Opinion: Minnesota governor wrong to extort tribes

Thursday, November 11, 2004  

"[Minnesota] Gov. Tim Pawlenty's present attempts to coercively extract $350 million from the gaming coffers of the sovereign Dakota and Ojibwe nations, when the present compacts are still good law, typifies this attitude and provides ample contemporary evidence that the relationship between tribal nations and state governments are as contentious as ever.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court in a major decision in 1886, U.S. v. Kagama, characterized the relationship thus: "They [the tribes] owe no allegiance to the States, and receive from them no protection. Because of the local ill feeling, the people of the States where they are found are often their deadliest enemies."

Pawlenty's efforts are deeply flawed on several important grounds: They are constitutionally suspect; they violate the inherent doctrine of tribal sovereignty; they run afoul of existing federal law; they contradict the state's own sovereignty accord that was first announced in 2002 and was reaffirmed by Pawlenty in 2003; and they breach the essential doctrine of federal supremacy in the field of Indian affairs."

Get the Story:
David Wilkins: Pawlenty's assault on tribal nations doesn't pass constitutional muster (The St. Paul Pioneer Press 11/11)
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