There’s a hilarious, and hilariously depressing editorial in this week’s Banner. Melvin Miller, the paper’s editor and publisher, excoriates the legislature – particularly the Speaker – for trying to run out the clock on the Governor’s casino gambling proposal. Which is fair enough – everybody from broke-ass mayors to labor unions to labor-friendly reps have gotten into that game lately.
But it’s not enough for Miller to just whack Sal upside the head – that act is weeks old. This late in the game, Melvin’s got to have a reason for killing Sal. Conveniently enough, Sal happens to be a filthy racist. Or so we read…
Before the English, the Africans, the French, the Germans, the Irish, the Italians and others came to these shores, there were the Native Americans. By trick and military might, the immigrants and their descendants gained control of this great nation from the Native American custodians of the land.
By treaty and federal concession, various areas across the country have been designated Indian reservations or federal trusts. These areas are then granted partial sovereignty, a status that, among other things, permits tribes to establish gambling casinos…
Some citizens seem to believe that Native Americans have no special rights that others need to respect. Salvatore F. DiMasi, the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, seems to believe that his disdain for gambling casinos trumps the sovereign right of the Wampanoag Indians to establish one. DiMasi is wrong. This is an argument that DiMasi will lose, and his recalcitrance will cost the state millions of dollars in lost fees from casinos.
Uh, yeah. OK. Where to start? With the race-baiting or the three-car-pileup-mangled logic?
We’ll go with the latter, because it feeds into the former. The Wampanoag, by virtue of their federal recognition, do not have the sovereign right to open a casino. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (law here, Cliffs Notes here) only allows a tribe to engage in gambling forms that are already legal in the state their reservation is sited in.
Which means that, unless the legislature votes to legalize Class III gambling, all the Wampanoag can do is open a Bingo hall. (Bingo slots, the magic loophole driving many gambling supporters at the legislature, don’t look to have the brightest future.)
What’s more, for that land in Middleborough to be worth anything, the feds would have to snap out of their sudden bent against reservation shopping.
All of that is simply to say that, no, the Wampanoag don’t have blackjack sovereignty, and no, their Middleborough casino isn’t inevitable, let alone a birthright. And to say that, just because the Speaker espouses this view, it’s tantamount to walking around the State House with smallpox-covered blankets – that’s race-baiting demagoguery in its worst form.
Mildly related: Have you seen the latest issue of CommonWealth? It’s staggeringly original and timely!