Author: ilpc

News Coverage of LVD Mexico Investment Case

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We’ve posted on this before here. Here is an oddly written article on this case in the Miami Herald via McClatchy News Service. An excerpt:

By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers

WATERSMEET, Mich. — If any Indian tribe could ill afford to lose money in a Mexico casino scam, it is the disadvantaged Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Anchored in rolling woodlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the tribe’s 600 members have faced constant hardship for more than a century.

As recently as the mid-1970s, the median income per household for the tribe was only $2,300, and fully half of its working age members were unemployed.

When the tribe opened a bingo hall with a few slot machines in 1988, the year it was recognized as a separate nation, the new income allowed some members to move from overcrowded, rundown houses into better dwellings.

Over the past two decades, the tribe built the Lac Vieux Desert Casino Resort, the 76-room Dancing Eagles Hotel and a nine-hole golf course, earning enough to finance 30 new homes, a cultural-recreation center, a clinic, childcare facilities, a police force and water and wastewater treatment facilities.

But there were still too few jobs, and the loss of a $6.5 million casino investment in Mexico and ensuing legal fees have kept the tribe in crisis, unable to upgrade the casino’s aging slot machines or build new attractions.

 

Michigan Law Student Protest at Commencement against Anti-Gay Senator

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Here (video link also):

In many ways Senior Day 2011 at the Michigan Law School was like any other commencement ceremony. Graduates donned caps and gowns. They discussed their time together and their plans for the future. Families asked passersby to snap photos of themselves with the new lawyer in the clan. Graduates and guests laughed politely at Dean Evan Caminker’s attempts at humor. It was a day of celebration.

But it was also a time for protest.

As families and friends entered Hill Auditorium they were handed a pamphlet explaining how this year’s Senior Day ceremony would be a little bit different than normal. The pamphlet explained the students’ plans to walk out during Senator Rob Portman’s commencement address.

Portman, a 1984 alum of the law school, was a six-term congressman before being tapped by President George W. Bush in 2005 to serve as the U.S. Trade Representative and, later, director of the Office of Management and the Budget, both cabinet-level positions. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2010.

Portman came under fire for his voting record. He has opposed gay adoption in Washington, D.C. and opposes gay marriage. A number of students who took part in the protest said that such views are incompatible with basic, human dignity.

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State of Alabama’s Expert on Class II Bingo Formerly Consulted for NIGC and Worked for Many Indian Tribes

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As reported on Indianz and Pechanga the last few days, the State of Alabama’s retained expert, D. Robert Sertell,  on technical gaming issues took issue with the NIGC’s determination that Poarch Band of Creek Indians gaming operations are legal. Here’s a quote from a news article titled “FBI could raid Alabama’s Indian casinos, says gambling expert,” that quotes Sertell extensively:

Sertell visited Poarch Creek gaming operations and concluded in a 2004 report that their machines did not qualify as Class II gaming and were therefore illegal.

In a telephone interview this month, Sertell questioned the competence and integrity of the national commission, saying Stevens’ letter “ignores federal law so hard, it’s almost laughable.”

“NIGC’s executives are all members of Indian tribes,” he said of the commission. “This is Indians regulating Indians.”

In addition to not wanting to “alienate their Indian relatives and friends,” the agency is also inclined to ignore illegal gambling operations because increased Indian gambling revenue means more funding for the commission, Sertell said.

As Sertel’s CV (Sertell CV, not sure how old this is) notes, he has worked for many, many Indian tribes on technical issues. He even wrote an expert report for Shingle Springs Miwok years ago (Shingle Springs Declaration). Also, he consulted with the NIGC from 1998-2001, during a period of time in which NIGC’s position was that virtually all electronic bingo should be classified as Class III, a position rejected by two federal circuits (Tenth Circuit and Eighth Circuit).

Review of Broken Landscape in Perspectives on Politics

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Andrea Smith reviews both Frank Pommersheim’s Broken Landscape and Kevin Bruyneel’s The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.S. – Indigenous Relations.

The Colbert Report and the UNDRIP

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From the Colbert Report:

Native American Overlords – The Colbert Report – 1/4/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central.

Unfortunately we’ve yet to figure out a workaround to embed videos without paying WordPress $60/year.

SCOTUSblog has the Tohono O’Odham Argument Preview

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Our discussion of the Tohono O’Odham case here and our choice to cover SCOTUSblog here.

Here is the post via SCOTUSblog:

Argument preview: CFC jurisdiction over claims pending in federal court

Daniel Thies previews United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, which is scheduled for oral argument on Mondayoral arguments over whether 28 U.S.C. § 1500 deprives the Court of Federal Claims of jurisdiction over claims concerning the government’s breach of trust when the plaintiff has an identical claim pending in federal court. Daniel Thies, a clerk for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, previews the case for the American Bar Association’s PREVIEW of U.S. Supreme Court Cases; the ABA has generously agreed to share some of its previews – which are authored by practitioners and scholars in the field – with SCOTUSblog.  You can read Mr. Thies’ preview here; PREVIEW’s website is here.

Michigan Tribal Elders Meeting

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From UpNorthLive.com:

Tuesday was the first day of the 13th annual Michigan Indian Elders Association, or MIEA.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 4:50 p.m.

BARAGA — Native American elders from across Michigan are in Baraga this week tackling tribal issues.

Tuesday was the first day of the 13th annual Michigan Indian Elders Association, or MIEA.

A drum and flag ceremony welcomed all 12 recognized tribes in the State of Michigan.

While the association is about how elders can make a difference culturally, socially and politically, they’re also working on bridging the gap between elders and youth.

“One of the cultural aspects of the Native American community is that the elders train and teach our youth,” says Robert Menard, MIEA Chairperson. “So they look up to our elders for guidance and that’s a service we’re providing them.”

The MIEA has given out more than $40,000 in scholarships and incentives to help children in school.

Chickasaw Nation on NPR’s Morning Edition

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You can listen to the story at the link below, or read the text here.

A Sovereign (And Successful) Chickasaw Nation

by Arun Rath

Morning Edition, April 27, 2009 · If we think of the Chickasaw as a nation, their No. 1 foreign policy priority is trade. Their No. 1 trading partner? Texas.

The WinStar casino is right across the border in Oklahoma, and it’s the closest legal gambling to Dallas, so even on a Tuesday night, the vast parking lot is filled with Texas tags.

Like many Indian tribes, the Chickasaw rake in huge sums from their casinos. But there’s a certain nervousness here about basing a whole nation’s fortunes on gambling.

“My mom used to say, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ and that’s the essence of what we try to do with our businesses,” says Bill Anoatubby, who has been the governor of the Chickasaw Nation since 1987. He is now serving his sixth elected term. “There’s always this resistance to gaming — it’s in the community, it’s in the Congress — so you really, you’re not sure what the direction might be. Congress, with very little notice, could change the rules on us, and if they did, we would be — we could have problems.”

Anoatubby has spent much of the past 20 years working to strengthen the nation’s foundation by diversifying the tribe’s economy.

“We shouldn’t rely strictly on gaming, and we should invest as much as we can while the dollars are there,” he says. “We will take the profits from gaming, and we will invest those in new things.”

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Become a Fan of Turtle Talk

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