Success of casinos ups ante on tribes' power in politics.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

EMERGING PLAYERS

Third of a four-part series on Indian casinos in Oregon

THE SERIES

Sunday: Oregon's Indian tribes use casino revenue to pull members out of poverty

Today: Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians grows its bingo hall into diverse business portfolio with side story, Cow Creek, county at odds over land intended for trust

Tuesday: Tribes' political influence keeps pace with casinos' revenues with side story, Casinos deal clout, controversy to lobbyists

Wednesday: Off-reservation casinos threaten to shake the stability among Oregon's tribes with side story, Kulongoski's pact sets precedent

What if the Coos Indians had lobbyists to talk the government out of marching them in 1856 to the sand spit where most would die from starvation and exposure?

Would the Grand Ronde Indians' property holdings have been whittled down from a 69,000-acre reservation to 2.5 acres and a tool shed by 1970 had they contributed to candidates' campaigns?

Could an advertising campaign in 1980 have pressured Congress into giving the Siletz Indians a fairer deal than the one requiring they give up treaty-guaranteed hunting and fishing rights to receive back a tiny fraction of their 1 million acres?

We'll never know. What is known is that Oregon's tribes were woefully lacking in the political armaments needed to hold their own with the state and federal governments when their treaties were negotiated and their land taken, their tribal status terminated and their reservations liquidated.

It's also clear that the prosperity of tribal casinos means that the tribes are equipped with more than the conviction of their causes when dealing with Congress, the Legislature, government agencies and the voters.

"For the first time in the history of the relationship between our two peoples and our governments, native Americans have the resources with which to tell their stories," said Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

With their casino-financed resources, Oregon's tribes have shaped the current governor's race, shielded their gaming operations from non-Indian competitors, opened doors to politicians' offices and paved the way for a string of congressional and legislative victories.

Newfound voice

Considering that the relationship Ferrioli spoke of began 200 years ago with the Lewis and Clark expedition, the era of financially fortified politics is a recent phenomenon for Oregon tribes - one that tracks with the emergence of casinos as big money makers.

In 1990, four years before the first tribal gaming center opened in Oregon, the only recorded campaign contribution from a tribe to a state candidate was a $500 donation. Four years later, when most Oregon tribes were still trying to get into the casino business, the state's only tribal contribution to a federal candidate was $200.

Fast-forward to 2004, when the Three Rivers Casino opened in Florence. By then, all nine of Oregon's federally recognized tribes were equipped to trade on the public's seemingly unquenchable thirst for gambling. Their casinos pulled in an estimated $420 million in total revenue. And with part of that money, Oregon's tribes gave a combined $590,000 to state and federal candidates.

This story of meteoric growth in political spending by casino-enriched tribes is the same across the country.

The nation's tribes, which in 1990 accounted for $1,750 in federal campaign donations, gave congressional and presidential candidates a combined $7.2 million in the 2004 elections.

The political ascendancy of tribes has been underscored by recent events. Nationally, Jack Abramoff became one of the nation's most powerful lobbyists in Washington, D.C., while representing a number of Indian tribes before pleading guilty to conspiring to bribe government officials.

And at the state level, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde this spring elevated its status as a top-tier force in campaigns by pouring $850,000 into a TV ad campaign meant to sway voters' choices in the gubernatorial primaries.

Emerging players

The Oregon tribe most recently to enter the world of casino gaming, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, has yet to join the ranks of Oregon's most prosperous - and politically active - tribes.

But Chairman Ron Brainard said his tribe is eager to catch up with other tribes in political engagement, as well as casino-fed profitability.

"In this world, money talks," he said, adding that those tribes that make bigger contributions to a wider array of politicians and campaigns "have a louder voice than we do."

"We might have started out late, and we might be starting out small, but we'll get there," said Brainard, whose tribes own the Three Rivers Casino. The Coos made their only federal campaign contributions, which totaled $3,800, in 2002. At the state level, the Coos have given only $250 since 1990, a contribution it made in 2000 to a single legislative candidate.

The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians stands at the opposite end of the spectrum in two ways. It was the first Oregon tribe to offer gambling, opening its Seven Feathers casino just off Interstate 5 in Canyonville in 1994. And it's by far Oregon's biggest tribal player in congressional politics.

In 2004, its $210,600 in contributions to federal candidates and political parties made it the 10th-biggest contributor nationally among Indian gaming interests, according to a ranking by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.

Sue Shaffer, the band's longtime tribal chairwoman, said the big dollars sent to candidates from across the nation aren't just about buying good will on behalf of her tribe's 1,289 enrolled members, their business enterprises and the casino.

"We have to think on a national basis," Shaffer said. "Who's going to be there on committees that deal with tribal rights and Indian affairs?"

The tribes' entry into the modern, monied world of politics has meant that for the first time, political leaders count them, along with industry associations, trade unions and social-cause organizations, as important allies.

Sen. Kate Brown, D-Portland, said when she first entered politics in 1991, she was one of the few legislators who bothered showing up regularly for meetings of the Legislative Commission on Indian Services; now, lawmakers are reluctant to appear as indifferent to Indian leaders' concerns.

"They enjoy a lot of political clout right now. Probably more than they've ever enjoyed," she said.

That influence extends beyond legislators.

Last winter, when John Kitzhaber was contemplating a campaign for his old job as governor, he paid a call on Grand Ronde lobbyist Justin Martin for advice.

This spring, when a representative of a Wall Street firm asked the Cow Creek Band's attorney, Shaffer, about the tribe's relationship with state government, she responded by putting in a call to Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury to see if he could help out.

Bradbury agreed to jump into a car for a four-hour round trip from Salem to Roseburg to vouch for the tribe at dinner that night with the Wall Street rep and Cow Creek leaders, helping clear the way for an upgrade in the tribe's bond rating and lower interest rates.

Spreading the cash

Oregon tribes' pattern of contributions to state and legislative candidates differs sharply from that of its giving to candidates for Congress and the presidency.

Like most tribes, Oregon's have primarily backed Democrats in federal races. From 1994 to 2004, Oregon's tribes gave a combined $585,000 to federal candidates, of which $541,000 went to Democrats, according to an analysis for The Register-Guard by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In state races, the strategy has been less about supporting one party over another and more about ensuring friendly relations with those in power. From 1994 to 2004, they divided contributions 60/40 between Democratic and Republican candidates for state offices. And the tribes have spread their political money around, contributing to 70 of the 74 current legislators whose names appeared on the 2004 ballot.

Ferrioli, who is in charge of Senate Republican campaigns, said Oregon tribes are more interested in ensuring themselves access to political leaders than in working for one party's success or another's defeat.

"The increments are fairly small and fairly well-distributed across a broad swath," he said. "I think that talks about wanting to have access, wanting to be serious participants in the process."

Hardball politics

One of the few areas where Indian tribes' political spending stands out is where the politics and policy decisions count the most: the governor's race.

The Legislature's authority on an array of fronts - health, welfare, tribes' standing in dealing with other governments and natural resources - are important to Oregon's tribes. And its power to write laws that regulate gambling are key.

But among elected officials, only the governor wields the clout to allow or prevent a tribe's opening of an off-reservation casino.

It's for this reason that Oregon tribes were Kulongoski's biggest contributors in the off-year election cycle two years ago, when he took in $50,000 from tribes - the biggest sector among those that in all gave Kulongoski $620,000, according to an analysis by The Institute on Money in State Politics, a Montana-based nonpartisan research group.

Two of the tribes that each contributed $10,000 to Kulongoski were the Warm Springs and the Grand Ronde, which are at conflict over the former's bid to open a new casino in the Columbia River Gorge town of Cascade Locks.

That conflict blew up into the most dominant issue in the May gubernatorial primaries.

The Grand Ronde, eager to stop the Warm Springs' casino, spent $425,000 on ads in each party's primaries, lashing at Democrat Kulongoski and Republican Kevin Mannix and urging voters to support their top rivals, Jim Hill and Ron Saxton. Kulongoski won renomination, although the ad campaign prompted him to spend nearly a quarter-million dollars for TV ads striking back against the Grand Ronde's message.

Saxton beat Mannix, who said the tribe's campaign spending was the No. 1 impediment to his nomination. The ads portrayed Mannix as anti-environment, pro-gambling and pro-tax increase - and they came out early and in such volume that Mannix said his campaign could not recover.

"It created three different negatives for me at a time when, early on, we just didn't have the money to buy TV time to fight back," he said. "That was the first negative hit that started to pull my (poll) figures down."

In the wake of his loss, Mannix said it was time for Congress to limit tribes' use of casino riches to influence the political debate the way the Grand Ronde tribe has.

That's not how tribal leaders see it. Martin, the Grand Ronde's lobbyist as well as a member of the tribe, said his people are simply using their resources to ensure that they have an opportunity to speak out - and be heard - in the political process. "I think it's pretty clear that we think this is a defining issue," he said, "and that Oregonians think this is a defining issue."

See side story, "Casinos deal clout, controversy to lobbyists" (page A5).