Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Mark Macarro

79.  Mark Macarro

Let’s be straight here – Mark Macarro is as synonymous with tribal governance and gaming as anyone alive. The long-time chair of the Pechanga Band of Indians, his leadership drove the building of the tribe’s enormously successful Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula in 1995, and it has become the second largest of its kind in the state. Leadership is also in his blood, as his great-grandfather, Juan Macarro, served as tribal chairman (then known as “captain”) in the early 1900s. Macarro has been chairman since 1992, and has also long represented the Pechanga tribe in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Last year he was elected president of that organization. He is also a longtime veteran of the political battles over gaming, and was one of the key backers a few years ago of Prop. 26, 
one of two competing gaming ballot measures that 
went down in flames after the two sides spent a half 
a billion dollars.

Updated Aug. 19, 2024