Another Stereotype of the Month entry:

From the Kansas City Star:

Rob's reply
Another article with obvious problems:

>> Tribal casinos don't file 10Qs or 10Ks, or face other rigid scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regularly and in full public view probes the most intimate financial anatomy of publicly traded casino companies. <<

Millions of privately owned businesses don't have to disclose their revenues or file with the SEC. Comparing a tribal casino—a private, government-owned business—with a publicly traded business isn't close to being valid.

>> Few tribal casinos pay state gambling taxes, local school property taxes or any other taxes. <<

Few government-owned operations (e.g., a national park or laboratory or space center) pay taxes to other governments.

>> The federal government's understaffed National Indian Gaming Commission and state regulatory agencies such as the Kansas Racing & Gaming Commission provide only a thin veneer of oversight. <<

Even if this is true, it's more than no public accountability. Alm's initial statement is false.

>> The nitty-gritty, day-to-day business of tribal casinos is regulated by each tribe's own gaming commission. Foxes and chicken coops come to mind. <<

No, state audits of state governmental operations come to mind. I can't vouch for the accuracy of such audits, but I know we consider them routine and unremarkable. We don't assume state auditors are in cahoots with the state managers they audit. Why would we assume differently for tribal auditors? Because Indians are less trustworthy and more corrupt?

>> All this has come about because federal Indian gaming law is predicated on some 19th century notion of tribal "sovereignty" that has somehow survived into the 21st century. <<

That's sovereignty, not "sovereignty." It's no mystery how it survived into the 21st century; courts upheld it because it's in the Constitution. Alm implies someone has conspired to keep sovereignty alive, but it just ain't so.

>> Each of the nation's 500 recognized tribes, no matter how tiny, legally exists as a sovereign nation. One such nation in California has a grand total of one adult member. <<

Presumably, 499 recognized tribes (actually, 560-plus tribes are recognized) have more than one adult member. This extreme case proves little or nothing.

And whose fault is it if one tribe has been reduced to one adult (and several children)? The tribe existed as an independent entity until US government agents decimated it. According to international law, you can't extinguish a group's rights by extinguishing its members.

>> For centuries, tribal sovereignty provided socially isolated and impoverished tribes with a measure of dignity to govern their own affairs. Away from the reservation, however, sovereignty just doesn't work in a modern society. <<

It works well enough for states to claim states' rights and thwart the will of the federal government. More important, sovereignty is usually based on a reservation or similar land base. Alm's notion of sovereignty "away from the reservation" is akin to fishing rights "away from the water."

>> For instance, sovereignty insulates tribes from the surrounding community's health, fire, safety and environmental protection codes for public buildings — such as casinos, resort hotels and hotel swimming pools. <<

No, sovereignty lets a tribe establish its own safety codes, which may be more or less stringent than the surrounding safety codes. If people don't like these safety codes, they can avoid a tribe's businesses.

>> You can't sue a sovereign tribe either, unless you want to take your chances in that tribe's own court system. <<

You generally can't sue any sovereign government, so that's no surprise.

>> Now a few tribes in Kansas want to export their sovereign casino rights from the reservation to Kansas City's lucrative urban marketplace, where their heavily taxed corporate casino cousins already operate. <<

I presume these tribes will have to take non-reservation land into trust to do this. It's a difficult goal that few tribes accomplish.

More of Alm in the Stereotype of the Month contest
Alm:  Kansas casino isn't legal because it's "self-regulated"

Related links
The facts about tribal sovereignty
The facts about Indian gaming
Greedy Indians

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