Official Summary Text
AB 1389, as amended, Blanca Rubio.
Horse racing: out-of-state thoroughbred races: New York Stakes.
Tribal gaming: compact ratification.
Existing federal law, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, provides for the negotiation and execution of tribal-state gaming compacts for the purpose of authorizing certain types of gaming on Indian lands within a state. The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to negotiate and conclude those compacts, subject to ratification by the Legislature. Existing law expressly ratifies a number of tribal-state gaming compacts, and amendments to tribal-state gaming compacts, between the State of California and specified Indian tribes.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project, as defined, that it proposes to carry out
or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment, as defined, or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect.
This bill would ratify the second amendment to the tribal-state gaming compact entered into between the State of California and the Yurok Tribe of the Yurok Reservation, California, executed on December 18, 2025, to extend the terms of the tribal-state gaming compact. The bill would provide that, in deference to tribal sovereignty, certain actions related to this amended compact are not projects for the purposes of CEQA.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law authorizes a thoroughbred racing association or fair to distribute the audiovisual signal and accept wagers on the results of out-of-state thoroughbred races conducted in the United States during the calendar period the association or fair is conducting a race meeting, including days on which there is no live racing being conducted by the association or fair, without the consent of the organization that represents horsemen and horsewomen participating in the race meeting and without regard to the amount of purses. Existing law prohibits the total number of thoroughbred races imported by associations or fairs on a statewide basis under these provisions from exceeding 75 races per day on days when live thoroughbred or fair racing is being conducted in the state, with the exception of prescribed races.
This bill would exempt from the 75
imported race per day limitation, races imported that are part of the race card of the New York Stakes.