"states do have the right to send authorities onto a reservation if
illegalities are suspected. But usually the order has to come directly
from a high authority, like the attorney general of a state.
Would anyone know if this has ever been done?
Ft. McDowell AZ Yavapai Apaches resist Fed raid in 1992:
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738
<a href="http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738">
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738/a>
Ft. McDowell AZ Yavapai Apaches resist Fed raid in 1992:
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738
<a href="http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738">
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1738/a>
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vp_FREE" <vpFREE@C...> wrote:
******
This article brought back the good old days of Arizona politics.
Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
by Elizabeth Manning
FORT McDOWELL, Ariz. - It started as a traditional cowboy and Indian
battle - one the Indians were supposed to lose. At 6:00 on a May
morning in 1992, a team of FBI agents accompanied by eight Mayflower
moving vans invaded the Fort McDowell Reservation. Armed agents broke
into the tribal bingo hall and began carting slot machines into the
vans. SWAT teams set up guard on the roof.
By then the Indian telephone network was awake and at work. The first
calls came from tribal members at the hall. From neighbor to cousin
to friend to the media, the message spread: Come down to the gaming
center and bring a car or pickup. By the time the vans were ready to
roll, the Indians had hemmed in the 18-wheelers with heavy machinery
and dozens of vehicles, including the tribe's small fleet of sand and
gravel trucks. More seriously, the FBI agents faced a thoroughly
awake and angry Yavapai Nation.
As the Indians saw it, this was sovereign land and the FBI was
stealing the only dependable livelihood they had managed to find in a
century of white rule. Tribal president Clinton Pattea
recalls, "After they loaded the trucks, our people blocked the
entrance. It was a rather scary situation. They came in without any
notice."
"It was lucky for them we're not a violent tribe," says tribal member
Nimrod Thomas.
Given the sudden confrontation, anything could have happened. What
did happen was the arrival several hours later by helicopter of
Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, the toughest-talking and most pugnacious
governor in the West. Whether Symington knew it or not, he was coming
to negotiate his unconditional surrender.
Civil disobedience appeared to be the only option the tribe had.
Pattea says he and other Indian leaders had been trying for years to
meet with an Arizona governor to start negotiations over the slot
machines. Negotiations were required under a 1988 federal law
sanctioning Indian gaming, but the tribes' advances had been rejected
by former Govs. Rose Moffort, Evan Mecham, and finally Symington. If
the vans left with the slot machines, the tribe would have lost all
leverage.
The confrontation must have shaken the governor. Four other raids on
Indian casinos that morning had gone well for the FBI. Then he heard
of the Yavapai blockade. Fearing violence or a forced agreement less
to his liking, Symington started talking.
Within an hour and a half, he and Pattea had worked out a temporary
standoff: The slot machines would stay in the vans, but the vans
would stay in the gaming center parking lot pending further
negotiations. In the following weeks, Arizona's tribes staged powwows
next to the vans while the machines baked under the desert sun.
Public sympathy swelled.
A little more than a year later, the Fort McDowell Yavapai tribe had
a 10-year compact with Symington and a fully legal and open casino.
By April 1994, Symington had signed similar compacts with 16 of
Arizona's 21 tribes. Phoenix is now ringed by three casinos; 12
others are spread across the state.
© copyright 2002 High Country News
High Country News* Box 1090 * Paonia, CO 81428 * 1-800-905-1155
********
Gov. Symington basically refused to negotiate, after the initial U.S.
Supreme Court ruling allowing gambling. OBTW, Symington ended up in
jail for other indiscressions.
Gov. Evan Mecham got elected before Symington as the third party
candidate with less than the majority of voters. He was impeached.
During this time period, the NFL took away our scheduled Super Bowl
because the state did not have a MLK holiday. The problem was there
were three different measures on the ballot, none got a majority.
Next time around the initiative did pass handily when it was a yes/no
choice.
AZ is on it's second cycle of ten year pacts now. More opulent
casinos have been built, blackjack added, age raised to 21. We even
have a couple of those Harrahs outfits.