American Indian political incorporation in the post-Indian Gaming Regulatory Act era

Abstract

Despite the active and growing role American Indians play in the U.S. political system, the study of contemporary political relations between Indian nations and federal and state governments remains underdeveloped in the political science literature. The dearth of inquiry is most notable in examining the efforts American Indians and Indian nations undertake in an attempt to influence public policy. In this paper, we suggest that recent developments, including the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, have altered how American Indians participate in the political process. In order to study these recent changes, we suggest that it is appropriate to examine Indian nations’ use of interest group strategies in the political process. We demonstrate how such an approach adds to our understanding of Indian and non-Indian relations by discussing how Indian nations pursued interest group strategies and documenting how resources obtained through gaming have allowed them to expand this strategy.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Jenn Haas for her help gathering data used in this project.

Notes

1 See Wilkins (2002) for a discussion of American Indians as unique, pre-constitutional sovereigns distinct from traditional minority groups.

2 Pre-existing status means Indian nations existed as independent sovereign governments before the creation of the Untied States and made treaties with the United States on a government-to-government basis.

3 This includes 332 Indian nations in the 48 contiguous states and 229 Alaska Native villages or corporations. This list is published annually by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and is updated as additional tribes are recognized by the federal government.

4 For this study, we focus on federally recognized tribes, although state recognized tribes may provide many of the same benefits to members through lobbying and campaign contributions.

5 See Cornell (1988) and Wilkins (2002) for additional examples.

6 Cornell (1988) notes that some Indian nations were active in lobbying the government and had sufficient resources to lobby as a result of other forms of economic development like utilization of tribal natural resources including timber, coal, and gas. Wilkins (2002) also notes the interest group activity of some Indian nations, however limited resources often lead to the creation of pan-tribal groups like the Council of Energy Resource Tribes.

7 In Seminole, the Court determined that states could not prohibit Indian Gaming because it lacked regulatory Authority.

8 See especially Getches, David, Charles Wilkinson and Robert Williams, Jr. (1998) Federal Indian Law, 4th ed. Chapter 9 for an overview of the provisions of and legal challenges to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

9 These data are gathered from a document released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in June 2000 and are extended through 2003 by searching the Federal Register, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html, accessed September 2004. See Boehmke and Witmer (2004) for a detailed analysis of state-level factors that influence compacting activity.

10 Gaming has also allowed a number of Indian nations to secure a significant source of funds for improving social service programs, education, infrastructure, law enforcement and other programs (National Gambling Impact Study Commission 1999, Cornell, Kalt, Krepps, & Taylor, 1998, McCulloch, 1994). See also the National Indian Gaming Association webpage at http://www.indiangaming.org/ for additional information on the programs funded by Indian gaming receipts.

11 In this paper, we focus on activities at the Federal level since that is the traditional locus of Indian relations, but note that many tribes have pursued similar activities at the state level as well.

12 Nownes (2001) provides an excellent summary and description of political expenditures made by groups.

13 The conclusions from this literature are far from conclusive about the effect of the money on legislators’ vote decisions. Baumgartner and Leech (1998) provide an excellent overview of the literature and provide thoughts on the disparity of the findings. For example, Wright (1990) finds that committee members that receive a greater number of contributions are lobbied by a greater number of groups, but do not vote differently than other committee members after accounting for lobbying contact. This suggests contributions may help groups get through the door to engage in direct lobbying but do not necessarily buy votes.

14 See Gais (1996) for a study that documents the hurdles groups must overcome to form and maintain a PAC, as well as the political consequences these regulations have for the representativeness of the PAC universe.

15 Data availability also presents limitations to pre-IGRA examinations of Indian campaign and lobbying spending. Given the work of Cornell (1988) and Nagel (1982), we expect this is relatively limited, but are unable to present data with these figures.

16 These data are available from the Center for Responsive Politics’ website http://www.opensecrets.org/, accessed September 2004, and include gaming tribes’ data for the years 1988–2002. Expenditures are in nominal dollars and are not adjusted for inflation.

17 Lobbying data are made available under the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act and were not reported prior to 1996.

18 Six PACs in the Indian gaming category at Open Secrets are listed as making contributions in 2002, in amounts ranging from the National Indian Gaming Association's PAC ($50,625) to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe's PAC ($1500).

19 The breakdown of incumbent contributions by election cycle is 87% in 2002, 76% in 2000 and 1998, 60% in 1996, 72% in 1994, 73% in 1992 and 100% in 1990. Data available from the Center for Responsive Politics’ website http://www.opensecrets.org/, accessed February 2005.

20 The lack of an influence of electoral security in this article is consistent with the findings of other studies that also look at the Senate: Grier and Munger (1993) study corporations, labor unions and trade associations and find that only labor unions’ decisions appear to be motivated by electoral concerns.

21 On the other hand, contributions from individual tribes in states with more other gaming tribes tend be lower (Boehmke & Witmer, 2003), suggesting the possibility of an inter-tribal collective action problem.

22 For information on the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and its reporting requirements, see Baumgartner and Leech (1999).

23 These figures represent Indian groups who meet the requirements for registration, specifically that either spend more than $20,500 on lobbying activities (this figure is indexed to inflation and has increased to $22,500 in 2004); that have an in-house agent that spends more than 20% of her time lobbying; or that spends more than $10,000 in conjunction with another group's lobbying activities in a six-month period as required by The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.

24 It is important to note that some lobbying activity by non-gaming tribes may also be funded by gaming revenue through the existence of tribal revenue-sharing agreements.