Message to Tribal Leaders
IGA/NCAI Reactivate Task Force to Protect Tribal Sovereignty
By Ernest L. Stevens, Jr., Chairman
From the Indian Gaming Magazine June 2023 Issue
Country. We see the growing environmental destruction of our lands, natural resources, and sacred places from climate change. Native women and men continue to suffer from the scourge of murdered and missing relatives throughout Indian Country. Suicide is the second leading cause of death – 2.5 times the national rate – for Native youth between the ages of 15 to 24. Native youth continue to be overrepresented in the foster care system at more than 2.4 times the general population. The most ominous threats facing tribal governments come from a United States Supreme Court that is increasingly willing to ignore the U.S. Constitution, federal law, policy, and its own legal precedent. The Court is actively weighing the constitutionality of whether federal laws designed to uphold the government’s legal obligations to Indian tribes are unconstitutionally based on “race” and not the political or governmental status of Native Nations. In June of 2022, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, which overturned two centuries of federal Indian law, granting state courts jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians in Indian Country. The decision is a unilateral grant of power from the judicial branch
On May 10th the Indian Gaming Association hosted a joint press conference with the National Congress of American Indians to announce the reactivation of the IGA-NCAI Task Force at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The primary mission of the Task Force remains the protection of tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Tribal Governments to conduct gaming to generate revenue to support their communities. The need to reinvigorate and refocus the Task Force comes in the face of unprecedented U.S. Supreme Court attacks on tribal sovereignty. At the request of Tribal Leaders nationwide, I joined NCAI President Fawn Sharp to unite the two largest Tribal advocacy organizations to start a national dialogue and to develop strategy to confront these challenges and identify opportunities for tribal governments to assert their inherent sovereign rights over Indian lands. The Task Force will hold its first official meeting at the NCAI Mid-Year Convention on the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community homelands on June 4 – 8, 2023. It’s difficult to recall a more challenging time for Indian
2 | INDIAN GAMING UPDATE - 2023 FIRST HALF EDITION
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