The Sullivan County (N.Y.) Legislature voted by a 6 – 3 margin on Feb. 10
to support Gov. George Pataki’s plan to pack the rural county with five,
rather than three, Indian casinos – at least three of which would be owned
by tribes currently based outside New York state.

Despite long-running and often heated debates in this Catskill county and
its neighbors over the propriety of locating several casinos in the area,
only four of the legislators had previously stated their opinions on the
matter, with two in favor and two opposed. Public hearings on Pataki’s
five-casino plan for the Catskills are slated for Feb. 28 in Albany and for
March 3 in Monticello, Sullivan’s county seat.

The Pataki plan may soon face a more formidable obstacle. The Albany
Times-Union on Feb. 13 reported that Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., plans to
introduce federal legislation that would prohibit tribal governments from
crossing state lines for gaming purposes. The congressman may reportedly
include a provision requiring tribes to have ancestral connection to any
land put into trust for gaming operations. The Pombo bill already has the
support of the United Southern and Eastern Tribes (USET), a 24-member
tribal coalition, as well as tribal leaders in New York.

In an attempt to settle a few of the outstanding land claim cases against
New York state, Pataki forged deals with two Wisconsin tribes and an
Oklahoma tribe for Catskill casinos in exchange for dropping the land
litigation.

While the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma, the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin
and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans can all trace their roots to
what is now New York, their direct connections to land in Sullivan County
are not at all clear. (To be fair, the same might be said for some of the
New York tribes as well.)

Irksome as well to the New York tribes (the Oneida and Seneca nations in
particular) is the fact that the out-of-state tribes, as part of their
settlement deals, agreed to collect and remit state sales taxes on retail
transactions with non-Indian customers.

Albany (specifically the State Legislature) has long been trying to get
tribal businesses to collect its sales taxes, and tribal governments and
entrepreneurs have likewise been vigilant in their opposition.

For the non-New York tribes to come in and agree to something that their
in-state cousins have long opposed effectively pulls the rug out from under
the New Yorkers and plays right into Pataki’s hands. Furthermore, for
Pataki to put that kind of squeeze on the tribes of his own state can
hardly be called a good-faith negotiating gambit.

With a dozen or so states facing land claim situations similar to New
York’s, the proposed Pombo legislation would certainly take away a
significant negotiating point that could make settling the claims
considerably easier. But it would also preserve the rights of tribes that
chose to remain in or near their ancestral territories.

In related news, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who replaced the venerable Sen.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee,
has called for hearings on the Indian gaming industry.

“We’re going to have hearings on the whole issue of Indian gaming, ranging
from oversight to off-reservation sites, to others,” McCain told the AP.
“It’s now a $16.3 billion-a-year business. It needs to be looked at very
carefully.”

Two quick thoughts for the esteemed Senator:

1) The industry has been studied to death in recent years – such an
exercise need not be repeated in full; thus I suggest that 2) in addition
to resolving the issue of crossing state lines, McCain’s committee proposes
meaningful guidelines for tribal-state revenue sharing under Class III
compacts. These are issues crying for answers; their resolution would
certainly ease a lot of the tension surrounding the Indian gaming industry
these days.

NORTH OF THE BORDER

Tribal leaders from the Red Lake Band of Chippewa met recently with their
counterparts from eight of Canada’s First Nations. According to the Bemidji
Pioneer, the chiefs, chairmen and secretaries are looking at ways to
re-establish the commercial relationships that existed between them before
the border between Canada and the U.S. came into existence.

Among the possible business ventures discussed was a pharmacy. The drug
store would be operated by the Red Lake Band as a branch of a Winnipeg,
Manitoba pharmacy owned by the Dakota Ojibwe Tribal Council. The Red Lake
operation would sell lower-priced Canadian prescription drugs on the
American side of the border, and profits would be shared between Red Lake
and the Tribal Council. The council is a group of eight First Nations based
in Manitoba that offers health, education, housing and social services to
its members.

The Pioneer described a preliminary business plan calling for a storefront
pharmacy operation that would also take orders by mail and over the
Internet. The pharmacy would not carry narcotics and “other controlled
substances.” Shipments to the U.S. would be duty-free. A First Nation
spokesman estimated that an initial investment of $167,000 would get the
operation off the ground.

OKLAHOMA

Another five Oklahoma tribes will enter the arena of Class III gaming. New
state-tribal compacts between Oklahoma, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and the
Chickasaw, Choctaw, Quapaw and Citizen Potawatomi nations have all been
published in the Federal Register, giving them the force of law. According
to a Feb. 11 report in The Oklahoman, all five tribal governments are
either building new facilities or planning to expand existing ones. At
present, a total of nine tribes in Oklahoma may now offer Class III gaming;
another eight are waiting in the wings.