A lesson for Dick Day on Indian sovereignty.

Minnesota Republican State Senator Dick Day recently published an editorial -- Minnesota's tribes have it both ways -- arguing that Indian tribes in Minnesota be subject to a state tax on revenue from their casinos. I'm not sure if this is specifically what he really cares about or if he is really just attacking the monopoly given to Indian tribes by Minnesota and trying to change public opinion by painting this as an undeserved favor so that people will feel less sympathetic towards the tribes' monopoly and will support creating a separate state casino.

His argument regarding tribes paying state tax on their revenue was basically that tribal businesses are like other businesses because the U.S. Supreme Court declared them Domestic Dependent Nations, and thus, like any other businesses in the state, tribal casinos ought to pay into the state pool that provides public services that businesses take advantage of to make their money, such as roads for transportation, pubic schools to educate their workforce, water services, electric services and the like. Trying to make this issue a racial one, he blames Democrats for giving the tribes "tax breaks" (or, not taxing them at all) because of their "white guilt" for what they did to Natives in the past.

It would actually be in the state's power to build a casino and break the tribal monopoly, but using the Domestic Dependent Nations argument makes no sense and serves only to divide public opinion and turn "white guilt" into "white resentment".

Some might even argue there's nothing wrong with paying someone back (by granting them a monopoly on casinos and therefore a source of economic support) because of your crimes against them. Fortunately, the legal relationship between the U.S. and Indian tribes dictates that Indians need not rely on this kind of "white guilt" to retain certain rights and aspects of their sovereignty. Those rights have already been established by the U.S. Constitution -- something even "white resentment" respects. As City Pages blogger Jeff Shaw explains, there's plenty more law backing up Indian's sovereign rights, specifically that of not being subject to Minnesota state taxes unwillingly, although as Dick Day shows, getting that law normalized in the American legal, political and economic consciousness is a constant battle. [Thanks, Melissa for the article.]

(via CityPages) [...] In exchange for all the land that now makes up the state of Minnesota, tribes bargained for certain guaranteed rights. The right to fish, the right to maintain a land base -- rights they'd had since time immemorial anyway. [...] tribes gave up all of the land that is now Minnesota, land of immeasurable value. Even supposing it were so simple as Day indicates, this is a sweetheart deal for non-Indians anyway. Then there's the sovereignty issue. If we had taken the law seriously since the treaties were signed, tribes would be considered fully sovereign nations, not "domestic dependent nations." The constitution itself prohibits treaties between any two parties with less than full sovereignty -- states can't make treaties, for example. Which means the tribes have to be fully sovereign, or else the treaties are void, and the U.S. has no title to the land Indian people gave up. (By the way, Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution declares treaties to be the "supreme law of the land," on a par with the constitution itself. Inviolable.) Some Indian scholars have noted -- correctly -- that tribes should be under no legal obligation to enter into these state-tribal gaming compacts at all. They're sovereign nations; France doesn't have to ask Minnesota for permission to build a casino, and neither should the Mille Lacs band. [...] So how did tribes get to be declared "domestic, dependent nations"? Political expedience. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, John Marshall used the phrase, declaring that tribes were "in a state of pupilage" and that "their relations to the US resemble that of a ward to his guardian." This was then, and remains, nonsense of the highest order. The U.S. had yet to encounter a single tribe west of the Mississippi, and yet all Indian nations were suddenly wards of a state they'd never encountered. Stunningly, Marshall's ruling was actually liberal for the times -- it was designed to undermine Andrew Jackson's murderous Cherokee removal policy. Still, it created unjustifiable law. [...] These wrongs -- land theft, denial of treaty rights, suppression of religion and culture, and yes, genocide -- should absolutely not be minimized. They should also not be characterized as "past," given that the wounds inflicted continue to affect Indian people today, and that the federal government continues to mismanage funds rightly owed to native people, costing them billions. But if you don't want to consider that history, fine. Consider it a strict legal relationship rooted in that most American of documents, the constitution itself. Both sides signed treaties. Minnesotans got land on which to settle; tribes got a trust relationship to preserve their sovereign rights in perpetuity. If you're happy with one half of the exchange, you have to accept the other half. Treaties are a solemn oath sworn between two fully sovereign nations. When a politician like Day seeks to undermine them, it is a sign that the politician either gravely misunderstands the law -- or cares nothing for honor and decency. Which is it, Dick?