Pacts offer hope to poor rural tribes
The Arizona Republic, April 29, 2001
Before we can predict the future of Indian gaming in Maricopa County, we must understand the past.
For most of the past century, Indians on Arizona tribal lands lived in extreme poverty and economic despair. Then, in 1988, federal law confirmed the right of Indian tribes to have limited, regulated gaming on their own lands, to provide jobs and fund services for tribal members.
With the support of Arizonans, the state and the tribes began negotiating Indian gaming agreements in the early 1990s. Set for 10 years, they were designed to automatically renew.
In preparation for renewal, Gov. Jane Hull in 1999 directed the Arizona Department of Gaming to hold statewide public hearings on Indian gaming and the need for continuing these agreements. Public testimony overwhelmingly confirmed that Indian gaming is dramatically improving the lives of thousands of Arizona Indians. The needs are still enormous, but gaming dollars have built health clinics, houses, schools and roads, established scholarships and staffed police and fire departments on tribal lands.
The record shows that gaming is the only effective economic development tool many tribes have in their arsenals.
This is a powerful message. But it tells only part of the story. More than three-fourths of Arizona's Native American population are members of non-gaming tribes. Some 300,000 members of Arizona tribes receive absolutely no benefit from Indian gaming. For them, home is still a place with limited resources and infinite needs. Basic services that other Arizonans take for granted remain unrealized dreams.
To meet their needs, the state and Arizona gaming tribes are discussing ways to design a better future for non-gaming tribes. One idea would enable gaming tribes to share their gaming revenues with non-gaming tribes. Tribal members living as far away as Hualapai, Havasupai, Kaibab-Paiute and Navajo could benefit from Indian gaming.
As for the future of gaming in Maricopa County, despite the dog- and horse-racing industry's scare campaign, the character of Indian gaming in Maricopa County will not change under renewed agreements. Those who want Las Vegas-style gaming will still be out of luck.
Why? Arizona has some of the strictest Indian gaming limits in the United States. Arizona will continue to limit the number of slot machines per casino, limit the games that can be played, and limit the number of casinos allowed statewide. Limited and regulated gaming, supported overwhelmingly by the people of Arizona, ensures that the gaming environment we see today in Maricopa County is the environment we will see tomorrow.
The biggest differences would not occur in Maricopa County but on rural reservations, where healthcare clinics and schools will be built, doctors, nurses and teachers hired, homes wired for telephones and electricity, roads paved and scholarships established. Gaming revenues would enable all tribes to attack their 200-year backlog of needs.
Given time, Arizona Indian tribes will start new businesses, diversify economies and create new jobs so their newly educated youth can return home and build communities.
This is the future of Indian gaming.
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