SACRAMENTO – Over the past 18 months, a Barona-sponsored measure to create a new infraction with fines of up to $500 for trespassing on Indian reservations moved through the Legislature without a single no vote.

But the bill, SB 331, could never overcome the belief by some that it would be used against hundreds of California Indians banished from their tribes, often wealthy gambling tribes.

To put those fears to rest, the Assembly Appropriations Committee this month added an amendment that declared the measure would not apply to former members of a tribe. Barona promptly dropped the bill.

“The intent was to protect the tribes, specifically Barona, from unwanteds on the reservation,” said Sheilla Alvarez, the tribe's director of government affairs. “The intent was never to get involved with the disenrollment issue.”

Although Barona has not disenrolled any members, the sequence of events and the decision to abandon the legislation on the brink of final passage have fanned lingering suspicions.

“It was a really odd bill, especially when you consider that tribes already have the authority to do certain things to deal with trespassing,” said John Gomez, one of some 400 people disenrolled by the Pechanga band of Temecula. “Hopefully it's finally dead.”

Barona, a 470-member tribe, operates a thriving casino resort on a 7,000-acre reservation near Lakeside. Tribal Chairwoman Rhonda Welch-Scalco said the legislation was developed after meetings with San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, both of whom wrote letters of support.

The problem, Welch-Scalco said in a letter to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, was that existing state law requires property to be enclosed with a fence or posted with no trespassing signs, at least three per mile and at all roads and trails entering the property.

Like many reservations, Barona's is bisected by a public road. Its perimeter also runs along hillsides, with many trails leading onto the reservation.

“It would be difficult to either fence or post signage in these areas, as well as to protect the fencing or signage once it was posted,” Welch-Scalco wrote.

The tribe persuaded Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, to carry the bill. It sailed out of the Senate last year with a 39-0 vote before skeptics started asking questions in the Assembly.

The bill languished for months before emerging from the Assembly Public Safety Committee in March. But it was sent to the Appropriations Committee, even though it had negligible fiscal implications.

Appropriations Chairman Mark Leno, a San Francisco Democrat who had become aware of the growing number of disenrollments, had his staff develop the amendments to make sure the new trespassing statute did not become a weapon to be used against banished members of tribes.

The state, the amendments declared, should respect and not interfere with tribes' internal political affairs, including disputes about tribal membership.

When Romero agreed to accept the amendments, Barona representatives told her the tribe no longer wanted to pursue the measure.

“There were still questions about it, it's late in the session, the impasse with the budget has taken over everything,” Romero said later. “At a certain point, the clock runs out.”