Posted on 03/22/2006 9:18:06 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Federal action might not affect La Center project, senator says
SEATTLE U.S. Sen. John McCain said Tuesday he is looking to change federal law regulating Indian gambling, but he has not and will not take a position on the Cowlitz Tribe's proposed casino near La Center.
McCain, R-Ariz., came to Seattle to stump for Mike McGavick, the leading Republican to challenge U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., this November. Advertisement
McCain, as chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, is a key player in the national debate over the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the landmark 1988 law that has allowed Indian casinos to blossom into a $19 billion industry that rakes in more money than Las Vegas' famed gambling palaces.
McCain, in a brief interview with The Columbian, said it's important for him to address the issue from a federal policy standpoint without wading into disputes over particular casinos. But he stressed that the issue is not being neglected on Capitol Hill.
"Were spending a lot of time on this issue," he said.
McCain, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, has introduced legislation to change the federal process used to approve and regulate Indian casinos. But he cautioned that those changes, if approved, might be too late to affect the Cowlitz Tribe's proposed $510 million project.
The tribe's 134,150-square-foot casino would be only a 20-minute drive from the Portland-Vancouver area, a market that is ripe for more gambling with the closest large casino an hour's drive away near the Oregon coast.
Although McCain declined to take a position on the Cowlitz project, the community upheaval clearly has caught his attention. During a Feb. 1 hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, McCain questioned Penny Coleman, acting counsel for the National Indian Gaming Commission and the person who wrote a federal opinion saying the Cowlitz have historic ties to the 152-acre casino site west of La Center.
Much of the national fury has been directed toward off-reservation casinos, or when a tribe proposes to build a casino away from its established reservation to capitalize on a larger population base and a more lucrative market.
The Cowlitz, however, are a newly recognized tribe that doesn't have a reservation. The tribe wants the federal government to designate the La Center site as its reservation, which would allow it to build a casino there.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act generally prohibits gambling on lands taken into trust by the federal government after 1988. However, the law allows casinos to be built on reservations for newly recognized tribes.
McCain is aware of these issues and has promised to try to balance the interests of tribes seeking reservations with those of nearby residents opposed to having large casinos close to their homes.
McCain, in his opening statement for the Feb. 1 Senate hearing, said he is concerned that "the process of taking land into trust under the restored lands and initial reservation exceptions may not be adequate to be fair to all the people impacted by the arrival of the casino."
'Partisan nonsense'
Neither McCain nor McGavick mentioned gambling or Indian casinos during their remarks before 600 Republican supporters at The Westin hotel in downtown Seattle.
McGavick, a former chief of staff and campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., praised McCain as "my role model for what a United States senator ought to be."
McGavick repeated a central theme of his campaign: ending what he called the partisan bickering that dominates Congress today.
"We just can't put up with it anymore," McGavick said. "The partisan nonsense that is ruining our nation has to stop."
McGavick never referred to Cantwell by name. He did charge that the "incumbent" voted with her party 90 percent time. And when "The Gang of 14," a bipartisan group of senators, came together to resolve the logjam over judicial nominations, McGavick said "the incumbent senator from the state of Washington was still in the trenches, throwing partisan bombs."
McCain, who spoke after McGavick, peppered his sometimes somber remarks with self-deprecating comments. He mentioned that he "slept like a baby" after President Bush defeated him in the 2000 South Carolina primary, a turning point in what has been a close battle for the Republican presidential nomination.
"Slept for two hours, woke up, cried. Slept for two hours, woke up, cried," he said.
McCain, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, also mentioned past speculation that he would be a candidate for vice president.
"You know, I spent all those years in a North Vietnamese prison camps, kept in the dark, fed scraps," he said. "Why the hell would I want to do that again?"
McCain then turned to serious subjects: ending pork barrel spending, revising immigration laws and staying the course in Iraq.
McCain said Congress passed a federal highway bill that was loaded with 6,140 pork barrel projects that will cost everyone but benefit few.
"The next time you are stuck in traffic, think about where the dollars you paid when you filled up your tank went," he said.
Immigration worries
On immigration, McCain said the U.S. needs a guest worker program because "there are jobs Americans won't do." Illegal aliens should pay a $2,000 fine, undergo criminal background checks, learn English and work for six years just to get green cards. And then they need to wait another six years for becoming U.S. citizens.
"You're sent to the back of the line because you did violate our laws," he said.
The immigration issue is paramount in Florida and other states, McCain said, adding that Republicans must be ready to address the problem in a humane, sensitive way.
"If we don't, we will doom ourselves to a minority status in the United States Congress," he said.
Iraq War
McCain continued to defend the decision to invade Iraq, but he conceded that mistakes were made and the war has not gone as well as Americans had hoped.
"We should have told the American people from the very beginning that it's a long hard struggle," he said. "(But) we are there, and we cannot fail."
Both McCain and McGavick received standing ovations from the pro-Republican crowd.
John Carlson, a radio commentator who was the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in 2000, urged McCain to run for president in two years.
Carlson noted that a Democrat has carried Washington in the past five presidential elections.
"That will not happen if you are a candidate in 2008," he said.
Senator John McCain(R-AZ) speaks to the audience at the reception for Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Mike McGavick in Seattle, Wash., Tuesday March, 21, 2006. McGavick, 47, said McCain's independent streak and his reputation as a straight-talking reformer align perfectly with his own campaign themes. (AP Photo/Kevin P. Casey)
How much did they pay you Sen? Curious how you wrote an exemption into your McCain-Feingold assult on Free Speech rights for the tribes
We did you scumbag. Senator you are SO over in the Republican Party
later read
The wall can be named humane.
"Kerry and I screwed the POW/MIAs and their families. I screwed the Indians. And if you elect me President in '08 I'll do the same to the rest of America. Pull my finger!"
I think if they let them have the casinos, they should have made them give up the fish.
I've fished many of the rivers up here. If you get there after the fish come in, but before the indians put in the nets, the rivers are absolutely BOILING with fish.
The nets go in, about two days later, the river looks like glass.
I had an Indian offer me a fifteen pound King salmon for ten bucks. I told him, "No thanks. Do you know I spend probably ten times that in a year just to catch ONE like that?"
He threw the fish back down in the boat, popped a beer, and rowed away.
True story.
I know...effin' puke.
What a buttwipe. I'm rooting for The Lump in his next campaign.
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