Indian gaming not anywhere on Mitt Romney's campaign radar

Monday, September 24, 2012  

What does Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney think about Indian gaming? The Cape Cod Times, a paper in his home state of Massachusetts, tried to find out but didn't get any answers.

Romney's campaign site doesn't mention Indian gaming, much less Indian issues. He hasn't discussed Indian issues on trail and hasn't announced support from tribal leaders or prominent Indians.

A tribal lobbyist who supports Romney doesn't appear to know much either. But Philip Baker-Shenk offered some generalized comments about the Republican candidate.

"I have every confidence that the Romney/Ryan administration would follow in the footsteps of the Nixon administration, the Reagan administration and the Bush administrations and continue government-to-government relationships with tribes in Massachusetts," Baker-Shenk told the paper.

Massachusetts is home to two federally recognized tribes -- the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Only the Aquinnah were recognized when Romney served as governor -- the Mashpee gained recognition in May 2007, a few months after he left office.

But when Romney took office in 2003, one of his first actions was to ask tribes in neighboring Connecticut to pay $80 million in exchange for blocking any gaming proposals in Massachusetts. The idea didn't go anywhere.

"It was pretty much an extortion ploy: 'You make payments, and we'll legally agree not to have casinos in Massachusetts," Clyde Barrow, a gaming expert and director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, told the Times.

More recently, Romney reportedly met with tribal leaders at his campaign headquarters in Boston last month. But Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell wasn't invited.

"I don't know much about how Romney would be," Cromwell told the paper. "He hasn't come out with anything specific in his platform about what he would do for tribes."

Get the Story:
Would Romney presidency affect tribe's casino plan? (The Cape Cod Times 9/24)