Foes of the Port Huron Casino?

1.27.08

Casino foes are well-heeled

Saginaw Chippewa
The Saginaw Chippewa casino at Mount Pleasant is the largest and most profitable gaming facility in Michigan, and a casino in Port Huron would offer potential competition.

The tribe also accuses the Bay Mills Chippewa of "reservation shopping" on its ancestral lands. The Saginaw tribe's membership includes descendants of the Blackwater River band, which had a 1,287-acre reservation from 1807 to 1836 in what is now Port Huron. Bay Mills is based on the shores of Lake Superior.

The Saginaw tribe has spent liberally to block a Port Huron casino, including more than $14 million to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist who is serving a seven-year term in federal prison. One of his major assignments was fighting the Port Huron casino on Capitol Hill.

Other Indian Tribes
At least nine of Michigan's 12 federally recognized tribes are opposed to the Port Huron casino.

George Bennett, a member of the Grand Traverse band's tribal council, said the legitimacy of the Charlotte Beach land claims has never been upheld in court despite state and federal cases. In testimony at a 2004 congressional hearing, he also described the Engler-Bay Mills deal as an end run around the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

He also argued that the deal circumvents a 15-year-old compact that prohibits an off-reservation casino unless all 12 tribes sign off on it. "The Michigan tribes pledged not to engage in a form of economic warfare that would ultimately injure all of them," he testified. "They promised not to engage in an endless game of attempting to leapfrog over one another in moving closer to major population centers while cutting off revenues to their less aggressive brethren."

Ietan Consulting Group
Specializing in Indian law and lobbying, Ietan represents 30 tribes including the Saginaw Chippewa. Its co-founders are Wilson Pipestem, a Stanford Law graduate and member of the Otoe-Missouria tribe of Oklahoma, and Larry Rosenthal, a Flint native who worked for more than 11 years as an aide to U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint.

While on Kildee's staff, Rosenthal was an architect of the Congressional Native American Caucus, a bipartisan group that includes 99 of the House of Representatives's 435 members.

Ietan's lobbying team also includes Aurene Martin, a member of the Wisconsin Oneida tribe and formerly a high-ranking official with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She testified on the agency's behalf at congressional hearings on the Port Huron casino in 2002 and 2004. In both instances, she explained why the department could not support the project.

MGM Mirage
With annual revenues in excess of $7 billion, the Las Vegas-based corporation is Nevada's biggest employer and one of the world's most profitable gaming companies. Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian and his Tracinda Corp. are the majority owners.

The corporation has invested more than $800 million in MGM Grand Detroit, the most profitable of Detroit's three casinos. MGM views Port Huron as potential competition and spent $180,000 last year to lobby against it. Its lobbyists include Kai Anderson, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The Verifiable Truth
The Verifiable Truth, a 14-month-old Web site, is relentless in its criticism of casino developers Mike Malik and Marian Ilitch.

Aides to Malik said they suspect the site is the work of lobbying firms and wealthy Indian tribes that wish to block potential competition from poorer tribes. They suggested the site is too professionally done and is privy to too much insider information to be the work of an unpaid grassroots group.

In an e-mail, Web site spokesman Frank Lee wrote: "There are no lobbying firms associated with TVT. TVT has not received funding from any tribe. The Ilitch/Malik machine will say anything in order to create a boogeyman to blame for its own circumstances."

Lee also described The Verifiable Truth as "a collection of citizen volunteers from around the country who have seen the Ilitch/Malik machine at work and who wish to ensure that the public has all the information that the Ilitch/Malik machine fails to disclose, share or effectively supresses."

It's difficult to ascertain the truth. Frank Lee apparently is an pseudonym, and the people who run the site have not revealed their real names or affiliations.

City of Detroit
For the past five years, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been an implacable opponent of the Port Huron proposal. In a November letter to the House Natural Resources Committee, he noted casino gambling has generated about 9,000 jobs in Detroit.

"These jobs meet the original goal that the people of the State of Michigan endorsed when the casinos were approved (in 1994) - economic self-sufficiency for Detroit," he wrote. "Any expansion of off-reservation gaming will not only compromise the economic strides that we've made, but will also contradict the will and intent of Michigan voters."

Kilpatrick reportedly has been promised the opening spot during testimony Feb. 6 when the committee expects to vote on a bill that would pave the way for a Port Huron casino to open as early as 2009. Kilpatrick is facing a perjury investigation, and it's unknown if his growing troubles will affect his plans to testify before Congress.

Congressional Opposition
In the past six years, several Port Huron casino bills have appeared in the House while only one has been introduced in the Senate. The latter was blocked in 2002 by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., now the Senate majority leader and arguably the most powerful individual on Capitol Hill. Nevada's three House members also oppose Port Huron.

Detroit's two representatives, John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, are fierce opponents. Kilpatrick is the mayor's mother and chairwoman of the influential Congressional Black Caucus. In November, she succeeded in delaying a scheduled vote on the Port Huron project.

Other opponents include former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, an Abramoff friend who single-handedly spiked a Port Huron bill in 2005, and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, who questions the morality of casino gambling. Michigan's congressional delegation includes 15 House members - nine Republicans and six Democrats. Most either oppose the Port Huron casino or are lukewarm to it.

A key player is Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint, who has taken a neutral position on the latest Port Huron bill. Kildee is co-chairman of the Congressional Native American Caucus and a long-time ally of the Saginaw Chippewa. His neutrality is a switch from his past opposition.

- Compiled by Mike Connell