Opinion: An editorial battle over Tohono O'odham casino project

Monday, August 16, 2010

"One clever fellow, a well-paid lawyer for the Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona, recently guessed - correctly - that I had authored a Republic editorial that criticized the tribe's plan to build a new casino-resort adjacent to Glendale on land the tribe bought in 2003. He wrote me a letter in response. A not-nice letter, I'm sorry to say.

On behalf of The Republic, I wrote on July 31 that the casino plan is not a good idea. I'll shake out a few of the details later in this column, but, generally speaking, we - which, yes, includes me - believe the Glendale casino proposal threatens the exclusive hold tribes now enjoy regarding casino gambling.

We said the casino project mocks the expectations of voters, who in 2002 gave tribes the exclusive right to operate casinos in Arizona, albeit with a number of conditions. Big among those conditions - maybe the biggest - was that the number of casinos in metro Phoenix would not grow. Uncounted politicians, legal experts and tribal leaders assured the voting public then that the number of casinos was fixed.

Alas, there was fine print. Casinos could be built only on official tribal trust land. But that didn't mean that tribe-owned land that, under certain conditions, later became trust land couldn't eventually become casino-ready land.

I'm thinking that clever lawyers like my letter-writing friend helped the tribe weasel its way through that fine print. Just a guess, but I think so."

Get the Story:
Doug MacEachern: A beleaguered editorial writer takes umbrage at lawyer's note (The Arizona Republic 8/15)

Relevant Documents:
Larry Echo Hawk Letter to Tohono O'odham Nation (July 23, 2010)