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On the day that I am writing this, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation, commonly referred to as the “Carcieri Fix” bill that would correct a critical decision the U.S. Supreme Court made in 2009. While the legislative process for this bill is not nearly complete—it must be passed by the Senate and signed into law by the President—passage on the House floor was a significant and important achievement. Looking back on the last decade of working with Tunica-Biloxi tribal leaders to move this legislation has me reflecting on the importance of the bill, the broken state of our politics, and the need for all of us, regardless of political affiliation, to remember that our lives are all intertwined and we need to find a way to move forward in support of one another.
The policy questions debated in Washington often seem so distant from our everyday lives. Esoteric issues like the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review or DHS Acquisition Documentation Integrity (two other issues on the House floor this week) are difficult for most Americans to understand the potential impact on their daily lives. For most of our fellow citizens the Carcieri Fix bill seems not only esoteric and distant from their lives, but because it is used as a tool in fights between tribes and non-tribal interests (and in some cases between tribal governments), when people do know something about the issue, they often approach it from a narrow perspective and with their own set of “facts.” In truth, the passage of the Carcieri Fix bill is important to both tribal communities and their non-tribal neighbors. It is even important to tribes who are fighting against it for short-sighted reasons. Essentially, the poor Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v. Salazar placed all tribal reservation land in legal jeopardy and poured cold water on economic development projects on reservations across the country. As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce put it in a letter to congressional leaders, failure to pass the bill will “[deny] Indian Country and surrounding communities the benefits of economic development projects whose viability depends on trust land as a necessary element.” Fixing the Carcieri decision is ultimately good for everyone.
Unfortunately, like so much of our public discourse these days, House floor debate on this bill was driven largely by narrow parochial interests. Opponents of the bill argued that it will expand gaming and increase competition with existing tribal and non-tribal gaming operations. Many also seemed motivated by an underlying and unstated concern that success for tribal communities comes at a cost to non-tribal neighbors. In fact, however, we have seen exactly the opposite. Twenty years of tribal gaming across the country has proven that tribal economic development (gaming or otherwise) is a huge economic boost to the surrounding non-tribal community.
In almost every area of our public discourse, we should all follow the leadership shown this week by the House of Representatives who worked in a bipartisan way to pass the Carcieri Fix bill by an overwhelming majority vote. We must look beyond our narrow, short-term self-interest and recognize when we need to find agreement on issues and work with people who are different from us to achieve common objectives.
Eric Tober is a Principal & Director at Cornerstone Government Affairs in Washington, D.C. He holds a B.A. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an MBA from Georgetown University.
