All of the hullabaloo promoting legalized gambling in Alabama is pure theater. It is designed to distract, entertain, even persuade, but little of it is the whole truth. Unfortunately that is the case with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (PCI) as well as the state Legislature.
PCI has a spiffy TV campaign currently airing to promote themselves as good neighbors willing to solve Alabama’s immediate budget crisis with a $250 million donation to the state’s General Fund. All the state has to do is sign a compact allowing them to continue their current activities.
Left unsaid is what prompted this sudden concern. Since the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case decision in Carcieri v. Salazar, PCI has been fighting for its gambling life. That ruling said only Indian tribes recognized by the federal government prior to 1934 could benefit from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s efforts to set aside state land for Indian reservation use.
PCI was not recognized until 1984 — 50 years later. The Carcieri decision voided actions taken by the Department of the Interior in Rhode Island. If that same principle is applied to Alabama, PCI could lose its whole gambling operation.
Filing suit
Citing the Carcieri decision, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange has filed suit in federal court seeking to make PCI comply with state bingo laws rather than run their casino-type machines. The Escambia County tax assessor is litigating with PCI to collect county taxes based on the decision.
Even the Muscogee Creek Indian Nation has sued the Poarch Band based on the Carcieri decision. The Muscogee Nation seeks protection of its historical capitol and burial site known as Hickory Ground, which they charge the Poarch Band has desecrated by building a casino on the Wetumpka property.
Hickory Ground Tribal Town was the last capitol of the National Council of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Muscogee Creeks lived there until forced to abandon their homeland in the Trail of Tears. In 1980 the property was placed on the national Register of Historic Places after being nominated by the Alabama Historical Commission (AHC).
Later, AHC received a $165,000 grant from the Interior Department to purchase the property and transfer ownership to PCI. Muscogee Creeks charge that PCI “entered a covenant with AHC to preserve Hickory Ground against development” and promised the “acquisition will prevent development of the property.”
Later, PCI violated its covenant, the lawsuit says, by digging up about 60 Indian graves and reburying them in order to construct a gambling facility on the Hickory Ground property. The construction was opposed by AHC, the governor of Alabama, the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and Creek Indians through the nation, the lawsuit says.
The only way PCI can protect itself from a potential economic disaster is to persuade the state of Alabama to sign a compact with them authorizing PCI to conduct gambling on its various locations.
The motivation behind the PCI offer may not be as altruistic as the TV commercials suggest. It may be pure economic greed. After all, reports indicate PCI clears more than $300 million annually from its gambling enterprises. That is a pretty good take for a group that numbers only 3,064 members, according to its own website.
At the Statehouse in Montgomery it seems the players are acting out a script that ends with gambling permeating every corner of Alabama. The bill proposed by Senate Majority Leader Del Marsh, of Anniston, would protect the three PCI gambling casinos, establish four additional casinos and turn the state of Alabama into a sideshow huckster trying to rip off state residents through a lottery scheme.
At best this proposal is a Band-Aid to protect legislators from having to make difficult decisions about responsible government spending and just tax policies. At worst it is a manipulative tool of the powerful to protect themselves at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.
The state budget crisis is not a surprise. In past years state leadership chose to cover shortfalls by borrowing from other sources. Of the more than $200 million shortfall projected for the coming year, $160 million is debt repayment.
Instead of acting responsibly to raise revenue to match necessary spending, the Legislature could not even agree on a proposed budget during their recent special session. Most of the talk was about borrowing more money — this time from the state’s Educational Trust Fund, which undergirds public schools.
Here the show’s plot gets tricky. Educational leaders object, knowing that if the Legislature robs Peter (the Educational Trust Fund) to pay Paul (the General Fund), proration will follow the next year because the state budget is not going to get better and the school reserves will be used up.
Educational leaders insist on a government promise to “backfill” or pay back the borrowed funds to avoid proration. Only at that point does the audience learn that “backfill” is a code word for gambling. With the state budget in shambles and all reserves spent, the Legislature can argue that gambling is the only solution to keep schools out of proration and keep government’s promise.
Since projected gambling revenue (which the Marsh study exaggerated as The Alabama Baptist reported in the May 21 issue) will not be enough to pay back the Educational Trust Fund and support necessary government spending, the play might end with the Legislature covering itself by raising taxes at the same time it legalizes gambling because “we had no other choice.”
Multiplying problems
The play promotes a strange value system where players are willing to multiply Alabama’s problems through dependence on gambling rather than acting responsibly and balancing income with expenses, even if it does include additional user fees.
But plays can have surprise endings. Few people expected the recent special session to end as it did. Hopefully the next act of this play (the second special session) will have a surprise ending where good overcomes evil and the players (the legislators) turn out to be heroes unwilling to throw Alabama to the gambling wolves.
Alabama deserves a future free of casinos and legalized gambling no matter who runs them.
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