Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
It’s time to bust the longstanding myth of tribal exclusivity.
After a series of closed-door meetings, it’s clear that Gov. Tim Walz plans to provide Minnesota’s 11 tribal nations with an effective monopoly over every other Minnesotan in the state’s cannabis market. Such a move would threaten hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in this new industry.
Sadly, this latest development comes as no surprise. Walz and liberal legislators continue to try to give Minnesota tribes an exclusive giveaway on the largest gaming expansion in state history, with a sports betting bill that overwhelmingly benefits tribal casinos. Sen. Matt Klein’s SF 757, which gives Minnesota’s tribal nations exclusive licensing rights to lucrative sports betting licenses, recently failed to advance out of the Senate State and Local Government Committee on a 6-6 vote. But Klein says he remains committed to passing legislation that provides sports betting licenses exclusively to the tribes.
The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) governs all gaming on Indian lands. Indian tribes and certain liberal legislators assert that they have an exclusive right to conduct a gaming activity on their lands because a gaming compact between the tribe and the surrounding state purports to authorize that activity for the tribe, while state law prohibits everyone else from conducting the same activity.
For example, Minnesota criminal law prohibits all persons from possessing, using and permitting a place to be used for operating video games of chance, such as video slots and video keno, yet tribes in Minnesota claim the exclusive right to operate video games of chance at their casinos because compacts they have entered into with the state of Minnesota allow them to do so.
That view is incorrect. The IGRA does not give Indian tribes the exclusive right to conduct any gaming on their lands or permit states to give tribes such a right, through a compact or otherwise. Instead, the IGRA says that a tribe may conduct a particular gaming activity only if the state generally allows its non-tribal residents to conduct the same gaming activity. If a tribe conducts a gaming activity that is broadly prohibited by the state, the tribe can be prosecuted for violating that state’s criminal law.
