Seminoles and Charlie Crist

The Seminole Tribe of Florida voted to approve a gambling compact with the governor Friday at a closed-door meeting of its tribal council in Hollywood, according to people close to the negotiations.

But in what may be a deal-breaker for lawmakers who must ratify the agreement, the council refused to accept some provisions sought by legislative leaders.

Gov. Charlie Crist and the tribe have until Monday to meet the deadline set by the Legislature to complete an agreement to authorize slot machines, blackjack and other banked card games at its tribal casinos.

If Crist signs the agreement, he is expected to call a special session in October to have lawmakers sign off on the deal, as required by law.

The governor wouldn’t comment on the tribe’s decision Friday. “Stay tuned for details Monday,” he said at a Fort Lauderdale news conference to introduce his Senate appointee, George LeMieux.

LeMieux, Crist’s former chief of staff, served as the governor’s lead negotiator with the tribe.

Earlier this week, the governor and the tribe agreed to a plan to pay the state $150 million a year in exchange for operating the games at all seven of its casinos. But that went farther than the guidelines set by the Legislature, which authorized the card games only at the tribe’s Hard Rock casinos in Hollywood and Tampa and its two other casinos in Broward County.

Bill McCollum

Attorney General Bill McCollum said it’s time for Florida leaders to put pressure on the federal government to shut down what he calls illegal gambling at Seminole casinos.

McCollum, the state’s top lawyer, repeated has tried — to no avail — to get federal prosecutors to shut down blackjack gambling at Seminole casinos, which have operated under a legal cloud since the state Supreme Court threw out the tribe’s deal with Gov. Charlie Crist.

The state has “very little leverage with the tribe,” McCollum said.

“I don’t have the jurisdiction to enforce anything,” he told reporters today. “The federal government has the responsibility to enforce this law. And they’re not doing it and they need to have some pressure brought on them, in my opinion, to do it.”

The tribe and Crist are currently in closed-door negotiations over a gambling deal proposed by the Legislature in May. If that deal doesn’t come to fruition, the tribe almost certainly will keep running blackjack games and appeal to the federal government. What happens then is a point of heated legal dispute.

If Seminole blackjack games continue indefinitely without a valid compact, McCollum predicted the federal government will put a stop to it — but it might take awhile.

“At some point the feds need to step in and will, I think,” McCollum said. “But I don’t know long they’re going to protract this. They’ve got their own ideas. You’ve got a new administration….the change in personnel and people making policies. You’re not back to square one, but you’ve definitely lost a step.”

Note: It is this writers opinion that the Seminole Indian tribe or NATION should be allowed to do what they want.  If Republicans believe in Free Market Economics they would allow this.  It is only convenient for the lawmakers to say they support Free Market Economics to only pick and choose which sections of the market’s to be free.