Jonodev Chaudhuri. Photo from Muscogee Creek Supreme Court
Indian Country Today interviews Jonodev Chaudhuri, a member of the Muscogee Nation who is serving as acting chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission:
What is the most challenging work ahead of you at NIGC? My primary goal is to continue the positive steps taken by the commission toward consultation and relationship building with tribes and tribal regulators. We deal with an ever-changing landscape of issues, and the challenge is ensuring a continuing consistent trajectory given the changing issues we face on a daily basis. My emphasis will be on continuing to listen to Indian country and doing whatever we can as a commission to provide the tools necessary to help tribes be the primary regulators of Indian gaming and to help them ensure compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). We have an initiative that’s been in place that [former] Chairwoman Tracie Stevens developed that I feel very comfortable continuing. It’s called ACE—assistance, compliance and enforcement. Sometimes enforcement issues do come up and we understand our oversight role at the commission, but we are of the philosophy that the more collaboration and communication and assistance there is on the front end, the fewer enforcement issues there will be on the back end. Most Indian leaders say that IGRA was a compromise of Indian nations’ sovereign right to conduct gaming on their lands. How do you respond to that claim? I don’t think that’s an inaccurate statement. The point I always make is Indian gaming existed before IGRA. IGRA was an attempt to balance things among the tribes, the federal government and the states, and it created a regulatory framework designed in theory to balance those interests. It was a compromise created by Congress after quite a bit of deliberation and input from a variety of stakeholders, and as a commission our duty is to implement the requirements of IGRA.Get the Story:
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