By Lara Korte, Sejal Govindarao and Dustin Gardiner

Patrons at the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino play slot machines June 8, 2006, on the San Manuel Indian Reservation, Calif. | Ric Francis/AP Photo

DRIVING THE DAY: America’s two most polarizing governors are fighting over the details of their upcoming faceoff.

After months of long-distance political prodding, Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed last week to meet face-to-face for a debate moderated by Fox’s Sean Hannity in November.

But negotiations over the specifics are, unsurprisingly, causing some snags. Team Newsom was unimpressed with DeSantis’ counterproposal (first reported by POLITICO), which included a prerecorded video in lieu of opening remarks and a live audience instead of an empty room.

“Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet,” Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click said. “It’s no wonder Trump is kicking his ass.”

THE BUZZ — Hawaiian Gardens is Los Angeles County’s smallest city — home to less than 15,000 residents, one square mile of land, and, for a three-month period this year, the state’s top spender on lobbying.

Hawaiian Gardens Casino, a card room that acts as the main source of revenue for the tiny city, earned the distinction by spending more than $5 million in the last quarter to lobby the state Legislature against a bill that wades into a longstanding feud between card rooms and gaming tribes.

That’s more than the Energy Foundation and the Western States Petroleum Association, perennially high spenders, spent combined. It even topped the $4 million the McDonald’s corporation dropped battling fast-food labor regulations in Sacramento.

The legislation in contention, authored by state Sen. Josh Newman, revisits a hotly contested, decade-old dispute over who can offer what types of card games. Tribes contend card rooms are skirting the law that gives them exclusive rights to games like blackjack. Card rooms argue that the matter is settled and that tribes are trying to run them out of business.

Efforts to clear up the disagreement through the courts, state regulation and ballot initiatives haven’t worked.

Newman’s bill would give tribes legal standing — for just three months — to challenge card rooms in court if they believe the businesses are offering games illegally.

The $5 million put up by the casino this year signals a willingness to put up a fight in a long-simmering battle. The company’s general counsel, Keith Sharp, said the casino is willing to commit the necessary resources to protect itself, “now and in the future.”

Like other card rooms around the state, the one in Hawaiian Gardens acts as the biggest source of revenue for its community. The card room is responsible for nearly 70 percent of the annual municipal revenue — enough to cover the annual cost of public safety, public works and government operations in Hawaiian Gardens.

But Tuari Bigknife, attorney general for the Viejas Band of the Kumeyaay Indians, argues the card rooms are trampling over their exclusive rights and siphoning off a huge portion of revenue for tribes, which also rely on gambling as a main source of money.

“This is a direct take from tribal treasuries,” Bigknife said.

Newman’s gaming legislation appeared in late June after replacing an unrelated education bill that had passed the Senate. It now sits in the Assembly Rules Committee.

A message from American Beverage Association:

At America’s beverage companies, we are committed to reducing our plastic footprint. That’s why we’re carefully designing our plastic bottles to be 100% recyclable, including the caps. Our goal is for every bottle to become a new one, so they don’t end up in nature. Learn more at EveryBottleBack.org.

HAPPY MONDAY. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. And welcome to the last week of the Legislature’s summer recess.

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Then-President Donald Trump stands behind then-gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., on Nov. 3, 2018. | Butch Dill/AP Photo

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER — California, the nation’s deep-blue, liberal stronghold, is the latest prize in the struggle among Republicans vying for the White House.

After weeks of intraparty fighting, the California GOP recently voted to change how the state doles out its massive amount of primary delegates in a way that some argue will benefit former President Donald Trump. As our POLITICO colleague Rachael Bade reported Friday, that change was quietly pushed by Trump aides, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who helped craft a plan that was supported by the former president’s allies.

It’s a strategy that Team Trump is deploying in other states around the country, Rachael tells us, but it also underscores how the presidential primary is causing rifts in the California GOP during a cycle when critical House districts are on the line.

While Trump still maintains solid support in the state party, there is concern that his presence on the general ballot could hurt Republicans in purple districts. Already, some California Democrats have seized on Trump’s presence at the party’s upcoming fall convention as a chance to malign their opponents as MAGA extremists.

DeSantis, who appears to have been outmaneuvered by Trump in the state primary process, is also speaking at the CA GOP convention in September. As is South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. 

There is appetite in the party for an alternative to Trump’s polarizing, bombastic politicking, said party Treasurer Greg Gandrud, who backed the former president in 2016 and 2020 but is now openly supporting DeSantis.

Trump as the nominee creates some “challenging messaging” for Republicans in close congressional races, Gandrud said. But support for Trump still dominates party dynamics.

And if crowd size is any indication, Trump is already holding an advantage over DeSantis among California Republicans.

Tickets for Trump’s lunchtime convention speech have already surpassed the maximum room capacity at the Anaheim hotel, Gandrud said. As of Friday, party leaders were looking to move Trump’s speech to a larger venue to meet demand.

YELLOW LIGHT — State Sen. Scott Wiener wants to bump up Bay Area bridge tolls by $1.50, but some of the state’s congressional delegation isn’t so jazzed.

Seven members criticized the campaign in a letter Friday, contending such a hike would hurt their low-income, car-dependent constituents who can’t afford to live where they work.

Wiener is pushing the effort to support low-income public transit users and fund safer and cleaner public transit alongside a handful of co-authors representing the region.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier said he supports increasing transit agency ridership, which is still reeling from the pandemic’s drastic ridership decline. But he's urging state lawmakers to assess the impact of this hike on working-class commuters who live in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties.

“It’s particularly egregious for my constituents, knowing how they commute and the length of their commute and the cost of housing,” DeSaulnier said in an interview. “They can’t afford to live in San Francisco.”

BONTA GOES TO BATTLE — California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta is once again wading into a fight with conservative school board members over LGBTQ issues.

On Friday, Bonta announced a civil rights investigation into the Chino Valley Unified School District’s new policy forcing schools to disclose the identities of transgender and nonbinary students to their parents, as POLITICO’s Blake Jones reports.

In a statement the attorney general, who is considering a run for governor, said the district’s policy to forcibly out students “threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members unaccepting of their gender identity.”

Democratic state Superintendent Tony Thurmond, who is also mulling a run for the office, was tossed from the Chino Valley board’s July meeting after advocating against the policy — ostensibly because he went over the time he was given to speak.

Blake spoke to Chino Board President Sonja Shaw about the investigation on Friday, who said she’s “not backing down.”

"It's a joke," Shaw told him. "It just makes me sink my feet that much more into the sand and protect the kids against people who have no best interest for them."

A message from American Beverage Association:

— "One migrant’s journey to Sacramento: 108 days, 3 deportations and the search for a new life," by The Sacramento Bee’s  Mathew Miranda: “Diego de Jesús Delgado Meléndez traveled thousands of miles from his home in Venezuela and trekked some of the world’s most dangerous terrain in search of a way to provide for his 11 children. And yet, when he finally entered the U.S., after 85 days and 3 deportations, his journey hadn’t finished.”

COWA-BUMMER — "Big waves becoming more common off California as Earth warms, new research finds," by The Associated Press’ Julie Watson: “Until now, scientists relied on a network of buoys by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that collect data on wave height along U.S. coasts, but that data along the California coast only went back to 1980.”

— "America’s most tech-forward city has doubts about self-driving cars," by The Wall Street Journal’s  Meghan Bobrowsky and Miles Kruppa: “Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise are struggling to win over San Francisco residents and officials, a major hurdle in their nationwide expansion.”

— "Dead fish wash ashore as toxic red tide hits the San Francisco Bay Area,"  by the Los Angeles Times’ Saumya Gupta: “At least 21 marine animals have washed ashore dead throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in the last week — potential victims of the return of the same toxic red tide that killed thousands of fish in the region last year.”

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— Longtime California political reporter and author Dan Morain caught up with veteran Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman in the latest installment of Capitol Weekly’s oral history project, sponsored by the California State Library.

A message from American Beverage Association:

America’s leading beverage companies - The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo - are working together to reduce our industry’s plastic footprint through our Every Bottle Back initiative. We’re investing in efforts to get our bottles back so we can remake them into new bottles and use less new plastic. 

Together, we’re: 

• Designing 100% recyclable plastic bottles – we’re making our bottles from PET that’s strong, lightweight and easy to recycle.   
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• Raising awareness – we’re adding on-pack reminders to encourage consumers to recycle our plastic bottles and caps.     

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