Attorney Gabe Galanda discusses disenrollment in Indian Country. Photo from Facebook
Attorney Gabe Galanda, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, accuses the National Indian Gaming Commission of failing to address per capita payment abuses that are tied to tribal disenrollment disputes:
Over the last five years, the NIGC has shied away from regulating gaming per capita distributions, and by doing so emboldened a growing number of tribal politicians to disenroll their kin to increase income for those politicians’ allies. Between 2010 and 2015, the NIGC failed to take a single enforcement action for improper gaming per capita payments, even though several tribes during that time were rather obviously abusing per caps to kick members off tribal rolls. The NIGC knew and still knows this, admitting to having received “several complaints over the last two years, where a Tribe has allegedly distributed gaming revenue without a Revenue Allocation Plan (RAP) formally approved by the [Interior] Secretary; or, where there is a RAP, if a tribe makes distributions of gaming revenue in addition to what is permitted by the terms of that RAP.” The Commission is keenly aware of the disenrollments catalyzed by gaming per capita abuse. Yet the NIGC has done nothing.Get the Story:
Gabriel S. Galanda: NIGC Must Deter Gaming Per Capita Misuse (Indian Country Today 3/1)
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