Casino Enterprise Management

Pop quiz time: Which elected leader recently said the following?

Few have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans … It’s a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation. Treaties were violated. Promises were broken.

Hint: It wasn’t the chairman of any tribe. And it wasn’t the head of any national Indian organization.

It was President Barack Obama.

The president went on to say what we in Indian country have known for generations: Our nations are just that—nations. This wasn’t a matter of some silly semantics. It was a very crucial and very public affirmation of a bedrock truth: Indian tribes are sovereign nations with the inherent right to have their own governments.

The president’s remarks came during a remarkable event he hosted in November, the White House Tribal Nations Conference. During the daylong gathering, the president and top administration officials met with approximately 200 leaders from the 564 federally recognized Indian tribes. The first-of-its-kind meeting prompted the New York Times to run an editorial anticipating a “more promising chapter” in federal-tribal relations, compared to the “patronizing historical footnotes” that previous meetings proved to be.

And more promising indeed is our new president’s commitment to real, substantive government-to-government relations between the United States and tribes. “Too often,” he said during the conference, “Washington thought it knew what was best for you. There was too little consultation between governments … Without real communication and consultation, we’re stuck year after year with policies that don’t work on issues specific to you and on broader issues that affect all of us. And you deserve to have a voice in both.”
Why do we deserve to be heard? Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because we, as sovereign nations, have the right to insist on it.

Perhaps now is the time to talk in more detail about that word sovereignty. The dictionary defines it with terms such as autonomy, power and freedom from control. But it may be easier to think about the attributes that make something sovereign, because they are more concrete: a defined group of people, a unique culture, clearly delineated territory, governmental authority and acknowledgement by the citizenry of that authority.

Indian nations possess all of these things and always have, despite some concerted efforts at different times to take away our lands, our languages, our traditions, even our children. In fact, Indian sovereignty predates the sovereignty of the United States, and our sovereign status was recognized during this country’s founding when the authors of the Constitution authorized Congress to regulate commerce with “foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. ” The Constitution also authorized the president to make treaties—contractual agreements between governments—with tribes.

Our sovereign status—as guaranteed by the Constitution, treaties and several federal statutes—is why I submitted a resolution supporting the treatment of Indian tribes as governments for purposes of the National Labor Relations Act and opposing amendments to the NLRA that do not include protections for tribal sovereignty at this year’s National Congress of American Indian Conference.

The resolution passed unanimously. But why was it even needed? Because for many, many years, the federal government ignored, slighted or outright trampled on Indian sovereignty. President Obama also acknowledged this when he said: “I’m absolutely committed to moving forward with you and forging a new and better future together. It’s a commitment that’s deeper than our unique nation-to-nation relationship. It’s a commitment to getting this relationship right, so that you can be full partners in the American economy, and so your children and your grandchildren can have an equal shot at pursuing the American Dream.”

The president also signed a proclamation during the conference that declared November 2009 to be National Native American Heritage Month. The proclamation contained this promise:  “As we seek to build on and strengthen our nation-to-nation relationship, my administration is committed to ensuring tribal communities have a meaningful voice in our national policy debates as we confront the challenges facing all Americans … Native American voices have echoed through the mountains, valleys and plains of our country for thousands of years, and it is now our time to listen.”

I hope this gives you a better sense of why the president’s insistence on Indian nations’ sovereign status is so monumental to us. It’s not just that he’s saying our casino businesses are legitimate; he’s saying that we—Indian people and our sovereign government—are legitimate. We are no longer invisible. We are real, and we matter.

“I believe Washington can’t—and shouldn’t—dictate a policy agenda for Indian country,” President Obama said during the conference. “Tribal nations do better when they make their own decisions.”
Yes, we do. And yes, we will.

Kevin Leecy is Tribal Chairman of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, which owns and operates Fortune Bay Resort Casino in Tower, Minn., and Vice Chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association. He can be reached at Kevin.Leecy[at]boisforte-nsn.gov.