Doreen Hagen: Off-Reservation casinos aren’t the answer

By Doreen Hagen

      There is a funny scene in the second Austin Powers movie where Mike Myers' Dr. Evil threatens to destroy the world unless government leaders agree to his ransom of "one hundred billion dollars." The joke is that it's the 1960s and that amount of money doesn't even exist, which makes Evil's demand ridiculous.

      A similar, less funny scene played out recently in Minnesota when Gov. Tim Pawlenty demanded that tribal governments pay the state $350 million a year or risk a potentially harsher fate from an expansion of off-reservation gambling.

      This type of extra money does not exist on most Indian reservations, and if it did the governor would have about as much right to demand it as Dr. Evil. But as it turns out, the governor's threat was no joke.

      Having announced his support for a Las Vegas-style metro casino, and his openness to permitting a casino at Canterbury Park in Shakopee and possibly one in Anoka County, Pawlenty seeks to claim the one source of economic opportunity available to most tribes.

      He argues that the rules governing gaming in Minnesota should change because some Indians have too much and the state "deserves a better deal." He goes on to suggest that some tribes are indifferent to the needs of poor tribes. He says it's a matter of fairness -- fairness to the state, fairness to poor tribes.

      But nothing's fair about the governor's use of the bully pulpit to fuel resentment toward tribes by telling half-truths about Indian gaming. Nor is it fair to use the age-old method of divide and conquer, pitting tribes against one another to plunder their resources.

      The truth is that tribal gaming, while not perfect, has benefited Indian and non-Indian alike. It is a Minnesota success story that some lawmakers are twisting into tragedy to sell their use of gambling to fund government. Fairness is not the issue.

      When tribes and the state negotiated the gaming compacts in the late 1980s, both sides compromised. Tribes agreed to limit their operations to the reservation and the scope of games to blackjack and video slots. In return, the state agreed to make the compacts permanent.

      The compacts led to the reemergence of tribal self-sufficiency on many reservations. Once-forgotten lands have slowly transformed into modern destinations. Adequate housing, medical care and sanitary sewer and water systems became realities previously considered unattainable.

      Pride also returned to the reservation: pride in our ability to support ourselves, and pride in our ability to help others through charitable giving and contributions to the economy. Most important, native cultures, eroded by generations of poverty and oppression, started to mend and even flourish at the end of a century that began with little cause for hope.

      Without risk or investment from the state, tribal gaming created 14,000 Minnesota jobs and generates $81 million a year in state and federal taxes. Millions more are spent with area businesses, creating additional employment and tax revenue.

      It's true that gaming benefits some tribes more than others, but gaming was never intended to be a cure-all for every tribe. Disparities among tribes have always existed. Prairie Island's tribal lands, for example, consist of 500 acres along a sandbar near a nuclear power plant. Conversely, the Red Lake band has 800,000 acres, including a significant portion of Lake of the Woods. Leech Lake and White Earth have similar lands. These three tribes -- whose situations Pawlenty is using to justify a metro casino -- together own more than 2 million acres, seven profitable casinos and dozens of separate businesses ranging from fisheries to construction companies.

      There is no disputing that these and many other tribes still have needs, but off-reservation casinos are not the answer. A Twin Cities casino will not create jobs or foster economic development on remote reservations, but it will have the reverse effect on existing tribal casinos and surrounding businesses.

      In the past, the governor and other lawmakers have opposed expanding gambling as a matter of good public policy. Budget challenges and an apparent desire to punish tribes that are unwilling to allow their compacts to be trampled -- as were so many treaties before -- are not justification for changing this policy.

Doreen Hagen is president of the Prairie Island Tribal Council.