New York Sun Editorial
February 21, 2007

"The investigation is opening a window on the murky world of Indian gambling, Washington lobbying, money washing, and campaign finance. It also is a cautionary tale for New York, which has four Indian-run casinos and is considering adding at least four more." — Jack Newfield, "U.S. Investigating GOP Lobbyists With Ties To Indian-Run Casinos," page one, The New York Sun, September 8, 2004.

Newfield died just months after his dispatch warning of the Indian gambling and influence-peddling scandal that led to the felony guilty pleas of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the resignation of Tom DeLay and that helped cost the Republicans control of Congress. So one can only imagine what he would have thought to see Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat Newfield admired as attorney general, suddenly, as governor, throw that "cautionary tale" to the wind and move forward with plans for a casino in the Catskills to be run by the St. Regis Mohawk Indian nation. That tribe, while accused of no wrongdoing, has been up to its eyeballs in the political giving that seems to go with government-authorized gambling.

We have no problem with Indians, or anyone else, participating in the political process through campaign contributions. It is a First Amendment right. But if the idea is that allowing Indians to operate casinos is a kind of reparations for the treatment they have suffered, it seems illogical to make them pay for the privilege. Yet paying is exactly what they have been doing. New York's St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council gave $25,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in June of 2005, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The tribe has also been pouring money into New York State politics, with no clear ideological pattern. The tribe made a $500 campaign contribution to the Democrat who is now lieutenant governor, David Paterson, and $2,500 to the successful Assembly campaign of a Democrat who was an aide to Senator Clinton, Andrew Brockway. It put $3,900 into the successful campaign of another Assembly Democrat, Darrel Aubertine, whose government Web site features a press release hailing Governor Spitzer's "ethics reform package." The tribe has also contributed $4,000 in the past four years to the re-election campaigns of Senator Bruno and has given a total of $17,950 to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee, according to state campaign finance records.

Mr. Spitzer may claim that all this makes the case for public financing of campaigns. Or he may say that the fact he is awarding a potentially lucrative gambling opportunity to a tribe that has been backing Mr. Bruno is evidence of the governor's integrity, as he isn't denying his political foes state contracts. Yet New Yorkers will see that a governor trying to cultivate a reputation as a reformer has several better options here than striking a treaty with the Mohawks. One would have been to open casino opportunities statewide to any business wanting to open one, thereby eliminating the need for would-be casino operators to try to purchase the favor of politicians. Another would have been not to open any new casinos, thus avoiding what Newfield so aptly and presciently described as a murky world.

http://www.nysun.com/article/49012