Tribal gaming: fact and fiction - Indian Gaming: Uncertainty Clouds Future of New Mexico Pueblos

New Mexico Business Journal, Dec, 1993 by Elizabeth Gannon

DESPITE SEVERAL important laws that furthered the goal of tribal self-government, Indian communities made little progress toward realizing this dream until 1987, when a landmark federal court case affirmed the opportunities for Indian gaming.

In California v. Cabazon, the Supreme Court ruled that state governments have no authority to regulate Indian gaming if state law does not specifically prohibit those forms of gaming. This landmark ruling and the issues that arose from it, led in 1988 to the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).

Although IGRA set forth an economic rationale for Indian gaming for reservations, it actually restricted the rights affirmed in the Cabazon decision.

Since IGRA, there have been several myths started and spread by, among others, the people who oppose gaming and gambling of any sort.

Many of these fictions are nothing more than scare tactics designed to turn voters in New Mexico and other states against allowing Native Americans the right to set up and operate gaming operations.

* IGRA does not cause Indian gaming. Indian gaming has existed in this country since before the Europeans set foot on the continent. Large-scale Indian gaming, mainly bingo, predated IGRA by at least 10 years.

* Gaming is one of few economic solutions that works. Indian gaming has a long, successful history because it works and is considered to be one of the most successful economic development tools available.

According to tribal leaders, gaming is the first economic development program that has had such resounding success on the reservations without federal subsidy or other assistance. The states where Native American gaming is allowed have not proposed and cannot afford any specific or credible alternatives as a significant source of tribal revenues and jobs.

* Indian gaming revenues benefit tribes, not individual owners. Indian gaming is a $6-billion industry nationwide, and most of the revenues stay right on the reservations to fund and operate important tribal government programs. IGRA, in fact, requires that all revenues from gaming operations be used solely for governmental or charitable purposes. Opulent expenditures on yachts, jets and vacation homes, the trappings of the wealthy, non-Indian commercial casino owners and operators, do not qualify under IGRA.

Indian gaming revenues must be spent on programs to help the tribes. Monies have been directed toward building houses and schools; constructing roads and sewers; funding health care and education; and creating a strong, diverse economic base for the future.

* Gaming revenues benefit local community. Most of the revenues stay within the Native American community, but some goes to aid the local economy as well. Wherever Indian gaming has gone, the local, non-Indian population benefits right along with the Native Americans. In Minnesota, for example, Indian gaming has become the state's seventh largest employer, creating 10,000 new jobs -- three-fourths of which are held by non-Indians.

In Connecticut, a single Indian gaming establishment provides more revenues to the state than its largest employer.

Even before Indian gaming revenues start rolling in, the local community benefits through surveying, designing, building and landscaping contracts for the gaming facility.

After the facility is built, tribes spend millions of dollars per year for goods and services, the vast majority of which are provided locally.

* Native Americans pay all required taxes. Indian gaming benefits the local community by providing not only jobs and economic activity, but also taxes.

All Indian people pay federal income, FICA and social security taxes. Native Americans also pay state income and property taxes, unless they live and work within their reservation boundaries.

A very small percentage of Native Americans actually qualify for the exemption from paying state income and property taxes. Their situation is very similar to that of military personnel and their families who live and work at military installations.

Because Indian nations are sovereign governments, they have the right and the responsibility to raise money for funding various programs. These governmental monies cannot be taxed by any other government -- federal, state or local. To do so would be akin to Texas collecting taxes on New Mexico's revenues.

* IGRA does not infringe upon state's rights. Since its founding, the United States has ensured the rights of the individual states in the union. Many people lost their lives defending the right to remain sovereign entities under the protection of the union.

Yet when it comes to Native American nations, the same states that fought so hard to ensure the rights of individual states are trying to impose their own regulations on another sovereign entity.

When states allow gaming off the reservations, IGRA requires that it must be allowed on the reservation. Native American gaming operations are regulated by IGRA -- a set of federal regulations, not state regulations.