Nebraska tribes largely left out of gaming efforts

Joe Ruff

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

NIOBRARA, Neb. -- Signature gathering, posturing and court action in a failed fight to allow voters to legalize video slot machines happened largely without the involvement of Indian tribes, who have pushed for more than a decade to get casinos in Nebraska.

Several leaders of the Santee Sioux, Omaha and Winnebago tribes argue that distrust, misunderstanding and lack of attention has a lot to do with low interest in the tribes' own efforts to expand gambling in the state.

State officials and people involved with video slots initiative argue that the tribes are only held back by the same legal issues that have blocked all other expanded gambling efforts.

The tribes don't have enough people or money to influence elections and business decisions in the state, said Santee tribal Chairman Roger Trudell as he sat in the tribe's outlawed casino five miles east of Niobrara.

"Is there prejudice in the state of Nebraska?" Trudell asked. "Yes. Not because people hate you because of your color, but because you are insignificant in their ambition to be leaders."

Of any group, American Indians can effectively run casinos, said John Blackhawk, chairman of the Winnebago Tribe.

"What the unicameral and what the general business community doesn't understand -- and this is one of prejudice, actually -- is that we run some darn good organizations," Blackhawk said.

The Winnebago and Omaha tribes in eastern Nebraska operate casinos across the Missouri River in Iowa, which legalized casino gambling in 1989. In defiance of state and federal officials, the Santee Tribe has been running its casino on its reservation in northeast Nebraska since February 1996.

The state's other tribe, the Ponca, does not have a reservation, but it has considered casino-style gambling on one of its scattered properties, mostly in northeast Nebraska.

The Winnebago Tribe also is expanding its gambling operations into Nebraska. The tribe is putting some bingo-based electronic machines in a store on its reservation, believing the games are legal under Nebraska law.

All the tribes argue they are sovereign nations that can run casinos on their land without any special arrangements with the state, even though the state prohibits casino gambling. They also argue that Nebraska has failed to negotiate in good faith when it comes to proposed gaming compacts.

Gov. Mike Johanns said he has discussed gambling with tribal leaders and has made it clear that it is a legal issue. Casinos are prohibited throughout Nebraska and the state will not make exceptions for the tribes, he said.

If gambling is expanded in Nebraska, the tribes could negotiate a compact with the state to allow them to offer the same games permitted elsewhere in the state, Johanns said.

"To the extent they can be legally involved, I want to make sure they are," Johanns said.

The governor and lawmakers expect expanded gambling to be discussed in the next legislative session, scheduled to start in January. Tribal officials said they want to be in the mix.

While Johanns adamantly opposes expanded gambling, his Democratic challenger in this year's election, Stormy Dean, has campaigned for video slot machines and casinos.

Dean visited the Omaha and Santee reservations in recent weeks, talking about economic opportunity and access to health care in addition to expanded gambling.

"I told them I'm on record as being open to casino gambling in Nebraska," Dean said.

If the video slot machine initiative would have made the Nov. 5 ballot and had been approved by voters, it would have opened the door to casinos in Nebraska, including on reservations, Trudell and Blackhawk said.

However, the Winnebago and Omaha tribes saw problems with that proposed constitutional amendment, which would have allowed video slots in bars, restaurants, race tracks and keno parlors, as well as in designated spots within 20 miles of communities in neighboring states with video gambling.

"It was saturation," Blackhawk said. "You've got more mom-and-pop and everyone else doing gaming, and it's not as lucrative as it could be."

And while the proposal would have allowed counties, cities and village to conduct gaming, it left out any mention of tribal reservations, said Darren Wolfe, a spokesman for the Omaha Tribe.

That could have pitted the Omaha and Winnebago tribes against Thurston County, where their reservations are located, for control of gaming in that area, Wolfe said.

"Maybe they didn't even know we were up here," Wolfe said of organizers of the video slot machine effort.

A leader of the group of cities and counties behind the video slot machine effort, Kimball Mayor Greg Robinson, said organizers had the tribes in mind, even though there was little communication.

"Our intention all along was not to do any damage to the tribes if we did this," Robinson said. "They didn't talk to us much, and we didn't talk to them much."

Tribes, as sovereign nations, would have won any dispute with cities or counties over who could run gaming in their area, said Paul Schumacher, president of Lotto Nebraska, which runs keno lotteries for 90 small towns and helped in the petition effort.

Robinson's group, Nebraskans for Local Control, gathered 178,000 signatures to put the video slots initiative on the ballot. However, opponents successfully challenged the measure's constitutionality. An appeal is pending before the state Supreme Court, but it will be heard too late for the measure to make the ballot this year.

Casino gambling is not a dead issue in Nebraska, Trudell said. That is evidenced by the number of signatures gathered for video slot machines, he said.

"All we've got to do is get the 49 people who represent Nebraska to get in tune with Nebraska," Trudell said of the Legislature.

Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek has proposed legislation for three years that would allow casinos on tribal lands. Her efforts appear to be gathering momentum, and the tribes want to work with her and others in the Legislature.

One idea would be establishing a casino in the Omaha and Lincoln areas that each tribe and other governmental bodies could share the profits from, Blackhawk and Wolfe said. However, they said getting the four tribes and others to agree on that idea could be a challenge.