Ok, someone help me out here. For years, we have been watching Indian tribes all over California build, in some cases, massive gambling casinos on their tribal lands. Making the case for reservations being sovereign land, building casinos on them has become truly big business for some Indian tribes — especially for those whose ancestors were prescient enough to settle lands long ago that today are well-located for attracting gamblers.
Yesterday I read in the Fresno Bee and in the Los Angeles Times that the North Fork Tribe in Madera County in the heart of the Central Valley had reached an agreement for a gambling compact with Governor Schwarzenegger. That, in and of itself, isn’t that newsworthy — there are a lot of tribes, and a lot of compacts.
What caught my eye was that this North Fork Tribe gambling casino would be the state’s first to NOT be on the tribe’s reservation! In fact, the North Fork Tribal Casino would be about 35 miles away from the North Fork Tribe’s ancestral lands in the Sierra Foothills.
Huh?
From reading the MSM stories, it sounds like this "deal" was struck to avoid the building of a casino in the pristine Sierra foothills (and also there is some other sort of side deal where revenues from the North Fork Tribal Casino would go to some other tribe on California’s north coast, who in return would agree not to build a casino along the coastline on their sovereign land — clearly a terrifying thought to the Sierra Club, Maria Shriver, et. al.).
So let me get this straight. Indian tribes can build casinos on their sovereign land. But if their land is in a place where the State doesn’t want a casino, then they can instead magically place their casino in a more economically desirable (to the tribe) location, that isn’t on the reservation at all.
I think that the State of California is treading on some very dangerous ground here.
The entire concept of Indian Tribal Reservation sovereignty (where the rules that apply everywhere else in the United States magically do not apply) is quite controversial. I know because whenever the issue of Indian gambling becomes high profile, I get swamped with e-mails from Republicans and conservatives with grumblings to the effect of "pay whatever reparations are appropriate, but otherwise, everyone is in America, and should have to follow the same rules."
Not everyone agrees with that sentiment, I know.
What am I missing, here? It makes you scratch your head.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I’ve been contact by a Tulare County local who promises to “fill me in” on this deal. I’m going to call him tomorrow.
In the meantime, I was just thinking that while environmental concerns might be driving compacts today, perhaps in the future it may be economic concerns.
After all, State Government makes big bucks from these compacts, so the state has an interest in the placement of casinos where they will thrive, eh?
May 1st, 2008 at 12:00 am
My question is whether or not the land that the casino is to be built on will be annexed onto the reservation. I ask this because I have lately taken an interest in the expansionism of the Chumash Reservation (which contains a large casino); whereby they privately purchase land surrounding the reservation, and then annex it into the reservation. If a reservation is to be considered “sovereign land”, then I have a problem with that “sovereign land” expanding at the expense of the U.S. Furthermore, it also puts local business owners at a disadvantage to tribal retailers who enjoy a different tax burden.