Tribes urged to unify in face of federal, state challenges

"We need to unify ourselves politically for the fight that lies ahead," Joe Pakootas, chairman of the Colville Confederated Tribes' business council, told about 70 participants Monday at the start of his tribes' two-day Washington State Tribes Gaming Strategy Summit.

"We have to establish an economic and business agenda for Indian gaming. The state governments know we will be defeated if we are not unified."

At issue are new moves in Congress and the states to restrict reservation gambling. Speakers were enlisted from tribes facing similar concerns in California, Nebraska and South Dakota.

"One small tribe can't do it by themselves," said Arthur "Butch" Denny of Nebraska, whose Santee Sioux Tribe faces a federal contempt citation for refusing to close a casino. "If we all stick together, we can come out of this a winner."

Under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, tribes must reach agreements, called compacts, with states to operating gambling casinos.

But when Florida failed to negotiate such an agreement with the Seminoles, the tribe's attempt to sue was stymied by the 11th Amendment, which protects states from such lawsuits.

Since that 1996 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, governors have begun demanding more regulations and even looking at reservations as sources of new tax revenues, speakers said.

Many of the nation's smaller tribes will encounter hard-nosed governors who want to scrap existing gambling compacts to seek more revenues for state coffers, said speaker Harold Monteau, a lawyer whose Washington, D.C., law firm represents numerous gaming tribes.

He laid out a 10-point battle plan that calls for forging new alliances, identifying enemies and finding third parties to validate tribal positions.

If tribes aren't vigilant, seemingly small, isolated acts by states to regulate Indian gambling or to diminish tribal rights will be utilized and expanded on by others, Monteau said.

As a last resort, tribes may have to choose between compliance with unpalatable regulations and civil disobedience, he said.

The Colvilles have appealed a federal court order for forfeiture of nearly 800 slot machines at the tribes' three casinos. At issue is the Johnson Act, a federal 1950s anti-mob law being used by Washington state officials to fight the devices.

The case is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The Spokane Tribe of Indians, which operates about 1,020 slot machines in its four casinos, also is awaiting that ruling. Under an order from a federal judge on the west side of the state, slots were removed late last year from a casino operated by the small, poor Shoalwater Bay Tribe.

None of those three tribes had been able to reach agreement on a compact with Washington state.

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