Associated Press POLITICAL VOICE: Former Saginaw Chippewa tribal chief Kevin Chamberlain gave $302,000 of tribal funds in 1998 to federal candidates. He says such contributions get the attention of politicians.

Tribes buy clout with casino cash

Congress turns blind eye to power abuses

By Melvin Claxton and Mark Puls / The Detroit News

    American Indian tribal leaders have used casino revenues to forge political alliances that have allowed them to ward off their critics and maintain governments that curtail many of the basic rights and freedoms most Americans take for granted.

    To protect their sweeping powers, tribal leaders spent an estimated $40 million over the last five years lobbying Congress and helping finance the campaigns of federal, state and local politicians.

    More than half of that money went to high-priced Washington lobbyists. But last year alone, $2.9 million went to federal candidates -- a sharp increase from the $128,000 spent by tribes on federal elections at the beginning of the Indian casino boom in 1992.

    These political contributions and lobbyists have made tribal leaders staunch friends in Congress, which has the authority to address the abuses of Indian governments but has chosen not to.

    As a result, many Indians on reservations across the country live with flawed justice systems, little control over tribal finances, limited press freedoms, restrictive election laws and scant protection against age or disability discrimination. Even their membership in the tribe can be withdrawn on a whim by tribal leaders.

    “It is a fact of life, if you want to bring attention to the issues that are important to you, you have to spend money,” said former Saginaw Chippewa tribal chief Kevin Chamberlain, who contributed more than $302,000 of tribal funds in 1998 to federal candidates.

    “Tribal leaders control campaign contributions so politicians listen to them. But the average guy in the tribe is going to have a hard time getting heard.”

    The importance tribal leaders place on lobbying was underscored three weeks ago when the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe agreed to pay lobbyist Jack Abramoff $150,000 a month to represent their interests in Washington. Abramoff is also a lobbyist for the Choctaw tribe of Mississippi, which paid $1.4 million for his services last year.

Big givers have clout

    While politicians repeatedly deny that campaign contributions buy political favors, there is a consensus that big donors have a far better chance of having their concerns addressed.

    Last year, the Clinton administration intervened in a dispute between the Seminole Tribe and the state of Florida to help the tribe win approval for electronic gaming machines. The state opposed the machines, and the federal action came after the Seminoles made $325,000 in political donations — more than 80 percent to Democrats.

    Tribal leaders have used their financial clout not only to reward friends, but to target politicians who attempt to rein in their power. A case in point was last year’s U.S. Senate race in the state of Washington.

    Several tribes in Washington set out to unseat senior Republican Sen. Slade Gorton who, as head of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, had sought for years to limit the power of tribal governments. The tribes created a $2-million campaign fund and were successful in helping Maria Cantwell defeat the three-term senator.

    Few tribal councils have the economic and political clout of the long-entrenched leaders of the 600-member Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, whose Foxwood Casino in Connecticut is the most lucrative gaming enterprise in the world.

    These leaders, who oversee the tribe’s spending of millions of dollars a year on lobbyists and political donations, have been accused of keeping members in the dark about the tribe’s finances, including their own salaries, which reportedly exceed $1 million a year. This issue hasn’t affected the tribe’s ability to get help from political friends.

    Eight years ago, the Interior Department OK’d a highly controversial 165-acre expansion of the tribe’s reservation over the objections of nearby communities. From 1992-94, Mashantucket leaders donated $437,000 to Democrats, who controlled the White House at the time the Interior decision was made.

Sault Chippewas generous

Bernard Bouschor Longtime Sault Chippewa Chairman Bernard Bouschor maintains control over just about every aspect of tribal life, helped in part by generous donations to campaign committees and politicians in at least seven states. Tribal leaders donated $265,000 in 1996 to the Democratic Party. Slade Gorton U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, who as head of the Senate Indian Programs Committee sought for years to limit the power of tribal governments, was targeted for defeat by several tribes in Washington. The tribes created a $2-million campaign fund and helped Maria Cantwell defeat Gorton by 2,229 votes. Harold Ickes Former White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff Harold Ickes kept a list of campaign contributors friendly to the Democrats and the Clinton administration. Ickes’ list showed that Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Indians gave $150,000 in May 1996 to Democratic campaign committees in five states. Bart Stupak Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., is pushing a bill to give two Michigan tribes prime land on which to build casinos. There is no record that Stupak received contributions from either tribe and he insists the Sault tribe’s contributions to his party had nothing to do with his bill.

    In Michigan, no tribe has given more to politicians than the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Indians, owners of Greektown and five other casinos. The 29,000-member tribe, the largest in the state, gave more than $367,000 in political donations in the past five years. Nearly 95 percent of Sault Chippewa contributions went to Democrats, and the tribe was named in a donors list kept by a top Clinton White House official.

    Since 1995, leaders of the tribe funneled donations to campaign committees and politicians in at least seven states. Those generous contributions have helped longtime Sault Chippewa chairman Bernard Bouschor, who maintains an iron grip over just about every aspect of tribal life, develop influential connections and deflect criticism of his leadership.

    Complaints of mismanagement and conflicts of interest in his tribal government have gone largely ignored by Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency responsible for overseeing governments on reservations. But Bouschor’s pet projects have received special attention from Congress and the White House.

    A proposed bill currently in the U.S. House of Representatives would give Bouschor’s government a long sought-after casino in a prime off-reservation location. And a highly controversial BIA decision in the dying days of the Clinton administration benefited a tribe the Sault Chippewas had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in.

Questionable land

    In July, Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., re-introduced a bill that would allow the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa and Bay Mills Indian Community tribes to convert prime property off their reservation into Indian trust land on which they could build casinos. American Indians do not need state or federal approval to build casinos on property earmarked by Congress as part of a land settlement.

    Under the Stupak plan, the Bay Mills tribe would get land in Vanderbilt and the Sault Chippewas in Mackinaw City, near the heavily traveled Mackinac Bridge, the gateway to Michigan’s popular Upper Peninsula vacation spots. The two tribes selected the properties named in the Stupak bill.

    Stupak said the bill is aimed at correcting an old injustice. The land he wants to give the tribes, he insists, is a fair exchange for land wrongly taken from them more than a century ago.

    The Bay Mills tribe fought for a similar deal in two court cases and lost. The Sault tribe refused to join the Bay Mills lawsuits.

    A lower court and Michigan court of appeals both agreed that the tribes legally lost the land in an 1885 tax sale. Stupak, who first introduced the bill in the House five years ago, reintroduced it after the appeals court released its ruling in April.

    There is no record that Stupak received contributions from either tribe and he insists the Sault tribe’s contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars to his party had nothing to do with his bill. He said it was the current owners of the property the tribes claim was wrongly taken from them who first asked him to intervene.

    “It was the landowners who were being threatened by the Bay Mills tribe with a lawsuit who came to me for help,” Stupak said. “I had my staff investigate the matter and determined that the tribes had a legitimate claim. This had nothing to do with political contributions.”

White House connections

    The relationships between the Sault Chippewa’s contributions and political actions are hard to ignore. The Stupak bill isn’t the first time politicians or their staff intervened to the benefit of the Sault Chippewa leadership.

    Just hours before President Bill Clinton left office in January, BIA interim head Michael Anderson extended federal recognition — and ultimately the right to operate a casino — to the Nimpuc Indians of Massachusetts, a tribe heavily supported financially by the Sault Chippewas. Anderson and his former BIA boss Kevin Grover co-chaired the Native Americans for Clinton/Gore Committee.

Hatch

    For years, Sault Chippewa leaders had quietly bankrolled the Nimpucs to the tune of up to $14,000 a month, according to Sault Chippewa spokesman John Hatch. Tribal leaders, who kept the arrangement hidden from members until recently, won’t say exactly how much they gave the Nimpucs.

    Anderson gave the tribe federal status over the objections of the BIA's historians and experts who determined that the current tribe couldn’t continually trace its ancestry to the early Nimpucs.

    The Bush administration froze action on the Nimpucs’ recognition within days of coming to office. In September, it revoked the tribe’s federally recognized status.

    The Nimpucs, who had lobbied heavily for the recognition, were poised to build a megacasino on the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. If the Nimpucs got a casino, the Sault Chippewas were to be repaid with interest, Hatch said.

    Sault Chippewas leaders, who donated $265,000 in 1996 to the Democratic Party during Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign, had a lot riding on the Clinton administration’s decision on the Nimpucs.

    The Sault Chippewas were clearly on the Democrats’ radar screen at the highest level. A donors list kept by former White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff Harold Ickes shows that in May 1996 the Sault Chippewas gave a total of $150,000 to Democratic campaign committees in New York, Illinois, Maine, Missouri and Maryland.

    The tribe later sent an additional $115,000 to Democratic state committees in Tennessee and Oregon. Sault tribal leaders have declined to comment on whether their contributions were in any way linked to the Nimpuc deal.

A controversial mix

    For Sault Chippewa leaders, money and politics have always been a controversial mix. In 1999, leaders of three Michigan Indian tribes testified in a federal civil suit that Bouschor tried to trade his influence with state legislators for a future share of their casino profits.

    The claims stem from a 1996 meeting between Bouschor and leaders of the Little Traverse Band of Odawa Indians, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. One leader testified that Bouschor told them that their requests to open casinos, pending before the state Legislature, had been blocked by his tribe.

    “Chairman Bouschor claimed that he controlled enough votes to permanently prevent adoption of the needed resolutions by the Michigan Legislature,” Frank Ettawageshick, then-tribal president of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, swore in a court deposition.

    “Chairman Bouschor next stated that he could see to it that the resolutions were adopted by the end of 1996 in return for an equity interest in each of the tribes’ three proposed casinos. This equity interest, as he explained it, would amount to a payment from each of the three tribes to the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of approximately 10 percent of the net revenues from gaming operations in perpetuity or at least for the life of the (gaming operations).”

    Bouschor, Ettawageshick said, promised to have the Sault Chippewas’ Las Vegas attorneys draft written proposals because they were versed in such deals. The three tribes rejected Bouschor’s offer after he later presented it in writing.

    Bouschor has denied the allegations and characterized the episode as standard business negotiations.

    In a Nov. 2, 1996, letter to Ettawageshik, Bouschor offered to loan the Little Traverse band $100,000 a month and use his tribe’s influence to help the band get a casino license. In exchange, he wanted interest on the money loaned and a share of future profits.

    If his terms were met, Bouschor wrote, the Sault Tribe would “use its best efforts to assist in securing the Michigan Legislature’s....ratification or approval of the band’s....gaming license.”

    It took the three tribes two years to get their gaming agreements approved by the state Legislature. They maintain the delay was a direct result of Bouschor's intervention.

You can reach Melvin Claxton at (313) 222-2154 or mclaxton@detnews.com. You can reach Mark Puls at (313) 222-2035 or mpuls@ detnews.com .

GREEKTOWN CASINO: The Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Indians, owners of Greektown and five other casinos, gave more than $367,000 in political donations in the past five years, with 95 percent of its contributions going to Democrats.

FOXWOODS RESORT AND CASINO: From 1992-94, leaders of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, owners of the Foxwood Casino in Connecticut, donated $437,000 to Democrats, about the same time the Clinton administration allowed the tribe to expand its reservation.