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August
25, 2003, 9:40 a.m. |
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merican
Indians have always occupied an outsized place in our imagination, usually
as a noble people at one with a pristine North American continent. It's
time to upgrade the image. Forget buffalo, eagle feathers, and tribal
dances. Think slots, Harrah's and dirty politics.
The California recall is providing the nation an intense education in contemporary American politics, and high on the list of lessons is that Indian tribes have, lucratively, sold their souls to gambling and can buy off or defeat anyone who might want to stand in their way. California tribes make some $5 billion a year in gambling revenue, and have poured more than $120 million into state political campaigns since 1998. It's much the same story across the country.
It's time to ditch the fiction of tribal sovereignty, and recognize the tribes for what they are: good, old-fashioned, all-American sleaze merchants and scam artists. They should be fully welcomed into the American family like used-car salesmen, Hollywood, and telephone marketers.
A 25-member California tribe, the Cabazons, kicked off the explosion of Indian gambling by winning a 1987 Supreme Court decision letting tribes run gambling operations that otherwise would violate state law. Congress soon passed legislation saying that gambling must be allowed on reservations, and states should reach "compacts" with tribes over the details.
In California, then-Gov. Pete Wilson was a tough bargainer with the tribes, so they took matters into their own hands: They spent tens of millions to pass two propositions opening the state to more Indian gambling, and they bought new Gov. Gray Davis ($1.8 million in tribal cash for his re-election last year), who cut a generous compact with them in 1999. California is now on the way to becoming the West Coast's Las Vegas.
Indian gambling is an ill-disguised scam. Some so-called tribes have 30 people or less. They basically rent their names to Las Vegas casinos that run their gambling operations for as much as a 40 percent cut of the take. The upstate New York St. Regis Mohawks are typical, signing a deal a few years ago with Las Vegas-based Park Place Entertainment for a casino resort near New York City.
Gambling revenues are supposed to go to the welfare of the tribes, but any excess can be pocketed by lucky individuals. Across the country, outside casino interests have been involved in the invention of new tribes simply to provide more platforms for gambling.
The richest tribe in America, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, invented itself through skillful lobbying in Washington in the 1980s, and now operates the country's largest casino, the Foxwoods Casino roughly 100 miles outside of New York City. A Malaysian billionaire, who bankrolled the project, gets 10 percent of its net income.
At least Foxwoods pays taxes. But even casinos that generate revenue for the government can be more hassle than they're worth, a lesson upstate New York has learned as the cash-rich casino-operating Oneida Nation has basically taken over the surrounding area. In California, amazingly, the tribes pay no taxes under the Gray Davis compact.
The ultimate answer to the Indian scam is to end the fiction of tribal sovereignty. If tribes are sovereign nations, why are they allowed to interfere in U.S. elections by contributing huge amounts of money?
When another sovereign nation, like China, pours money into U.S. politics, as it did in 1996, it's a national scandal and cause for an FBI investigation.
Sovereignty has not only allowed tribes to make an end-run around laws against gambling, but has perpetuated arbitrary third world-style government on reservations that makes it impossible for businesses to operate there. End tribal sovereignty and perhaps Indians can begin to find ways to make money less sketchy than slot machines, and our image of Indians can again become something more noble.
©2003 King Features Syndicate