Column: EchoHawk hasn't supported Indian gaming

Thursday, May 21, 2009  

"It’s been nearly 20 years since Larry EchoHawk was elected state attorney general, but to Idaho Democrats it is the just-yesterday story of the 1990 Idaho election that resulted in a 21-21 tie in the state senate.

But just like those rare victories, EchoHawk’s star fell a brief four years later after losing the governor’s race to Phil Batt. EchoHawk had been widely expected to win.

Soon after, he left Idaho to join the law school faculty at Brigham Young University and to form an Idaho law firm with his two sons. The firm specializes in tribal representation.

When his name popped up months ago as a candidate to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which functions under the Department of the Interior, a possible conflict surfaced. EchoHawk, a member of the Oklahoma Pawnee Nation and a Mormon, hasn’t been supportive of Indian gaming. While attorney general, he asked then-Governor Cecil Andrus and the state legislature to overturn laws that required Idaho to negotiate for gaming with Indian tribes.

EchoHawk’s dislike of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was no secret, and a tribal lawyer from Washington state, Scott Cromwell, pointed this out in an open letter to tribal councils and the Obama administration."

Get the Story:
Jill Kuraitis: Idaho's EchoHawk Will Lead Bureau of Indian Affairs (The New West 5/20)