EDITORIAL - Twenty-four years ago, California voters approved Proposition 1A, granting federally recognized Native American tribes the exclusive right to operate specific gaming operations, including slot machines and banked card games. This was more than a business opportunity—it marked a turning point for California Tribes, creating economic lifelines, job prospects, and funds for essential services like healthcare and education.

It was also a public acknowledgment of the centuries of brutality and violence inflicted upon California's Tribes and an attempt to offer some measure of restitution via meaningful opportunity for self-reliance.

For generations, our Tribes endured systemic genocide, forced land dispossession, and cultural erasure. Once California's electorate permitted this path for a stable economic future, Tribes organized businesses that have made us self-sustaining and high-functioning financial partners in communities across the State.

Now, two decades later, our tribal nations find themselves fighting to defend our financial sovereignty once again—this time to ensure that California's promise of exclusive gaming rights has its day in court. California Senate Bill 549 (SB 549) allows Tribes to seek a court decision on whether certain controlled games operated by California card clubs violate state law and infringe upon exclusive Tribal gaming rights. 

For more than a decade, Tribes have sought legal recourse to hold card clubs accountable for hosting games that are legally exclusive to Tribes. However, the lawsuits have been consistently dismissed on procedural grounds – a technicality – without addressing the core issue of whether card clubs are breaking the law. SB 549 would finally allow the courts to examine whether card rooms are infringing on the rights of California tribes.

To be clear, there is no rational argument for denying Tribes equal access to the court system. SB 549 is a remedy to a legal technicality that cardrooms and their high-paid lawyers want in place to keep them from being accountable to the people of California and to our Tribes.

California's history is filled with deliberate efforts to, at best, marginalize – at worst, eradicate – Native peoples. In 1851, California's first governor, Peter Burnett, declared that "a war of extermination will continue to be waged... until the Indian race becomes extinct." This wasn't empty rhetoric. Government-sanctioned violence led to the slaughter of 16,000 Native Americans, and California's Native population plummeted from 150,000 to 30,000 within a few short decades. Our ancestors were forced onto remote and undesirable lands, leaving them without economic opportunities and destabilizing our communities.,

Gaming has provided a chance to rebuild what was stolen from us. Through gaming, we are able to create new jobs and invest in critical services for our people. Gaming has allowed us to rediscover the economic sovereignty that had been systematically undermined for generations.

We urge lawmakers in Sacramento to vote in favor of SB 549, ensuring that California's Tribes have our rightful access to the courts and the justice we are entitled to. For over a century, Native American Tribes have faced countless broken promises. SB 549 is about California lawmakers keeping their promises.

John Christman is chairman of the VIEJAS Band of Kumeyaay Indians, and Tracey Hopkins is chairwoman of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians. Danielle Cirelli, chairwoman of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, and Erica Schenk, chairwoman of the Cahuilla Tribe, also contributed to this piece.