Arnold Schwarzenegger girds for Indian War (casinos)

Jan Golab Today's California Indians procured power the old-fashioned way: They bought the best government that money could buy. In just a few years, revenues from their newly built casinos soared to $5 billion per year (2002), pushing them close to Las Vegas ($7.7 billion) in the race for America's gambling crown. By spending a significant chunk of this money on campaign donations, a handful of small tribes have grown into the Golden State's heaviest political donors and most potent power players.

Then, The Terminator arrived. "Their casinos make billions, yet they pay no taxes and virtually nothing to the state," pronounced Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his campaign ads. "It's time the Indians pay their fair share. All the other major candidates take their money and pander to them." He stares into the camera. He shakes his head slowly back and forth. He squints hard. "I don't play that game."

That ad was the turning point in the new governor's candidacy, causing him to surge in the polls. California citizens had watched gaming tribes spend over $120 million to push their candidates and ballot initiatives in recent years. To put that number in perspective: It's more than what George W. Bush spent nationwide to be elected President. Meanwhile, additional untold untraceable millions were donated by individual tribal members flush with their casino payouts. Public disgust over jackpot politics finally came to a head, and Schwarzenegger--the first politician with the courage to speak up about the Indians--rode to a resounding recall victory.

The spectacle of pay-to-play casino politics has become so egregious in California, many believe it was a deciding issue in the recall. California tribes spent more on the recall than did any other special interest. They gave $8.2 million (in direct and indirect contributions) to Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, hoping to anoint him as ex-Governor Gray Davis' successor. They also bankrolled conservative Republican Tom McClintock for $2.5 million to help split votes away from their archenemy Schwarzenegger. A Superior Court judge eventually ruled that Bustamante illegally rerouted the Indian largesse through a side channel to avoid new spending limits, and ordered him to give the money back. By then, he had already spent it.

The high-heaven stink did not escape the public. It didn't help that Bustamante's lead campaign strategist, Richie Ross, worked for the Indian tribes, or that his younger brother Andrew was the general manager of an Indian casino near Fresno. Or that the Lt. Governor excused the Indians from his proposed $8 billion in "tough love" tax hikes to reduce the state's $38 billion deficit. "Everybody has to pay something," Bustamante proclaimed. Everybody except the Indians who gave him $8.2 million, apparently.

Governor Gray Davis, who received more than $1 million from the tribes for his 2002 re-election, had already flamed concerns about undue Indian influence when he suddenly endorsed the "Sacred Tribal Lands" bill in 2003. The bill, which Davis had vetoed the year before, would have given Indians the power to halt development within five miles of any reservation or "sacred tribal land"--a dream for shakedown artists. In San Diego County, which has 18 Indian reservations, this legislation would have virtually usurped county authority over any new construction. As Davis became more desperate, he also promised the tribes that if he was not recalled, he would allow them to pick two new members for the Gambling Control Commission--the group that is supposed to be the watchdog over their operations.

Even staunch Davis supporters were disgusted by his pandering. The governor could have extracted some form of revenue sharing when he negotiated the gambling compacts with California's Indians a few years ago, but instead he granted all of California gambling revenues exclusively to the 32,000 recognized tribal members in the state. Under Davis' compacts, the tribes were only required to place a total of $150 million each year into two state funds, one for non-gaming tribes, the other to mitigate the local effects on traffic, roads, police, etc., caused by tribal casinos.

California is now undergoing the fastest expansion of legal gambling in history. According to the Los Angeles Times, Indian gambling is now "California's principal growth industry." The state will soon surpass Nevada. Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, 120 miles east of L.A., is in the throes of a mega-resort makeover that will make it another Vegas. San Diego already has more tribal casinos (nine) than any region in the country, and six more tribes are seeking compacts. Northern California has experienced similar growth, with tribal casinos increasingly moving into urban areas via "reservation shopping."

Californians wanted somebody to pull the emergency cord on this runaway train. Schwarzenegger's internal polling told him that. And he seized the moment. He declared that 25 percent of Indian gaming revenues, over $1 billion a year, would be a "fair share" for California. It made sense to everybody but the Indians. California's tribal chairmen bristled at being branded a "special interest." They were "sovereign nations," who, by federal law, could not be taxed by states. A memo sent out by David Quintana, legal counsel for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, declared: "This is war, we're going after Arnold Schwarzenegger." Tribal attorney Howard Dickstein told Copley News, "If Schwarzenegger wins, there will be hell to pay."

Since Schwarzenegger's win, Indian tribes across the nation have been holding their breath. Nobody seems sure what will happen next, but there is a palpable sense that the wild rise of Indian gambling--which has turned a relatively tiny number of individuals into millionaires, political rainmakers, and "sovereign nation" moguls untouchable by everyday law--may be about to undergo a change.

"The Indians prospered by spending lavishly on politics," explains veteran Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters. At the same time, their position as a preeminent "victim" group lent them "some high moral plane. That's a very difficult combination. Now, they appear to be just another special interest group. Now, the tribes have egg on their face. Not only did their guy loose, he probably lost because he took their money."

The looming confrontation will have national impact. Indian gaming, which only began in 1987, raked in $14.1 billion in 2002, compared to Nevada's $9.4 billion. There are now 348 Indian casinos in 30 states. California, with one fifth of the nation's gaming tribes, is merely the primary front in a national war. "California deserves its reputation as a bellwether state," the Seattle Times declared. "It's now leading the nation in discovering the Frankenstein's monster that many states have created when handing gaming licenses to Indian tribes."

Former California Governor Pete Wilson, who worked vigilantly to keep a lid on Indian gaming during his eight-year tenure, applauds Schwarzenegger's challenge of the tribes, which he regards as a crucial turning point. "To safeguard the public interest," says Wilson, "the governor-elect, quite rightly, made an issue of the campaign contributions to Governor Davis and Lt. Governor Bustamante and State Senator Tom McClintock. It is completely inappropriate for an aspirant to the office of governor, who is responsible for negotiating compacts with the tribes on behalf of the public, to compromise his position by becoming beholden to those parties with whom he must negotiate. It's an inherent conflict of interest."

The recall, Wilson adds, may serve as a national wake-up call. "I think a lot of people were simply stunned by the level of contributions." And California is hardly the only state where tribes have asserted their influence. Native Americans played a crucial role in the 2000 victories of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA). They could be a deciding factor in many 2004 elections. Indian donations and activism could decide the fate of Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota. They could also tip the balance in the Alaska race between Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democratic challenger Tony Knowles, as well as the Washington race between Democratic incumbent Patty Murray and Republican challenger George Nethercutt. Other politicians who have benefited from heavy casino support include Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), and Daniel Inouye (D-HI).

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1987 sets forth a list of specific purposes for which tribal gaming revenues may be used. One of those is "to promote the economic development of the tribe." The Indians claim that campaign contributions qualify as "promoting their economic development." Critics cry foul. Congress never intended for gaming profits to be spent on partisan political campaigns, they maintain.

The unprecedented political influence of a small number of Indians is further enhanced by the exemption from campaign contribution limits that Indian tribes enjoy in the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law. Arizona Senator John McCain, who has received more money from Indians than any other senator, created this loophole. Critics decry this as yet another illustration of how Indian money is overwhelming both political parties and corrupting our federal and state legislatures. According to PACS & Lobbies Newsletter, various gaming tribes represented seven of the top ten biggest "soft money" donors in the 2000 election cycle. Thanks to McCain-Feingold, they may wholly dominate the top 40 in 2004.

Apart from the political effects of the Indian gambling explosion, there are many social impacts. With gambling suddenly booming like never before, neither government nor the media seem willing to deal with it as a moral issue. The reports churned out by tribal PR machines about the jobs and community benefits they provide often get media coverage, while complaints about how casinos destroy lives, families, businesses, and communities rarely do.

Few independent studies have been done, but the National Gambling Impact Study Commission concluded in 1997 that when a casino opens, pathological gambling doubles within a 50 mile radius. Pathological gamblers normally comprise about 1 percent of the gambling population. Problem gamblers, whose addiction is less severe but real enough to have significant negative effects on their lives, average an additional 3 percent.

A Wisconsin study of the late 1990s concluded that for every dollar of gambling revenue garnered by the state, it spent 42 cents addressing social costs. However, gambling opponents say it's impossible to really measure the costs of lost productivity, child neglect, bankruptcy, divorce, addiction, suicide, and the myriad other social consequences of gambling. For instance, how to substantiate research by the National Conference on Problem Gambling, which suggests that one in five pathological gamblers attempts suicide? Or that proliferating casinos have also led to increased incidences of embezzlement, often by public officials?

These are hard effects to document. Most citizen action groups, therefore, end up fighting casinos over issues of environment, land use, zoning, increased street traffic, loss of trade for competing leisure businesses, and lost tax revenues.

The greatest victim may be democracy. Citizens can't vote on where an Indian casino goes or on any aspect of how it operates. Thanks to Indian claims of "national sovereignty" everything is decided by the tribes and a few Indian-affairs bureaucrats. Perhaps most worrying of all, once a gambling-enriched tribe acquires land, the new "reservation" becomes a sovereign nation, exempt from all local and state laws, zoning ordinances, labor rules, environmental reviews, and American rules of due process and fair play in law enforcement. Indians claim complete tax exemption, and thus erode the local revenue base. Some tribes pay mitigating fees, but vastly less than enough to cover the disruption, social costs, strain on fire and police protection, traffic and crime, school spending, loss of tax base, or eroding quality of life.

"Your taxes go up, not down, when an Indian casino is in your town, because tribes are exempt from local and state taxes," notes Betty Perkowski of the North Stonington Connecticut Annexation Group. "They claim they are doing their part by bringing in jobs. Well, other corporations bring in jobs too, and pay taxes and follow the rules everyone else must follow."

Foxwoods in Connecticut, the largest casino in the world, has an annual gross of $1.2 billion. When it was opened by the Pequot tribe in 1992, local communities were sold on promises of economic prosperity.

But it never came. Tourists come to Foxwoods to gamble, not to patronize other local businesses. Meanwhile, traffic from 40,000 daily visitors has tied up country roads and caused houses in the area to decline sharply in value. "I've become very cynical about this operation over the past 11 years," Mayor Wesley Johnson of nearby Ledyard, Connecticut (population 15,000) told the York County Coast Star. "There has been no economic development spin-off from the casino."

The Supreme Court has ruled that Indians must collect sales tax from customers who are not Indians, but nearly all tribal businesses simply ignore this. And there is little states can do to enforce it because they can't sue the tribes. Indian tobacco shops, gas stations, utilities, hotels, golf courses, food services, convenience stores, etc., undercut competing businesses by not charging sales tax. This unfair competition forces closures of competing business, which the tribes then buy up themselves and reopen as Indian companies. These, in-turn, are taken off the tax rolls, which necessitates the raising of state and local taxes elsewhere.

The Oneida Nation in New York has bought 16,000 acres of land and the majority of Oneida County's gasoline and convenience stores (after driving the previous owners out of business). Mohegan Sun, Connecticut's other mega-casino, pumps 170,000 gallons a month, tax free, at their gas station. The success of tribal casinos in Oklahoma have served death warrants to hundreds of non-tribal convenience and grocery stores. According to an Oklahoma Tax Commission report, $580 million in annual sales and property taxes are now lost to Indians in that state. "Tribes in southern California are buying up as much land as they can right now," says Cheryl Schmit, director of Stand Up For California, a statewide grassroots coalition opposed to casino expansion. "They can develop small cities in these exempt areas and basically develop a tax-free cartel in any industry."

A recent study showed that New York lost as much as $895 million last year by failing to collect taxes on cigarettes sold by Indians. When Governor George Pataki tried to enforce the sales tax law, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court, tribes in upstate New York burned tires and shut down the Interstate. Pataki backed down. New York has since been forced to raise property taxes every year, as well as sin taxes, which only drove more consumers to the Indian market. Currently, several upstate governments are on the verge of bankruptcy because Indians with gambling revenues are buying lots of land and businesses in their jurisdictions and taking them off the tax rolls. The New York state legislature finally passed a law requiring wholesalers of gas and cigarettes to collect taxes on those products before delivering them to tribes. The law became effective December 1, 2003--and tribes are again threatening to shut down the Interstate.

The federal government and Indian affairs bureaucracies are ever sympathetic to the Indians; they apparently feel it is appropriate for them to "take back" whatever they can. Any pro-tribal bill that is small or incremental enough to pass under the public radar generally passes through Congress. Democratic Congressman George Miller of California succeeded in pushing through a bill that required the Secretary of the Interior to transfer title of an existing San Pablo card room to a tribe that wasn't even located in the area, thus establishing an urban casino. Many who voted for this "stealth bill" disguised as an "appropriations adjustment" had no idea what it was about or what impact it would have.

Republican Congressman John Doolittle of California slipped through a bill that required the Interior Secretary to take some Placer County land into trust for the landless Auburn Rancheria tribe. (By the way, many of the tribes establishing casinos have only dozens of members in total.) The result is Thunder Valley, near Sacramento, the prototypical urban casino and the "next phase" for Indian gaming. Located on Interstate 80, this massive casino has 2,000 slot machines. Thunder Valley may only be the beginning. "Here in California," says Cheryl Schmit, "we have tribes who are trying to move 500 miles off their established land to put a casino in a downtown location. We have a swarm of them, 23 going on right now. Twelve are clear-cut cases of reservation shopping."

Groups like the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance, United Property Owners, and One Nation have been leading a growing national resistance to expanding tribal casinos. Barb Lindsay is the executive director of United Property Owners, as well as national spokeswoman for One Nation, both national groups dedicated to the reform of federal Indian policy. Lindsay and 39 local umbrella groups helped gather signatures for the recall against Davis. She believes his sellout to the Indians motivated thousands of activists in the recall election. "Our current flawed federal Indian policy is Balkanizing America," she says. "It is causing a growing number of needless, divisive conflicts between tribes and their innocent non-Indian neighbors, eroding our state and local tax base, our property values, and our quality of life, while few Indians are seeing any economic benefit."

One troubling aspect of Indian sovereignty is that tribal governments and residents can't be sued. A San Diego man crippled by a drunk driver won a judgment against an Indian who got $10,000 a month from his casino, but the injured man couldn't collect a dime. Tribal members are victims as well--they have no legal recourse against their own leaders or governments. They often don't know how much their own casinos are bringing in, because they have no sunshine laws. They don't have a free press, or secret ballot, or freedom of speech. Those who speak out often lose their jobs or homes, and can be physically ejected from the reservation. Tribal judges are not independent; they work for the tribal government.

Tribes have all the privileges of U.S. citizenship, critics say, but none of the responsibilities. Yet they continue to push the envelope for still more special privileges. One pending bill before Congress would grant virtual statehood sovereignty to America's 560 tribal reservations, expanding their jurisdiction over non-Indian business and citizens--and even municipalities--within their reservation borders. The Native Alaskan Settlement Act established several hundred tribal village governments as corporations, granting them hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of acres of land, along with job guarantees and mineral royalties in perpetuity. And those same tribes now want Congress to make them sovereign again so they can open casinos. Senator Daniel Inouye wants to pass a bill granting tribal status to all native Hawaiians, a law that would literally cleave the state and impose apartheid on non-natives.

"This issue (tribal sovereignty) is so big, we're really on the verge of a national crisis," says Barb Lindsay. "More and more innocent people are losing everything they've worked for. This issue has been simmering under the surface for years. California is a bellwether state. Now public opinion is at 'the tipping point,' where it will change quickly overnight, like an epidemic."

Lindsay recently discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that over 200 lawsuits are pending (in 2003) in which the federal government has joined with tribes to sue local and state governments and local citizens. "We are paying for all those suits," says Lindsay, "and the tribes have initiated hundreds of other suits on their own. We are paying for them as well, through something they call a Treaty Rights Litigation Fund. Congress gives tribes millions every year, encouraging them to file lawsuits with our tax dollars."

In the long history of liberal good intentions paving a bad road, the nation's current Indian policy may win the prize. "The feds keep pushing the tribal agenda, thinking they are helping Indians, not realizing how destructive this is to the rest of us," says Lindsay. "They believe they are helping Indians by giving them all this power, but they are giving power to their leaders, without the checks and balances our Founding Fathers knew were vital. They've set the tribal members up for oppression."

Indian activists are generally unhappy with George Bush and will work hard to elect a new President. But they give plenty of money to Republicans, many of whom seem oblivious to the growing problems of tribal sovereignty. Tom McClintock, the conservative Republican who ran for governor in the California recall election, once referred to reservations as "islands of freedom." Many conservatives were stunned by the remark. Tribal governments are socialist governments with absolutist, often corrupt, leaders. Many Indian leaders admire Fidel Castro (who has won Indian praise and awards). "Indian reservations are islands of tyranny," says Barb Lindsay. "They behave like mafias, or banana republics. They've been told they are immune from federal and local laws, so they have a lawless mindset. They teach their children that they deserve special privileges because their ancestors were wronged, and that they don't have to work. Where does it all end?"

The great debate raging through Indian, Country today is, "What can Arnold do?" Legally, technically, the answer is "not much." Yet many nonetheless concur: He could change everything.

Arnold wants 25 percent--more than a billion dollars a year--as a signal that Indians have obligations to society just as all other Americans do. But this must be done delicately. Tribes insist they are sovereign and, indeed, according to federal law, they are. States cannot demand any tax, assessment, or fee from the tribes. So The Terminator must persuade the tribes it is in their best interests to share $1 billion a year with the state of California.

"That's an awful lot of money," says Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters. The compacts allowing gambling in the first place, in which Gray Davis gave away the store, are good for another 17 years. "I'd be real surprised if they gave him 25 percent."

But the politician elected to "clean up Sacramento" has tools he can use. "He's got a lot more leverage than anyone realizes," says Barb Lindsay. Here, some observers say, is how it might go:

Many of the tribes would like to expand their operations. Their compacts limit them to 2,000 slot machines. So they are willing to re-negotiate.

"Negative. The existing compacts have many breaches. I will shut you down. Hasta la vista, baby."

Well, maybe. Many tribes are not abiding by the terms of their compacts. Some aren't putting nearly as much money into the local impact and non-gaming tribal funds as they promised, nor are they adequately mitigating "adverse off-site impacts." Few are participating in the State Workers' Comp program, nor have they adopted their own equivalent. Only one tribe has allowed its employees to unionize. At least two tribes are operating with illegal class III slot machines.

Yes, if Schwarzenegger wants to play hardball, he could close them down, or at least threaten to, and use that as leverage. The compliance clauses all contain subjective qualifiers, like "consistent with tribal needs," so tribes could appeal to the courts on some subjective basis. But if the Governator puts on the war paint, he could be a real pain in the caboose.

It would require strong political will, but the governor can appeal to the people on this subject. The history of Indian gaming has always been one of tribes defying the law then appealing to public sympathies. Many times their slot machines or outlaw construction projects were ruled unlawful, yet they got away with defying the law because whenever the authorities sent marshals to shut them down, they were portrayed as jackboots beating up on the poor, victimized Indians.

But the public mood has changed. It will change even more if Arnold takes his case to talk radio. The last thing the tribes want is growing public awareness of their "sovereignty," and the many sweet deals they've got.

"I think Arnold will play hardball" says his protege, Pete Wilson, who was despised by the tribes for a similar toughness, which kept them at bay until the Gray Davis cave-in. But then again, Wilson opposed all gambling, not just Indian casinos, because he felt it inflicted a heavy social cost. Arnold is more libertarian. He licensed his own Terminator video slot machine. He once stated he would like to help the Indians grow from a $5 billion to a $10 billion industry--just as long as California taxpayers get their cut.

His ultimate trump card would be to tell the Indian casinos, "I will go to the people of California. I will support a ballot measure to give equal gambling rights to racetracks and others." Ethnic exclusivity was granted to Indians by ballot measure, because people saw Indians as a worthy "cause." But, increasingly, Californians see them as money players like everybody else. Their exclusive franchise could be taken away by another ballot initiative.

Public opinion is shifting fast. Fifty-nine percent of the voters in Sonoma County voted for Indian gaming in 2000, but a poll taken recently by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat shows that only 18 percent would still vote yes today. Those numbers will only grow worse as gambling proliferates. Syndicated columnist Jill Stewart notes that the public image of tribes has quickly turned from that of people who need a helping hand to "sneaky backroom players in politics who are increasingly viewed as bad neighbors."

The Indians know they've got a PR problem. That's why they've given money away to a slew of public projects. They gave a million dollars to fire relief during last fall's wildfires in Southern California. They've already tried to push a bill through Sacramento that would require any future changes in Indian law to be made by the legislature--which they can buy--so they will be immune to any future ballot measures. But that failed. Their fate remains in the hands of the people.

Perhaps reading the winds, Anthony Pico, tribal chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians in San Diego, a group that gave Bustamante $2 million, has already made a pre-emptive offer. "We will amend our current compact with the state," he wrote in an open letter to the new governor, "to adjust our contribution to [be] the same rate which every corporation pays in California state taxes.... We will match what every business enterprise contributes, not as a tax, but as our government contribution under the tribal state compact." In return, Pico asked the governor to remove restrictions on the growth of Indian gambling.

But the public is showing signs of resistance to further expansion, and Arnold, after all, is The People's governor. What will he do? Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up For California is one of a number of activists who have been suggested as a possible adviser for the new governor on Indian affairs. Whoever gets tapped for that role will face a daunting task, says Schmit. "Right now there are 65 compacts, which would have to be renegotiated. And 30 more tribes are lined up and waiting."

Schmit says the governor could start by seeking a new template agreement, which could then be customized slightly for each tribe. It would require some challenging negotiation, as not all tribes are alike. "Some Indians are militant 'sovereignty fundamentalists,'" says Schmit. "Others see gaming more as a business opportunity and strive to get along with their community, rather than battle with it. But whatever the new governor is able to accomplish here in California, it is going to be the trend."

Already sensing a profound change in public mood, a consortium of card rooms and race tracks announced, just four days after Arnold's inauguration, that they would seek an initiative for the November 2004 ballot. The proposed measure, which will need more than a million signatures to qualify, would give the tribes 90 days to renegotiate with the governor. The tribes would retain their monopoly on gaming if they agree to pay 25 percent of their net revenues to the state. If they don't, the card rooms and race tracks would be allowed to have up to 30,000 slot machines, for which they would pay 35 percent, about $1 billion a year. Schwarzenegger stated that he neither supported nor opposed the initiative.

Observers on both sides marveled at the shrewdness of the proposal. If it makes the ballot, the people, not the governor, would be holding a gun to the Indians' heads. Indian publicist Nikki Symington is among the skeptical. "Public opinion be what it may," she says, "the Indians have the law on their side, and short of seeking legislation in Congress, there's nothing he can do." That, ultimately, is where many believe this is all headed--a reconsideration of tribal sovereignty by the United States Congress.

Opponents of Indian gambling fall into two philosophical camps. Some seek incremental mitigation of negative impacts. Others seek an end to tribal sovereignty, which they say is an un-American concept. Cheryl Schmit believes Congress may eventually be forced to redefine "sovereignty" or do away with it altogether. "I think it will happen," she says, "but it will take a Constitutional amendment, and that could be a 20-year process. During that time, I'm not willing to give up all the other issues we can address through local agreements."

The possibility of losing their golden sovereignty is the final reason why the Indians may deal with Schwarzenegger. One Indian commentator is already fatalistic: "I predict that casinos will cause Indians to lose our tribal status," wrote Native American columnist David Yeagley last summer. "Casinos will cause Indians to lose our reservations. Casinos will destroy Indians. The American people will call for the government to eliminate the reservations completely. Laws will ensue. It's only a matter of time."

Tribes insist they are sovereign and, indeed, according to federal law, they are. States cannot demand any tax, assessment, or fee from the tribes.

Well, yes and no as I understand it. They were (sort of) at one time. But then over the years they’ve managed to get into various arrangements and agreements where they’re really not.

For instance, “The compacts allowing gambling in the first place, in which Gray Davis gave away the store, are good for another 17 years.”

That just sort of illustrates that they’re not exactly sovereign or they wouldn’t need a “compact” to allow gambling.

When I was growing up one side of our land was adjacent to a reservation. They knew who we were and didn’t mind us being there (when we crossed over into their land) since we didn’t cause a problem (there really wasn’t much around anyway).

We were probably 12 years old and would drive dirt bikes up and down the roads and the county sheriff couldn’t touch us because we were on Indian land. No driver’s license, no fishing license, no hunting license, could shoot fully automatic weapons (a few Indians had them) without anyone having to have a FFL or class III permit, we were able to make and use honest-to-goodness cherry bombs without destructive devices permits, drink beer (well, probably by the time we were 15 or 16 anyway), smoke cigarettes, dip snuff – pretty much whatever we wanted.

Granted, the tribal police could have arrested us or booted us out at any time but they evidently didn’t mind us being there (or had more important things to do).

But then they didn’t have a casino either. All they had (as I recall it) was a little mom and pop convenience store with a deli and a minnow tank/bait shop in the back. That was pretty much it. No other businesses or jobs at all. Everybody that had a job had one in town.

Oh, and more power to them. If they can stick it to CA I’m all for it. Fleece whitey and don’t give a single cent to CA. Tell old Arnold to start cutting programs to free up money if he needs it.

Congress may eventually be forced to redefine "sovereignty" or do away with it altogether.

Ha, well that’s a sticky wicket. If it’s sovereign, it’s sovereign (I say realizing it really isn’t… not much). U.S. congress has about as much business “redefining” it as they have redefining China’s sovereignty.

Were I an Indian I might be tempted to make my sovereign tribal land a sovereign nuclear weapon-possessing tribal land and tell congress to “come get some” – especially if I was sitting on billions of dollars. Or they could call on the U.N. to station troops on the “borders” to protect against U.S. aggression against sovereign indigenous people or something.

I honestly don't think it would take very much to tie our congressional buffoons up in knots for the next 100 years.

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