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FEBRUARY 5, 2001

Kevin Gover, the former head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, remains as controversial as ever and is responding to one of his main critics: a Connecticut newspaper.

In one of his first public statements since leaving the BIA last month, a Gover addresses a number of issues in a letter published on Sunday in The New London Day. A Connecticut regional paper, The Day has both reported and editorialized on Gover's actions in its coverage of federal recognition, gaming, and other Indian policies.

Most recently, the paper took Gover to task for returning to his career as a lawyer and lobbyist. The paper called on President George W. Bush to reform ethics laws to "plug the hole" which allows Gover to represent tribes before the Department of Interior.

"President George W. Bush has made ethics a high priority of his administration," said the paper in a January 26 editorial. "One of the first places he can start is in the BIA, where ethical questions swirled around the agency during the Clinton administration."

Some of those questions have centered on Gover's decision last March to extend preliminary recognition to the Eastern Pequot and Paucatuck Eastern Pequot tribes. Critics say he made the decision to benefit one of his former clients, another Connecticut tribe seeking recognition.

But as Gover points out in his letter, he was recused from making any decisions affecting he Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe, a fact which the paper omitted in its editorial but has reported in the past. He challenges anyone to prove he did any favors for the tribe and said ethics laws prohibit him forever from being involved in matters in which he had significant input while at the BIA.

Striking at the heart of The Day's editorial, Gover also criticizes the paper's suggestion that he shouldn't represent tribes before the Interior without first being required to "cool his heels for a year." The paper asserted that Gover could lobby on behalf of tribes because they are viewed as "disadvantaged" but Gover says that notion is incorrect.

"Anyone who has left government is free to represent state, local, and tribal governments before the agencies in which we worked, not because they are disadvantaged, but because they are governments," writes Gover.

And while the paper's editorial focused mainly on federal recognition, Gover says he can't represent non-federally recognized tribes before the Interior for the next year. Gover says the paper's omission of this fact is just one of many that needed to be corrected.

Criticism of Gover's career as a lobbyist isn't new. When he was nominated to head the Bureau by President Clinton in 1997, William Safire, a New York Times columnist, alleged the appointment was a "reward" since one of Gover's former clients -- Tesuque Pueblo of New Mexico -- had donated $50,000 to the Democratic Party.

The issue was raised before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs during Gover's confirmation hearings. No Senators found it objectionable and he was confirmed unanimously by the full Senate.

Gover now works for Steptoe & Johnson of Washington, DC.

Read Gover's letter:
Sometimes, The 'Revolving Door' Is OK (Kevin Gover in The New London Day 2/4)

Read The Day's editorial:
EDITORIAL: Around and around it goes (The New London Day 1/26)

Related Stories:
EDITORIAL: Kevin Gover and Ethics (The Talking Circle 1/26)
The Year in Kevin Gover (Smoke Signals 1/4)