Tribal Drums

New York State is locked in a battle with two upstate tribes over tax collections from gas and tobacco sales and gambling from Turning Stone Casino. The Seneca Nation claim that they have the sovereign right not to impose the state taxes on sales of tobacco and gasoline and if the state tries to impose such taxes, the tribes will erect a toll across the New York State Thruway where it crosses the tribes boundaries. The Seneca Nation complains that the easement across their land did not honor earlier compacts between the federal government and the tribes, meaning that the tribes have been deprived millions of dollars over the years. The tribe is seeking to impose a toll of $1 per car for the privilege of driving across the tribal lands.

"For too long, the state has paid the Nation nothing for the use of our lands," said Seneca President Maurice John Sr. "We are in the process of calculating how much revenue the nation is owed from the last 53 years. Just compensation for the future will include a fairly negotiated lease agreement, plus a percentage of the tolls."

The move comes amid increasingly combative relations between the tribe and Spitzer, stemming from the issue of sales tax collections. New York has long been under pressure from off-reservation businesses to do something about the low prices for tax-free gas and cigarettes from reservation stores.

Spitzer and his predecessor, George Pataki, have sought to get the Seneca to tax non-Indian customers. In 1997, the last time the state tried to collect the tobacco taxes, part of the Thruway was shut down due to tire burnings and confrontations between Seneca and State Police.

The tribe wrote to Spitzer April 18, telling him its leaders had voted to rescind a 1954 resolution that allowed part of the Thruway to cross the Cattaraugus reservation. The Seneca pointed to a 1999 federal court decision that found the Secretary of the Interior had not complied with laws governing rights of way on Indian lands.

The state originally paid the tribe $75,000 for the easement.

On May 5, the tribe threatened to cancel a 1976 agreement that allowed construction of what is now Interstate 86 through the Allegany Reservation. The state paid the tribe $494,386 in that deal, but John said it has failed to meet a number of other conditions, such as improving health care for nation members and waiving requirements for hunting, fishing and trapping licenses.

This situation is a mess decades in the making and Governor Spitzer is only the latest governor to deal with this very volatile situation.

Meanwhile, Spitzer is also in a mess with the Oneida Nation, which operates the very profitable Turning Stone casino and resort in Verona, New York. Federal and state courts have repeatedly ruled that the casino violates the law that allows casinos to operate casinos only on tribal lands. The casino was not built on tribal land:

Pushed up against a federal deadline, the Spitzer administration finally came down hard in support of those who steadfastly have denounced the casino as an illegal operation with not a leg to stand on. This finally ends the state's long waffling over the status of Turning Stone, going back to the Pataki administration.

The state and Oneida Indian Nation had until April 30 to ask federal Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for an extension to work out a new gambling or gaming compact to be finished by Oct. 1.

But in a long legal position paper that Spitzer's special counsel Richard Rifkin sent to Kempthorne on April 30, the state says no way to negotiations. Instead, it takes a hard line that everything about Turning Stone is illegal at this point. Finally.

Over the last couple of years, the highest federal and state courts have clearly determined that the land Turning Stone sits on is not sovereign Oneida land. Only sovereign Indian land is eligible for a gaming compact. In addition, the courts have said that the compact Gov. Mario Cuomo entered into with the Oneidas was void from the git go because the Legislature never approved it.

Yet the state has dithered on taking any sort of action against the casino because it employs 5,000 people. A private group, Upstate Citizens for Equality, has been screaming the emperor wears no clothes. It sued the Oneidas, citing Turning Stone as an illegal operation as early as 1999. Finally, we're seeing progress here in calling a spade a spade.

The governor is in a difficult position here because if the casino is shut down, not only are 5,000 jobs at stake (most are non-tribe members), but the tribe stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and the local economy takes a major hit. However, failing to shut down the casino means that he would find it acceptable to violate state and federal law, which would go against his reputation as a law and order guy.

In both instances, the money involved is in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year and an upstate economy that needs all the help it can get.