Gaming should stay on tribal land

Gaming should stay on tribal land
Roger Salazar / Guest Commentary

On Sept. 2, 2011, the U.S. Department of the Interior published its approval of two off-reservation gaming facilities proposed by the Enterprise Rancheria of Maidu Indians in Yuba County and the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians in Madera County.

This is a scheme commonly referred to as "reservation shopping," and the ability to proceed with these off-reservation casinos now lies with Governor Jerry Brown, who can stop this scheme by not concurring with the federal determination.

When California voters passed Propositions 1A and 5, they agreed to do so with the assurance that Indian gaming would take place on traditional tribal lands. The North Fork tribe already has federally recognized land eligible for gaming, which is located over 40 miles away from the proposed site of the casino. The Enterprise tribe is in a similar situation. The historic connection to the land is important to voters and it is important to our coalition, Keep Indian Gaming on Indian Lands.

Approval of this project sets a terrible precedent and will open the floodgates for off-reservation gaming statewide. Tribes across the state will be looking to shop around for the most profitable locations to build casinos, no matter how far they are from their tribal lands or how tenuous the connection to their historical homelands. In fact, there are currently 21 pending applications, and another 85 being processed, by California tribes to acquire non-tribal lands for the purposes of building off-reservation casinos.

As a group of California tribes recently wrote to Governor Brown, his concurrence with the federal determination would "harm the foundation of Indian gaming in California and the premise of Proposition 1A in 200, which assured the voters of California that Indian gaming would remain on tribal lands."

"A tribe should not be required to acquire land for gaming anywhere it chooses within the state," the tribes wrote. "Substantial weight should be given to a tribe's historic connection to the land because to ignore a lack of connection would seriously undermine tribal sovereignty. To protect the integrity of tribal sovereignty and the future of California Indian gaming, we ask with one voice that you 'non-concur' in these misguided decisions by the Department of the Interior.'"

Allowing the acquisition of lands for gaming outside of a tribe's ancestral territories, would undermine a basic premise of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that gaming is meant to promote economic development on a reservation and is ultimately a shortsighted, flawed policy that will lead to urban gaming at the expense of tribes who have built their casinos in legitimate, but less centralized locations.

While the Department of the Interior has mistakenly approved the casino, the governor can stand by voters of California and make sure Indian gaming stays on tribal land.

Roger Salazar is a spokesman for Keep Indian Gaming on Indian Lands, a coalition of representatives of many California Indian tribes (including the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians and Table Mountain Rancheria), elected public officials, businesses and community leaders throughout California opposed to off reservation gaming.