You recently editorialized about an earlier piece written by Frank Parlato concerning the inequality between Indian-owned and operated businesses and those non-Indian businesses trying to compete.
In your editorial, you posed questions about how this unfair advantage enjoyed by Indian tribal businesses could be remedied. The solution to this problem was directly addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1998 case titled “Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma vs. Manufacturing Technologies Inc. (523 U.S. 721).
In that case, a unanimous nine-judge court concluded that the court-created doctrine of legal and tax immunity for Indian tribes was created in a 1921 case for entirely different purposes and to protect small, dependent and nascent Indian tribes.
The justices reasoned that in this day and age, when Indian tribes and tribal governments own and operate huge business empires and huge and varied multi-million dollar corporate holdings, that application of this immunity doctrine in such cases, was clearly an improper anachronism.
In the end, however, six of the nine justices of the court opined that the problem these court cases created by allowing Indian tribal immunity to e extended to these business enterprises, should be fixed by Congress.
Justice Stevens, writing for the three judge minority, put it succinctly saying: “Why should an Indian tribe have greater immunity than the United States, all the several states and every foreign sovereign nation?”
The court did not stop at that point, however, and they suggested a simple solution to Congress in order to eliminate this unfair business largesse’. They suggested that Congress amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act to include Indian tribes and their business enterprises. That federal law provides that any foreign sovereign nation like France, England, Japan or Costa Rica, who did business in this country, with this country or with any citizen of this country, is obligated to obey all federal, state and local laws, pay all the same taxes and is amenable to be sued in all the courts of the land for their misdeeds just like every other domestic busines.
That case was decided 10 years ago, and Congress has done nothing.
There are two primary reasons for this. First, it has been politically incorrect to curb any activities of Indian tribes, even when their true identity is suspect or they are nothing but a front for other non-Indian busines empires.
The second reason is that the vast sums of money available through gambling casinos and resulting from legal and tax-immunized businesses, allow cotributions to be made to Congressmen and senators, lobbyists and their ilk, invitably has prevented any ovement in Congress to fix this incredibly unfair advantage.
It cannot be overlooked in this contet that the landmark McCain/Feingold federal campaign reform, reporting and Contribution Limitation Act conspicuously omits any limitation on Indian tribal contributins to politicians, thus ensuring that nothing is likey to be done to limit tribal business exploitation of this outdated sovereign immunity doctrine to the detriment of other non-Indian businesses.
James E. Marino is an attorney in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Columns
October 1, 2008
GUEST VIEW: Congress is key to business equality in Falls
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BRADBERRY: Peaceful place to learn, to think
More famous as the birthplace of "I Love Lucy's" Lucille Ball, and NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, Jamestown, New York is a well preserved vestige of rural Americana.
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DELUCA: Poetry, in motion
Bob Baxter sent me his new book of poems the other day and I promised to read them. But, when I tried to open the book, I couldn't. I've always been prejudiced against poetry.
He knew of my dislike, but as a retired creative writing professor, had hoped the poems from “Niagara Lost and Found” might soften me toward one of his favorite art forms.
Sadly, my disdain was set in place long ago, in reaction to teachers who could not help me understand.
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CONFER: When will the college bubble burst?
The bursting of the housing bubble was the unquestioned cause of the Great Recession. After years of unprecedented growth in the housing market that saw home ownership and home values rise dramatically, the collective bad decisions of homebuyers, banks, and government finally caught up to the economy at large.
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CITY DESK: Buffalo bears, oh my!
It's bad enough those "secretive" Buffalo interests are always trying to co-op our city and our good name with all their grant money and what not.
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HIGGS: Still in high school
Local Architect Clinton Brown recently described the style of the 168,000-square-foot building housing the Niagara Falls High School at the corner of Portage Road and Pine Avenue as "a three-story structure with concrete and steel structure, cut stone and masonry façade and classical inspired details. These include the hierarchical and symmetrical main and secondary facades, a central porch with six two-story engaged columns and the balustrade main staircase to the front doors and upper porch. The original four-over-four hung windows have been replaced with shorter aluminum sliding windows with
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GLYNN: 'Bums Park' short walk from falls
Shame on those for allowing a couple of properties within walking distance of the nation's oldest state park to deteriorate to skid row status. There's plenty of blame to share.
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![NIA Smith, Doug and Polly [Duplicate]](http://d6673sr63mbv7.cloudfront.net/archive/x1169353368/g030000000000000000cff9117901dfa5bfe8c774fdd7453042a741f1ae.jpg "NIA Smith, Doug and Polly [Duplicate]")
LETTERS FROM THE ISLAND: The 'write' way to do things
In memory of the late grammarian and linguist J.J. Kilpatrick, Doug presents his quarterly roundup of sentence-structure demolition, as effected by people who oughta' know better. English finals soon? Pay attention:
- GUEST VIEW: Breaking down the Lew-Port budget vote Einstein once said he did not understand our tax system; well, I fear, most of us do not either. I want to share a few facts about your school district and taxes.
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HAMILTON: Falls 'dumbs down' school board petitions
I guess that, after 20 or more years, if you cannot teach your own favorite board members how to do something as simple as getting 100 of their own friends and neighbors to properly sign their petitions, then the next best thing to do is to dumb down those petitions.
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TOM'S CORNER: A little bit of automotive alchemy
The Gazette has partnered with local automotive expert Tom Torbjornsen to publish his weekly national column. Tom's Corner will appear in Thursday's editions.
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