\nFrom the Albuquerque Journal<\/p>\n
\tSANTA FE \u2013 A proposed new gambling agreement between the Navajo Nation and the state was met in the 2013 legislative session with complaints about the last-minute timing and a cascade of other questions and concerns.<\/p>\n
\tThe proposal will be back again in 2014, and it doesn\u2019t appear the welcome will be any warmer.<\/p>\n
\tBut the nation says it intends to stick with what it has negotiated, at least for now.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe love our compact,\u201d said Navajo Nation Council Delegate Lorenzo Bates.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOn our side of the street, this is how we want to do business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThe agreement negotiated between the tribe and Gov. Susana Martinez\u2019s office would be in force until 2037 and allow the tribe to have five casinos on the New Mexico side of the reservation, which has neighboring gambling tribes concerned about the competition.<\/p>\n
\tThe Navajos now have two casinos and a third facility with low-stakes gambling not regulated by the state.<\/p>\n
\tThe pact also contains several terms that other gambling tribes view as unfavorable and that they worry could become a precedent for their own, separate negotiations with the state.<\/p>\n
\tState-tribal compacts require legislative approval. The Navajo agreement was unveiled in the last days of the 2013 session, ran into trouble right off the bat, and was never voted on by the full Legislature.<\/p>\n
\tFor 2014, the plan is to start early \u2013 even before the session gets underway Jan. 21.<\/p>\n
\tRep. James Roger Madalena, D-Jemez Pueblo, who is expected to chair the Legislature\u2019s Committee on Compacts, says he wants the Navajo Nation to submit a compact \u2013 either the current proposal or an amended one \u2013 by Jan. 15.<\/p>\n
\tOn Jan. 20, the committee would meet to discuss it. If it were approved, it would be introduced in the full Legislature as soon as the 30-day session started.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s a short session, and the sooner the better, in my opinion. If we wait any longer \u2026 then we\u2019re competing with time,\u201d Madalena said.<\/p>\n
\tBy law, the Legislature can\u2019t rewrite anything in the compact; it can just vote yes or no. But the Committee on Compacts can ask that the Governor\u2019s Office and the tribe renegotiate provisions it finds problematic \u2013 and it\u2019s entirely possible such requests will be made.<\/p>\n
\tBates says that\u2019s the point at which the tribe could consider whether any changes would be acceptable. Until now, there have been only \u201cinformal discussions\u201d about possible alterations to the compact, Bates said, declining to be more specific.<\/p>\n
\tThe Navajos\u2019 current compact, and those of four other tribes \u2013 the pueblos of Acoma and Pojoaque, and the Mescalero Apaches and Jicarilla Apaches \u2013 expire on June 30, 2015.<\/p>\n
\tThe nine remaining tribes with casinos fall under compacts renegotiated in 2007 that run through 2037.<\/p>\n
\tThe Navajo Nation says allowing it five casinos is reasonable, considering that it has 100,000 enrolled members in New Mexico and a land base in the state of 6,500 square miles.<\/p>\n
\tBut neighboring tribes with casinos along Interstate 40 are worried that the Navajos would put a new casino in that area, perhaps reviving a plan for one at the Navajo chapter at To\u2019hajiilee, just over a mile west of Laguna Pueblo\u2019s Route 66 casino.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey\u2019re all targeting the same set of tires going down the road,\u201d said Sen. George Mu\u00f1oz, D-Gallup.<\/p>\n
\tMu\u00f1oz, who chaired the compacts committee during the 2013 session, expects \u201ca battle\u201d over the Navajo compact in the upcoming session.<\/p>\n
\tEchoing the concerns of some tribes, Mu\u00f1oz questions whether a provision in the compact that relates to a long-standing dispute between the tribes and the state over \u201cfree play\u201d amounts to illegal taxation of the tribe. He asked Attorney General Gary King for an opinion on the issue in March, but he hasn\u2019t yet received it.<\/p>\n
\tNew Mexico\u2019s Gaming Control Board contends that gambling tribes have underpaid the state by tens of millions of dollars because they deduct the jackpots won by customers who play for free \u2013 as part of casino promotions \u2013 from their \u201cnet win,\u201d the bottom line that determines how much revenue is shared with the state.<\/p>\n
\tThe Navajo compact says the tribe could deduct 65 percent of their \u201cfree play\u201d jackpots; 35 percent would be subject to revenue sharing.<\/p>\n
\tUnder the compact, the tribe\u2019s revenue sharing would increase from the current 8 percent of \u201cnet win\u201d to 9.75 percent through 2015, topping out at 10 percent through 2030 and 10.75 percent through 2037.<\/p>\n
\tSome tribes have objected to a provision of the compact that says the Navajos would stop making revenue sharing payments to the state if Internet gambling were authorized in New Mexico, unless the Navajos also conducted Internet gambling.<\/p>\n
\tTribes that don\u2019t like those and other provisions \u2013 or that want terms in their own compacts that aren\u2019t in the Navajo pact, such as allowing alcohol on the gambling floor \u2013 worry that the Navajo agreement will become a template as Martinez\u2019s office continues to negotiate with other tribes.<\/p>\n
\tA spokesman for Martinez says that\u2019s not the case. The governor\u2019s negotiators would not try to hold any other tribe to the same terms, Enrique Knell told the Journal .<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThose terms were negotiated directly with the Navajo Nation and they are based on the unique interests and characteristics of the nation,\u201d Knell said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\tBut even within the nation, there is some disagreement about the compact.<\/p>\n
\tRep. Sandra Jeff, D-Crownpoint, says she supports the provision for five casinos, but she doesn\u2019t like the free play arrangement and other revenue sharing aspects of the proposal \u2013 and neither do some of her constituents.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMy concern is, we\u2019re just giving away too much revenue to the state, when we have high unemployment within the Navajo Nation,\u201d Jeff said.<\/p>\n
\tSen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who was a member of the compacts committee during the 2013 session, says he senses even more disagreement among legislators now about the compact than there was when it was first introduced.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI think they\u2019re reflecting the feedback they\u2019re getting from their respective tribes,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\tMeanwhile, Martinez\u2019s office says it has had recent discussions with the other gambling tribes whose compacts expire in 2015 and the state \u201cremains committed\u201d to reaching agreements with them that also could be considered in the 2014 session.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf any of the tribes decide that they would rather wait and continue negotiations through the next year, we will accommodate those requests,\u201d Knell also said.<\/p>\n
\tPojoaque Pueblo sued the state last week, alleging that Martinez\u2019s office had not been negotiating in good faith and asking the federal court to appoint a mediator. Knell said the governor was disappointed, but that her office is still open to discussions with the pueblo.<\/p>\n
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From the Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE \u2013 A proposed new gambling agreement between the Navajo Nation and the state was met in the 2013 legislative session with complaints about the last-minute timing and a cascade of other questions and concerns….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}