Pioneer Editorial: Door opens for mutual gaming talks

      The path to new ground may have been broken Thursday by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe which offered to talk with state leaders about sharing casino profits.

      While the issue of the state seeking to horn in on some of the profitability the state’s Indian reservations have had in casinos while the tribes maintain that an ironclad agreement prevents that, the offer from Mille Lacs Chief Executive Melanie Benjamin provides promise that there may be an opening for discussions that would benefit both Indian tribes and the state.

      It is true that Minnesota, a ground-breaker in Indian gaming agreements, signed compacts into perpetuity without specified renewal dates. But it is also true that times have changed and common sense dictates a route in which everyone can benefit.

      Minnesota tribes’ 18 casinos generated an estimated $1.4 billion last year, the third-largest total in the nation, behind California and Connecticut. But only $150,000 of that money went to the state, all for gambling enforcement in accordance with the compacts signed during Gov. Rudy Perpich’s administration. But today, for example, tribes in Wisconsin, whose casinos made $1 billion last year, recently agreed to pay that state $200 million over two years.

      Benjamin, in offering to discuss the issue, said that the tribe would be willing to talk with the Twins and the Vikings, with casino profits helping to pay for a new stadium. But she also said that the tribes could benefit if the state would allow new compacts calling for more games and simulcast horse racing, plus working in concert to challenge a federal prohibition on sports betting.

      It was made clear that Benjamin was speaking only for the Mille Lacs band, one of the nine-member Minnesota Indian Gaming Association which has so far opposed reopening the compacts, but her request may “set the table for more productive talks,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Thursday.

      As these talks may develop, we hope that they also include two tribes who are not MIGA members,Red Lake and White Earth, which for years have been trying to win approval of a Twin Cities-area casino jointly run by those tribes and the state. While the Mille Lacs Band, with casinos at Hinckley and on Lake Mille Lacs, comprise Minnesota’s second-largest Indian gambling enterprise, gaming has not produced the same level of sought-after profits for Red Lake or White Earth.

      Benjamin’s willingness to bring the issue to the table should be viewed as an important step in an area that has been contentious for years, threatening to impinge upon Indian nations’ sovereign rights seemingly for a share of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.