Free Republic

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration took steps in several recent disputes involving lucrative upstate gambling rights that were in line with the interests of Delaware North, where hubby Bill Hochul works, a new report says. Just last month, the governor agreed to a last-minute tweak to the state budget to restructure the public-private board overseeing western New York’s Batavia Downs hotel and casino, a competitor of the multibillion-dollar firm where Bill Hochul is senior counsel, the New York Times said. While Delaware North says it is no longer interested in acquiring Batavia, the restructuring could presumably make such a move easier,...

The profile of a Native American man, a braid trailing down and feather jutting up, is tiled into a high school hallway, dyed into the weight room carpet and laid into the turf of the football field at Salamanca city schools. School leaders say the omnipresent logo and “Warrior” name for the school athletic teams are sources of pride here, in the only U.S. city built on land leased from a Native American reservation. But as New York joins states moving to ban schools’ use of Indigenous nicknames and mascots because they diminish Native cultures, the tribe may have the...

Representatives from all six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy emerged from a daylong conference here Wednesday to say they are forming a united front to resist state encroachment on their treaty rights. The participants offered no specifics about the options they might employ to counter state attempts to tax cigarettes sold on reservation land and restrict their commerce in other ways—aside from the lawsuits the nations already have filed on their own. For example, the Seneca Nation this week filed a complaint in U. S. District Court in Western New York challenging the underpinnings of the state’s plan to start...

The ruling temporarily puts on hold the new law that prohibits shipping cigarettes through the U.S. Postal Service. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court refuses to consider a tobacco racketeering appeals. ~~~ Federal District Judge Richard Arcara temporarily ordered a new law that disallows cigarettes to be shipped via the mail to be placed on hold, the Associated Press reports. A Seneca Indian Nation tobacco business owner asked for the restraining order to stop the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act) to take effect yesterday. A July 7 hearing has been scheduled to hear the case. “We are very disappointed in...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Seneca Nation of Indians welcomed President Barack Obama to Buffalo with protesters in the street and a full page ad in the local newspaper saying he broke his promise to honor treaties when he signed a law that will devastate the Indian tobacco trade and put thousands of people out of work in Western New York. The ad was in the form of an open letter. “Dear Mr. President, Last fall you invited Native American leaders to Washington, D.C. and promised to listen to our concerns and respect our treaty rights. You pledged meaningful consultation and...

Gov. David Paterson is heading near Indian Country to sign a bill that would call for the state to collect taxes on sales by Indian retailers. Despite urgings by the Seneca Nation for the governor to veto the measure, he is traveling to Oneida County to sign the legislation in Utica on Monday

New taxes, deep cuts to education and health care, and a restructuring of the state's economic development programs will be hallmarks of Gov. David Paterson's first budget plan to be released in two days, according to interviews of people briefed on components. The plan will come with a host of revenue raisers — increased taxes on hospitals and insurance policies, for instance — and at least one new assessment, a so-called obesity tax on non-diet soda to raise $404 million. The governor also is contemplating requiring new license plates to raise cash, reviving sales tax on clothing purchases, removing the...

New York’s attorney general has closed another loophole that local Indian tobacco merchants have been using to ship tax-free cigarettes over the Internet. Andrew Cuomo says a Long Island firm that had been processing checks and electronic payments for at least 10 Indian tobacco merchants will no longer provide those services to anyone who sells tax-free cigarettes over the Internet. 6 of the 10 merchants affected are in Salamanca.

Leaders of the Seneca Nation have voted to rescind a 1954 agreement that allowed the New York State Thruway to run through the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation south of Buffalo. “The agreement is declared null and void,” Maurice A. John Sr., president of the Seneca Nation, said yesterday. The nation’s tribal council passed a resolution on Saturday arguing that the agreement, which allowed construction of three miles of the highway on Seneca land, is invalid because it was never approved by the secretary of the interior.

Seneca Nation sues New York over Internet smoke sales ban Pataki proposes postponement of sales tax collections Posted: January 24, 2004 - 12:22pm EST by: Tom Wanamaker / Correspondent / Indian Country Today CATTARAUGUS RESERVATION, N.Y. - In a move to protect one of its strongest business enterprises, the Seneca Nation filed suit in federal district court challenging a New York state law banning the sale of cigarettes over the Internet. In its complaint, the nation alleges that the law is both unconstitutional and a violation of Seneca sovereignty. "If enforced, the (law) would severely restrict the manner in...