Gambling mania/Try for win-win with tribes

(The following editorial appeared in the Star/Tribune on March 21, 2004.)

      Minnesota's Sioux and Ojibwe people aren't under the same sort of threat from today's politicians that their ancestors faced from land-grabbing white people 150 years ago. But as gambling mania grips the Legislature this session, they must be hearing chilling similarities.

      Give us a piece of your livelihood -- your casino proceeds -- or else, legislators seem to be saying. Or else we will go into business with the owners of Canterbury Park, and put a "racino" a few miles from your most successful enterprise, say the Legislature's Republicans. Or else we will build a Las Vegas-style gambling palace of our own at the Mall of America, and see if you can survive competition from what might be the most advantageous casino location in the country, a few legislators say. Or else we will rip out the heart of your casinos, the video slot machines, say two leading Republican legislators, who explain their rationale on Op Ex's cover today.

      Even Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an opponent of more gambling, appeared last week to be edging toward an "or else" of his own. "If we can't make progress with the tribal communities, we are going to entertain other options," the governor said.

      Pawlenty did not specify what he meant by "progress" or "other options." But he announced six weeks ago that he wants to talk with the state's 11 casino-operating Indian tribes, leading to new compacts governing those operations and their relationship with state government. At a presumed minimum, those new compacts would produce a dependable benefit for the state budget.

      Judging from Pawlenty's comments, the tribes have not responded in earnest to the governor. Perhaps they think they can beat back gambling mania one more time at the Legislature with help from their DFL political friends. Perhaps they want to wait until after tribal elections this spring before giving new compacts serious consideration.

      Most certainly, they don't want to negotiate with the loaded gun of a video slot machine ban pointed at their casinos. Whatever its intentions, that bill has become Exhibit A supporting the argument that white people will never treat red people fairly.

      What the governor and legislators -- and all Minnesotans -- should be seeking is mutual success for all concerned. The bill banning slot machines moves in the other direction. It should be withdrawn.

      The drumbeat for a racino, getting louder by the day at the Capitol, should also be muffled. Saying yes to racino means saying yes to Republican political friends at the expense of Indian casinos, and also to the exclusion of more lucrative options. It's a win-lose plan.

      Before the politicians conclude that they must make the tribes losers to make gaming pay for the state, they should mount a more intense and creative effort to achieve a win-win outcome for the state and the tribes. Also today on Op Ex's cover, state Sen. Becky Lourey explains why the state should want to protect the tribes' gaming enterprises. They have been an enormous boon to many of Minnesota's native people and their rural neighbors.

      But that benefit has been cruelly uneven. High levels of poverty persist on Minnesota's two largest reservations, Red Lake and White Earth. Their small casinos produce a trickle of revenue compared with the gush at Mystic Lake and Treasure Island.

      New compacts should begin with the policy premise that in Minnesota, casino gaming's primary purpose is the economic betterment of Indian people -- all of them. A mechanism for enlarging that benefit for tribes that live farthest from the metro area should be established. A promising possibility lies in the proposal for a new all-tribes casino in the metro area. Another possibility is a system of tribal revenue sharing.

      The compacts should also allow the rest of Minnesota to share more directly in gaming's gains than the state has to date. That sharing could take a number of forms, including but not limited to yearly transfers of cash. It could mean sponsorship of research at the University of Minnesota, the management of a number of state parks, the underwriting of road construction or public safety costs near Indian lands, or the like.

      What would make such an arrangement a win for the tribes? Allowing the casinos to offer more games of chance, and thereby increase their proceeds at least enough to offset revenue sharing with the state, is one possibility. Writing into the compacts a promise of an exclusive franchise -- something the tribes have enjoyed on only a de facto basis for 15 years -- would be another.

      The opportunity to negotiate a win-win end to the Legislature's gambling mania is what Pawlenty is offering the tribes. That opportunity won't last forever. The tribes should seize it now.