Despite casino setbacks, Indian clout rises

In Maine, the most expensive campaign in state history leads to defeat for a mammoth $650 million Indian-run casino. In California, the early front-runner in the gubernatorial recall - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante - nosedives in the polls with revelations of $8 million in contributions from state tribes. Eventual winner Arnold Schwarzenegger leapfrogs rivals - with one of his campaign pledges to go after native Americans' $6 billion in casino revenues to ease the budget crisis.

The high-profile setbacks for casinos both belie and spotlight a trend on the rise since 1988, when Congress approved rules for Indian gaming as a way for tribes to build community-development funds. For many of the 201 tribes that approved gaming, there followed a dramatic rise in income, employment rates, and quality of life. But even as it raises fortunes and helps many ascend from poverty, the movement is raising eyebrows - and fear of Indians' clout.

The National Indian Gaming Commission estimates about $12.7 billion in gaming revenue in the nation's 321 Indian casinos. With those gains comes a "concerted increase in attempts to wield influence in government, elections, voting, and public policy," says David Wilkins, a professor of native American history at the University of Minnesota.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, native Americans' contributions began soaring just two years after the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) passed in 1988. Federal candidates have seen a 40-fold increase in contributions from Indian gaming interests since 1990, helping win Senate seats for two native Americans and aiding congressional and gubernatorial candidacies. Native Americans are considered a key constituency in battleground states for next year's congressional and presidential elections.

Political clout "is something American Indian tribes have coveted for years," says Jason McCarty, spokesman for the National Congress of American Indians. "Casino operations have helped give it to them."

But the higher profile is also producing a backlash, with more organized opposition to Indian interests and a spotlight on their money flow. In California, tribes spent over $50 million promoting two initiatives that eliminated competition for the state's Indian casinos. And tribes' influence was a main point of contention in the recent gubernatorial recall.

"Indian tribes have spent $130 million in the last six years, which is more than any other special-interest group," says Jim Knox, executive director of California Common Cause. "There has been all kinds of legislation regarding gambling regulations that routinely works in the favor of Indians."

Partly because of such comments and voters' heightened awareness of the influence of Indian contributions, it is more and more common for politicians to trumpet their rejection of such funds - as Schwarzenegger did. He and others have also made moves to go after tribes' income by negotiating or renegotiating the tribe-state compacts required by federal law. Such actions are arousing ire among tribes who feel their operations should be sovereign entities.

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