New York - Washington often ignores the needs of poor Native Americans while assisting newly-wealthy tribes who dump staggering amounts of money into political campaigns, lobbying and state ballot initiatives, TIME charges in a major investigation of Indian casinos.
This week, TIME publishes the second and final report after a year-long investigation by the Pulitzer prize winning team of TIME Editors-at-Large Donald Barlett and James Steele.
Online, go to: https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101021223-399923,00.html
Indian political power is greatest in California, where Indian gaming revenue-$4 billion and growing - is set to surpass all the casinos in Las Vegas, TIME reports. "As the profitability and size of Indian casinos has grown, so has friction between the gaming ventures and surrounding communities," Barlett and Steele conclude. Also, "Washington often rewards rich tribes and penalizes poor ones by distributing funds based on historical practices rather than need. A tribe with a profitable casino often gets more money per capita than a tribe without one."
TIME discloses "staggering" expenditures to secure political favors, while Congress has slashed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the point that the General Accounting Office calls it understaffed without coherent guidelines. TIME reports:
--Federal funding of Native American programs climbed from $5.3 billion to $9.4 billion, a 77% increase, from 1993-2001, according to an Office of Management and Budget report. --Indian tribes have contributed $8.6 million to federal candidates since 1993. --In 1996, during President Clinton's second run for office, 86% of $1.9 million went to Democrats. --In 2002, with President George W. Bush in the White House, 56% of $1.4 million has gone to Republicans. --In 2000-2001, tribes spent $20 million lobbying Congress on such issues as preserving the tax-free status of casinos. Sovereign tribes pay no state or local taxes.
TIME's cover story last week, "Wheel of Misfortune: Look Who's Cashing In at Indian Casinos," presented part one. William Safire devoted his Thursday column in The New York Times to TIME's investigation: "The poorest of our aboriginal Americans are getting poorer, while non-Indians get rich hiring lobbyists to get federal recognition of a tribal front for the sole purpose of buying land to build a casino," Safire wrote. "It is a financial-political scandal of stunning proportions," Safire concluded. "Under the cover of helping the 28% of Indians now mired in poverty, financial vultures and highly paid, revolving-door lobbyists are ripping off the U.S. taxpayer."
In part two, TIME focuses on tribes wielding political influence. "At the state level small Indian tribes with immensely profitable casinos are exerting an even more disproportionate clout" than in Washington, report Barlett and Steele. TIME's examples include:
--CALIFORNIA's Casinos Contribute Less Towards the Cost of Local Government Services Than in Connecticut: In this year's re-election campaign, Gov. Gray Davis picked up more than $1.8 million from California tribes, which operate 48 casinos in the state -- with perhaps two-dozen more on the way. Davis has negotiated compacts that provide for voluntary tribal contributions to a fund to help local communities defray the cost of government services near casinos. California officials estimate the tribes will pay about $100 million a year into the fund. By contrast, Connecticut collected $332 million last year from its two Indian casinos, Foxwoods and the Monhegan Sun. If California tribes were paying at the same rate-25% of slot revenue-the state would collect between $800 million and $1 billion.
TIME's story also covers casinos operated in California by tribes such as the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians and its Cache Creek Indian Bingo & Casino. While the casino will take in an estimated $150 million this year, the 44-member tribe also will receive approximately $4,457 from the BIA's tribal priority allocations (TPA).
--CONNECTICUT's Eastern Pequots Used a Lobbyist Related to the White House Chief of Staff: Last June, Bush appointees in the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognized the Eastern Pequots, a southeastern Connecticut tribe with casino hopes. The tribe and its investors paid $525,000 to Ronald Kaufman, a Republican lobbyist who is the brother-in-law of White House chief of staff Andrew Card. "The BIA's recognition came amid widespread opposition," TIME reports, and questions about the tribe's authenticity.
--FLORIDA's Chief of the Seminoles Was Suspended Last Year: The Seminoles won Supreme Court approval for gaming everywhere, TIME reports. Last year individual members received gaming dividends of $36,000; two casinos in Hollywood and Tampa made a combined profit of $216 million, a return of 85%. In 2000, the tribe doled out $275,000 to Democrats. The Seminoles have broken ground for a new complex with Hard Rock Cafe International. Seminole Chief James E. Billie was suspended last year pending an audit of questionable tribal financial dealings, which is still ongoing. His $330,000 salary was the highest of any elected official in Florida. He was responsible as tribal head for the purchase of a corporate jet and a minifleet of helicopters.
Four-hundred members of the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida, whose Miccosukee Resort and Gaming Center rakes in an estimated $75 million a year, will collect $2,858 in BIA TPA's (funds given to tribe members). In the 2003 budget, by contrast, North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewas (28,000 members) will receive on average $154 each.
TIME's investigation shows that while the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over the past four years handed out housing funds to Florida Seminoles averaging $2,800 a member - while the tribe's five casinos generated nearly $1 billion in revenue.
--MISSISSIPPI's Choctaws Spend the Most on D.C. Lobbyists: Mississippi's Choctaw (8,800 members) are the biggest spenders: $11 million distributed to Washington lobbying firms since 1997, most to Jack Abramoff, a top Republican Party fundraiser. The Choctaw Tribe's Silver Star Hotel & Casino rakes in profits of about $100 million a year with a return on revenue of 41%, according to TIME. Over the past five years, "federal agencies have lavished $245 million on the Choctaw," TIME reports. In 2001, the Choctaw collected $50.4 million, or $5,700 a member, while the Navajos (with no casinos) averaged $900 for each it their 260,000 members. TIME reports that HUD gave the Choctaws an average of $5,900 per member, while the country's largest tribe, the Navajo, with no casinos and a 52% unemployment rate, got much less-- $1,500 per member.
--TEXAS's Kickapoo Ousted Their Casino Head This Fall: The Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas ousted Isidro Garza Jr. -- who ran the Lucky Eagle Casino - this fall. The casino's beneficiaries, tribe members charge, were primarily Garza's immediate family and tribal allies, including his friend, chief Makateonenodua, according to TIME.
Although neither the Eagle Pass, TX casino nor the Indian Gaming Commission will release data, TIME estimates the casino's gross revenue at more than $25 million a year. "Not a penny has trickled down to the tribe's 470 adult members," according to TIME. Garza's salary was rumored to be at least $500,000. (Federal aid to the tribe has amounted to $10.6 million in recent years.)
Tribal members over the past several years tried to enlist government support, making a litany of charges that money was being skimmed. The Bureau of Indian Affairs passed the buck, TIME reports, saying it wasn't an "investigative arm" of the government.
Garza denies all the charges, and insists he only spent personal funds, his cut of casino profits. "I have a contract with the tribal council," Garza tells TIME, "that compensates me for a percent of the profit of the casino." He would not tell TIME how much: "I think that's between the council and us." Two years ago, tribe member Jususita Salazar moved from her two-room house, which was in the path of the planned expansion of the Lucky Eagle Casino seven miles southeast of Eagle Pass. Makateonenodua promised to build a new house for the elderly grandmother. But the 100,000 square-foot project ran out of money; tribe members charge it was siphoned off by Kickapoo leaders, according to TIME. Salazar has left her two-bedroom with electricity and plumbing for a one room hut. "I never got the reimbursement for my home...I am now worried that one day I will be homeless," Salazar tells TIME.
TIME also reports how George W. Bush's efforts as governor helped lead to the shutting down earlier this year of the Speaking Rock Casino & Entertainment Center near El Paso, on the reservation of the Tigua, also known as the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe. At the time he launched the campaign, Bush said, "There ought not to be casino gambling in the state of Texas, any shape or form of it."
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