Monday, September 16, 2002
Norwich Bulletin
Tribes give to reform overseers
DOES CAMPAIGN CASH INFLUENCE TRIBAL RECOGNITION?
By BRIAN SCHEID

As local, state and federal leaders continue the push for change in the Indian federal recognition process, tribes and their gaming interests across the country carry on their decade-long effort of giving millions of dollars to many of the politicians calling for and charged with reform. 

Last week, the leaders of Preston, Ledyard and North Stonington, along with state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, said they wanted to take the "money and politics" out of the federal recognition process by appealing the recent recognition of two factions of the Eastern Pequot tribe of North Stonington. 

Federal recognition, they charged, has been tainted by high-paid lobbyists, wealthy tribal backers eager to cash in on billion-dollar Indian casino empires and politics influenced by Indian gaming money. 

"Lobbyists should have nothing to do with this, campaign contributions should have nothing to do with this," North Stonington First Selectman Nicholas H. Mullane II said. "The (federal recognition) process should be totally isolated." 

Also last week, the state's U.S. senators, Christopher Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman, both Democrats, called for an amendment that would keep any more Indian tribes from earning federal recognition until the process is reformed. They also convinced the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee to conduct a hearing on the recognition process this week. 

But, over the years Dodd and Lieberman and even members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have taken money from tribes that achieved federal recognition under the system they say is broken. 

During the 1998 election cycle, Dodd received $30,550 in campaign contributions from Indian gaming interests, more than any other politician in the country at the time, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics. 

U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has received $54,500 from tribal interests, and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the committee, has received more than $60,000. 

No influence 

Spokesmen for Dodd and Lieberman denied that thousands of dollars in campaign contributions gave tribes any political influence over the senators. Both spokesmen pointed to a track record of legislation that has been opposed by the tribes, such as a 1998 act that would prevent tribes from putting land into trust for commercial purposes outside the reservation. 

"Senator Dodd fights on behalf of the people of Connecticut and puts their interest and the nation's interest first," Marvin Fast, Dodd's spokesman, said. "Clearly his longtime efforts speak for themselves." 

"Political contributions never affect the positions that Senator Lieberman takes on policy issues, which he decides strictly on the policy's merits and demerits," Adam Kovacevich, Lieberman's spokesman, said. 

But Preston's First Selectman Robert Congdon disagreed. 

He said over the years the neighboring Mashantucket and Mohegan tribes have bought their voice in Washington. They've become so wealthy, they've given so much money to politicians and their voice in Washington has become so loud that the average citizen in the small town of Preston can barely be heard, according to Congdon. 

"(Tribes) don't give money to politicians for altruistic reasons, they do it because it's good business to do it," he said. "You pay for access and you don't throw that money away. 

"To me, it's very frustrating that government really has seemed to be out of the reach of the average individual," Congdon said. "It's a sad state of affairs in this country." 

In 1990, two years after the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was created, tribal gaming interests nationwide contributed less than $2,000 to political campaigns. But, by 1992 as the Mashantucket Pequot tribe opened Foxwoods Resort Casino, the tribe donated $100,000 to political campaigns, and tribal economic and political prosperity began to take root. 

Since 1990 tribal gaming interests nationwide have given more than $8.3 million to politicians. While that number pales in comparison to interests like the insurance industry, which gave more than $41.3 million during the 2000 election cycle alone, tribes have escaped tighter restrictions placed on most industries in the recent campaign finance reform law intended to curtail the influence of special interest groups. In a loophole in the recent law, tribes are exempt from contribution limits that apply to other special interests. 

And as Indian casinos sprout up throughout the country, some fear the voice tribes have in Washington could soon become overwhelming. 

"It's totally out of hand," North Stonington's Mullane said. "The politicians will never let that money dry up." 

No longer silenced 

In 10 years, the Mashantuckets have given more than $2.2 million in political contributions, more than any other tribe in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. But, that money doesn't allow the tribe to earn unfair influence over politicians, it simply gives them a voice that has been ignored in Washington for centuries, according to John Guevremont, director of national governmental affairs in the Mashantuckets' Washington office. 

"The one and sole purpose for (political contributions) is for the tribe's ability to take part in the national debate and the political process," Guevremont said. "In doing so we're able to support those candidates for office and those incumbents that understand our issues in terms of preserving our cultural heritage and our sovereign rights." 

"It's not anything any other group or person in the country doesn't do," he said. 

bscheid@norwich.gannett.com