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C H A P T E R S E V E N The Story of the Grand Traverse Band’s Gaming Operations T he Grand Traverse Band opened its first gaming hall in 1984, and its gaming operations —the Leelanau Sands Casino and the Turtle Creek Casino—remain the greatest sources of the revenue for the tribal government. The Origins of Gaming in Peshawbestown TheGrandTraverse Band opened the first high-stakes Indian bingo hall in the State of Michigan in 1984, when the tribe opened the Super Bingo Palace and the Leelanau Sands Casino. In 1985, the Leelanau Sands Casino moved to a larger location and added table games. Although it may have seemed to outsiders that Indian tribes originated gaming operations as a means of exploiting the immunities from state taxation and regulation articulated in federal Indian law, and that perhaps Indianswere just trying to get rich quick, nothing could be farther from reality.Consider that in1984,theGrandTraverseBandtribalcouncilenactedagamingordinance—not for profit, but for the purpose of regulating “games of Indian Bingo and/or other lawful gambling activities within the reservation . . . for the purposes of 168 | | 169 promoting tribal self-government and self-sufficiency through tribal economic development in order to support the health, education andwelfare of theGrand Traverse Band and its members.”1 The ordinance tracked statements of federal Indian law and policy made by President Ronald Reagan, the United States Department of the Interior, and Congress in 1982 and 1983. Like President Richard Nixon before him, President Reagan sought to encourage Indian tribes to engage in creative means of generating governmental revenue. In his 1983 federal Indian policy statement, he said, “It is important to the concept of self-government that tribes reduce their dependence on Federal funds by providing a greater percentage of the cost of their self-government.”2 This was part and parcel of the President’s goal of reducing the size of government by eliminating the need for federal appropriations . Ironically, it was the President’s conservative, anti-federal government politics that fueled the explosion in Indian gaming that has occurred over the last few decades. Shortly after President Reagan issued his policy statement, the secretary of theInteriorissuedastatementopposinganyfederallegislationthatwouldexpose Indian gaming operations to state regulation. In particular, the statement noted: 170 | chapter 7 A number of Indian tribes have begun to engage in bingo and similar gambling operations on their reservations for the very purpose enunciated in the President’s Message. Given the often limited resources which tribes have for revenue-producing activities, it is believed that this kind of revenue-producing possibility should be protected and enhanced.3 The Department of the Interior’s statement also mirrored the general statements that Congress had made in regard to the value of tribal economic development. In 1982, Congress had enacted the Tribal Tax Status Act.4 It was the latest in a long line of piecemeal congressional acts, dating all theway back to the Indian ReorganizationAct, that offered a recognition of the fact that the large majority of Indian tribes would not be able to fund tribal governmental services through the imposition of taxes, as federal, state, and local governments could.5 The 1982 Act restated Congress’s view that Indian tribes should be encouraged to engage in economic development activities for the purpose of reducing their dependence on congressional appropriations. At various times, Congress had encouraged individual Indians to form small businesses, or had encouraged Indian tribes to form federal economic development corporations, or had created preferences in federal contracting for Indian tribes and individual Indian-owned businesses. The Department of the Interior, the Indian Health Service, and the Small BusinessAdministrationhadquietlybeenofferingconstructionfunds,sanitation services, and loan guarantees to Indian tribes for the purpose of constructing high-stakes bingo halls to tribes in New York, Florida, and California since at leastthelate1970s.SomeIndiantribesmayhaveengagedinhigh-stakesbingoor other forms of gaming since the late 1960s.The 1983 statements from President Reagan and the Department of the Interior allowed the subtle encouragement of Indian gaming to grow into overt support. The reason high-stakes bingo became an important objective for many Indian tribeswas that under foundational principles of federal Indian law, state laws and regulations—even criminal laws—did not apply to on-reservation tribal activity. The Supreme Court had stated in 1832 that state law has “no force” in IndianCountry.6 Congress could, if it chose, extend state jurisdiction into Indian Country, as it had for some states with the enactment of Public Law 280,7 but...

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