposal contacted me and said they would be willing to consolidation operations with other tribes.” 

The Nation-Hancock measure is presently in the Assembly Rules Committee. Once the proposal passes muster in the requisite committees, it will come before both house of the state Legislature, where it must receive a two-thirds endorsement by both houses before it can be sent on to the voters for the final decision. 

In Washington, House Resources Committee Press Secretary Jennifer Zuccarelli said Pombo’s proposed legislation had been spurred by numerous complaints from local officials as well as long-established tribes concerned about casino proposals by out-of-area tribal groups. 

“Local communities are telling us they never anticipated having casinos because they had no reservations in the area, but now tribes are coming in from out of state,” she said. “They’re telling us that they stayed on their homeland and played by the rules, yet now tribes with no history in the area are setting up casinos by promising fees to local governments.” 

Pombo’s concern is that while the Indian Gaming Act specifically precluded taxing tribal casinos, out-of-area tribes are paying a percentage of revenues in exchange for local government acquiescence to their gambling plan. 

Zuccarelli said Pombo’s proposal would stop tribes moving across state lines to create casinos, while allowing the Secretary of the Interior to designate two Economic Development Gaming Zones in each state, one on tribal land and one a so-called “fee” zone. 

The measure would allow multiple tribal casinos in each zone, creating so-called mini-Las Vegases. 

“There would be no limit on the numbers of casinos in each zone,” Zuccarelli said. 

However, a fee zone could be created only with the endorsement of tribes and communities within a 200-mile radius of the site. 

Armando Viramontes, the member of Loni Hancock’s staff who has been handling casino issues for the Assemblymember, said that while the approval requirement should effectively limit the zones to rural areas of the state, Hancock solidly opposes the creation of mini-Las Vegases anywhere in California. 

Eggers unveiled the latest version of his proposed amendment Thursday, which calls for a five-year casino moratorium with an extension of up to three more years. 

His measure calls for creation of the California Tribal Casino Planning Commission, which would prepare a California Tribal Casino Gambling Casino Plan to be presented to the governor and state Legislature by the end of 2010.