RESEARCH ARTICLES Opening Statement For National Gambling Impact Study Commission Hearing Daniel Tucker Chairman, California Nations Indian Gaming Association July 28, 1998 - Del Mar, California On behalf of the tribal governments of this state, thank you for your visit to California. One of the objectives of this hearing and others you have scheduled is to weigh the social consequences of gaming. What is the true impact of gaming on our society? And by what means do we measure? In order to answer that question when considering tribal government gaming, I believe it is first necessary to look at the social impact of poverty: · Half a millennium after Columbus claimed America the “new world”, the descendants of the natives of this continent who lived her for centuries are now the poorest people in America. · Today there are 2.1 million American Indians in this country. We have the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, suicide and disease of any ethnic group in America. · We are the only ethnic group in America with a government agency assigned to supervise us. · In the past 200 years of economic destruction, there have been more than 700 broken treaties. · Hundreds of millions of acres of land appropriated or stolen. Fishing, water and natural resources taken or sold to other interests. · $2.4 billion in tribal trust funds lost or mismanaged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There have been 1,050 official investigations but no answers. · $200 million in federal funding cuts to Indian programs and services last year alone. · The poorest region in America is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where the per capita is $3,417 a year, the lowest in the nation. Two out of three people live below the federal poverty level.· That might surprise people who think that with the advent of casinos that all Indians are rich Indians. But less that one quarter of America’s 557 federally recognized tribal governments own casinos and slightly less than 50 earn more than $10 million a year on gaming. Over the past150 years, the government has tried a series of conflicting economic and social policies: · Making war on us, making treaties with us, breaking treaties with us · Forcing us onto reservations, permitting us to own land collectively, then forcing us to divide the land into individual plots. · Dispatching our children to boarding schools hundreds of miles from home, then closing the boarding schools and sending the children home. · Outlawing our religions, legalizing our religions · Discriminating against us for employment, discriminating in favor of employment · Increasing funding, decreasing funding · Recognizing our sovereignty, dismissing our sovereignty and terminating our reservations Here in California, the social consequences of the destruction of our communities have taken a terrible toll. By the time government began turning away from the termination of Indian communities as official policy in the late 1960’s, many tribal communities in California had been all but destroyed. Forty-one reservations went through complete or partial termination, resulting in the loss of most of our lands and leaving the remaining residents without adequate housing, water and sanitation facilities. The Indian people of California have suffered mostly invisibly, for nearly 150 years. Our reservations tended to be islands of poverty and third-world living standards in the midst of abundance and prosperity, and there was little or no prospect of change. Until gaming. Today you will hear about the social impact of tribal government gaming. You will year about a mew world: a new world that replaces welfare dependency with full employment and self-sufficiency. Children who enroll in Headstart programs and whose parents help their kids plan for college.Indian communities that have police and fire protection, health clinics, libraries, schools, child care centers and cultural projects – all paid for without taxpayer assistance. Even more remarkable are the 50,000 jobs Indian tribes now generate statewide and the $120 million they pay each year in state and local taxes. The state’s welfare payments to Indians and non-Indians have been reduced by $50 million. All because of tribal government gaming. Indian gaming is an economic engine that is allowing tries to pull their own weight and pay their own way. And Indian communities are creating even more jobs through new non-gaming businesses as they diversify into retail development and services. Thousands of non-Indian Californians rely on tribal casinos as safe workplaces and tribal governments as responsible employers. Limited, well-regulated gaming on Indian lands has transformed Indian reservations into self-reliant communities with new hope. But California tribes are now in a war for their economic survival. The battlefronts include: · A governor who refuses to negotiate gaming compacts with the trives · The Justice Department, which has abandoned its trust responsibility to California Indian tribes and turned its back on the state’s violation of federal law. · The U.S. Attorneys who threaten to shut down our casinos · And now giant Las Vegas gaming interests who are working hard to see California Indian gaming destroyed. You will hear about the illegal Pala compact and how all but one tribe has been blocked from compact negotiation and how the balance of gaming tribes are being forced to sign an agreement they had no role in negotiating. The ballot initiative now sponsored by the tribes would offer every California tribe the opportunity that Congress intended it should have to engage in tribal gaming for governmental purposes. It would allow California tribes to keep the gaming they already have and keep it only on federally recognized tribal lands. It will give the state firm and enforceable assurances that the gaming is being properly regulated. It will ensure that patrons and employees of tribal gaming facilities are protected. Gaming has returned California tribes to self-sufficiency and this has meant: · The return of economic independence · The restoration of pride · The ability to provide for not only our own but to claim a new role not as shabby dependents but as major employers, community resources and leaders. We are not going back to the stale food from commodities trucks, to welfare dependency, to handouts and to life with no future. California gaming tribes have tasted self-reliance. This morning you will hear about the impact of tribal government gaming from a broad spectrum of tribal leaders, law enforcement, elected officials and business leaders who have seen first-hand the progress achieved. They have weighed the social and economic consequences of Indian gaming and Indian gaming has proven itself a win-win for tribes and for the communities that are their neighbors. In the end, Indian gaming is about the ability to support ourselves and our ability to provide a future for our children. Thank you.