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About Char-Koosta News (Pablo, Mont.) 1985-current | View This Issue
Char-Koosta News (Pablo, Mont.), 07 April 1987, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/sn87001367/1987-04-07/ed-1/seq-5/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
News from elsewhere in Indian country ARIZONA INDIAN TRIBE GETS $30 MILLION President Ronald Reagan has signed a bill authorizing the federal government to pay the Tohono O’ Odham Indians (formerly Papago) in Arizona $30 million in order for the tribe to replace nearly 10,000 acres of reservation land that has been flooded repeatedly since 1979. The Gila Bend Indian Reservation Lands Replacement Act allows the U.S. Interior Department to begin paying the tribe in $10 million allotments over three years beginning in 1988. It is one of the Reagan Administration’s largest land settlements with an Indian tribe. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1960 built the Painted Rock Dam on the Gila River 10 miles downstream from the Gila Bend Reservation. In 1964 the federal government acquired by eminent domain an easement for occasional overflow onto the reservation. While government studies throughout the 1%0’s and 70’s stressed the infrequency of overflow, substantial rains in 1979, 1981,1983 and 1984 produced major flooding on the reservation. A 1983 Bureau of Indian Affairs report found that it would be overly expensive to rehabilitate the flooded lands, which had no protection from future overflows. An additional study concluded that there were no public lands acceptable to the tribe in exchange for the flooded land. The Gila Bend Act allows the tribe to purchase up to 9,880 acres of private land to be taken into trust by the Interior Department. “While this has been a long-standing issue for the Tohono O’ Odham people, it is good that we have brought it to a compromised settlement,” Interior Department assistant secretary for Indian Affairs Ross Swimmer said COURT BARS REGULATION OF INDIAN BINGO WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court, discounting fears of organized crime infiltration, banned state and local regulation of high-stakes bingo games and other gambling on Indian reservations Feb. 25. By a 6-3 vote, the court barred state and local officials from regulating on-reservation gambling operations until Congress consents to such regulation. The decision could affect tribal bingo operations that account for millions of dollars each year across the country. According to a 1985 Interior Department survey of federally recognized tribes, bingo operations are flourishing in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The attorney general of one such state, Bob Corbin of Arizona, said he was disappointed by the ruling. “W e’re all part of the United States and they’re in the state of Arizona,” Corbin said in referring to Indian reservations. He said state regulation should be allowed. The high court specifically barred state and county officials from prohibiting or regulating bingo and card games on two Indian reservations in Riverside County, Calif. “The state’s interest in preventing the infiltration of the tribal bingo enterprises by organized crime does not justify state regulation . . . in light of the compelling federal and tribal interests supporting them,” Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court. White noted that bingo games and other gambling have become a source of significant income to many Indian tribes, and that Congress has sought to encourage “ tribal self-sufficiency and economic development.” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices William J. Brenan, Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and Lewis F. Powell joined White. Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia dissented. Writing for the three, Stevens said state regulation should be allowed until Congress specifically prohibits it. “Accepting the majority’s reasoning would require (on- reservation) exemptions for cock fighting, tattoo parlors, nude dancing, houses of prostitution and other illegal but profitable enterprises,” Stevens added. White responded by saying nothing in the decision suggests that such activities are permissible on Indian reservations within California. The bingo games usually are run by non-Indian operators under contract with the tribes, and are played predominantly by non- Indians. California law and a Riverside County ordinance strictly regulate bingo jackpots and require that the games be operated by a charitable organization’s members. But bingo games at the reservations of the Cabazon and Morongo tribes are for profit, and their jackpots include new cars, trucks and boats and cash awards worth thousands of dollars. A federal appeals court previously had struck down the California law and the county ordinance as they applied to the tribes, but state lawyers told the justices that the highest state courts in Maine and Oklahoma have allowed such regulation. Because of the Feb. 25 decision, those state court rulings likely will come under new legal challenges. The decision did not deal with the issue of whether states may tax Indian tribes on the revenues from such gambling operations. News from up north __ NORTHWEST TERRITORY TO BE ‘CARVED UP According to Canada's Southam News . the Northwest Territories are due to be divided in two and put under limit jurisdiction. The division is expected to be completed in 1991 and will pave the way for two new provinces in Canada. Each new territory will have to negotiate its own constitution and vote on its official name. The 51,000 territory residents are due to vote on the division boundaries next month. OLYMPIC BOYCOTT NOT TOTAL The 1988 Winter Olympics will take place in Alberta. Canada. Some of the tribes in the province are planning to boycott the event in support of the Lubicon Lake Band's land claim fight. Other tribes are busy making plans for pow wows, rodeo demon strations. reserve tours, craft sales, and Native trade, art and fashion shows. RIGHTS TO BE RESTORED In some parts of Canada, Native women lose their Tribal status when they marry a non-Indian. The non-Indian federal government plans to force a change in that custom. It's set June 28 as the deadline for bands to add the names of thousands of women in that situation (and their children) to their enrollment lists, in spite of band leaders’ protests. If the bands in question fail to do so. Canada’s Dept, of Indian Affairs will do it for them. (From The Globe and Mail, by way of Detroit’s Notice Sun.) April 7 , 19 8 7 C S K T s Char Koosta News, Pablo, MT Page 5
