Opinion: New bill allows Native Hawaiians to fall under IGRA

Wednesday, September 19, 2012  

"Until now the bill prohibited the Akaka tribe from engaging in any form of gambling in Hawaii or anywhere else. The new version authorizes full-blown tribal casinos in Hawaii if the state ever legalizes any form of gambling, even only church bingo. Previous versions prohibited the Akaka tribe from using the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act; the new bill authorizes it.

This new bill allows the Akaka tribe, by far the largest tribe in America, to bully the genuine but much smaller mainland tribes by competing against them in two ways which previous versions of the bill prohibited.

(a) The Akaka tribe can put casinos in 48 other states (excluding Utah) even if the State of Hawaii does not allow gambling in Hawaii. Because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2009 (Carcieri vs. Salazar), new tribes (recognized after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934) are prohibited from placing land into trust, which is the only way for a tribe to have casinos, liquor stores, gas stations, and tobacco shops exempt from local zoning or labor laws, making huge tax-exempt profits. The Akaka bill contains a "Carcieri fix" exclusively for Senator Akaka's own wannabe tribe -- a lovely golden parachute for himself and all 527,077 members of his blood brotherhood in Hawaii and everywhere else; but no such fix for the other new tribes.

(b) Previous versions prohibited the Akaka tribe from receiving benefits automatically from programs routinely available to all the federally recognized tribes. The new bill reverses that. The new bill emphasizes the Akaka tribe is an Indian tribe with all the rights and privileges of every federally recognized tribe. In view of America's $16 Trillion national debt, the pot of money available for tribal benefits is shrinking. Now comes the phony Akaka tribe -- the largest tribe in America -- elbowing out the real tribes."

Get the Story:
Kenneth R. Conklin: Brief Summary of Bad Surprises in the New Akaka Bill (The Hawaii Reporter 9/18)