Newspaper covered all of the breaks in long, hard-fought battle over Native gaming

Jul. 7—In his high school days, Derrick Lente worked as a dishwasher at the first Native casino in New Mexico.

Both have come a long way since then.

Housed under a big white tent off Interstate 25 just outside Albuquerque, Sandia Pueblo's inaugural casino paved the way for what has become a lucrative and transformative business operation for gaming tribes in the state.

Indian gaming, which took root in New Mexico three decades ago, represents a key moment for Native Americans in the 20th century, ushering a new era of power and influence for the state's once-reticent tribes.

At Sandia Pueblo, the tent is long gone, replaced by a hulking Las Vegas-style resort and casino with a golf course, spa, convention space, an outdoor amphitheater and pool and multiple restaurants, bars and lounges.

"My forefathers, my ancestors, those who were in charge in the tribal council at that time, they pioneered beyond their greatest expectations," said Lente, now an attorney and influential member of the state House of Representatives.

"If our ancestors could see what we have today, they would be wowed, and the fact that we continue to diversify our economics to a point where we can truly become self-sufficient and provide opportunities, education scholarships, health care and other benefits to our people is beautiful," he said.

The road to Indian gaming, though, wasn't pretty, according to reports in The New Mexican, which chronicled the long and sometimes dramatic battle over gambling in New Mexico.

"It was a contentious issue, obviously," said former state Rep. Debbie Rodella, a Rio Arriba County Democrat who is credited — or blamed, depending on who you talk to — with bringing gambling to New Mexico after she changed her vote on new gaming agreements in March 1997.

"She was the only one of 69 representatives to change her vote when the House reconsidered the dramatic tie vote that killed the gambling bill," The New Mexican reported at the time, noting Rodella "ran from the House chambers in tears" after the 35-34 vote.

Rodella downplayed her role, saying she believes Indian gaming would have happened anyway.

"Given that they were already engaged in gaming, I thought that they were probably going to sway that way since they were already allowing Class 1 and Class 2 [gaming]," she said, referring to gaming tribes have long engaged in their traditional activities and bingo, respectively.

"At the end of the day, had we not approved Class 3 gaming, [which includes slot machines, blackjack, craps and roulette], I think the feds would have probably swayed in that direction where they would have allowed it to occur without having input from the states," she said.

The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which became law in 1988, authorized tribes to operate casinos if casino gambling was legal somewhere in the state and if state-tribal gambling agreements were in place.

In the early 1990s, tribes negotiated gambling agreements with then-Gov. Bruce King. But King, a Democrat, refused to sign them.

"King refused to negotiate and so eventually several tribes opened up basically high stakes bingo halls and then got video gaming machines and ... started engaging in these forms of gaming on their own without compact," said Richard Hughes, a Santa Fe attorney who represented Santa Ana and Santa Clara pueblos in the early days of Indian gaming.

Enter Gary Johnson, a Republican businessman who ran against King and Green Party candidate Roberto Mondragón, a former lieutenant governor, in 1994.

Johnson, now a Libertarian, said in an interview he vowed to sign gaming compacts with the tribes if elected governor since gambling was allowed under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act if gaming was taking place.

"There were racetracks here in New Mexico," he said. "I mean, clearly gaming was taking place in the state."

Johnson said he also considered a "fairness" issue for tribes, which were "rich in heritage" but poor economically.

"Gaming was going on in New Mexico," he said. "I mean, c'mon, you had the big tent at Sandia, a big tent doing bingo. And then as I'm running for governor, they're running table games out of that. Of course, the King administration was against it, and they were doing everything they could to thwart it. The Indians are saying, 'Hey, we have a right to do this,' which I happen to agree with, and I pledged that if I was elected, I'd sign compacts as quickly as possible — and did."

Johnson, who won the governor's race, signed gambling agreements with 14 tribes within two months of taking office in 1995.

"It was a pretty good compact," Hughes said. "It did include revenue sharing. Johnson felt that was important."

Though the U.S. Secretary of the Interior approved the agreements, the Legislature passed a bill banning all forms of gambling, legislation Johnson vetoed.

In April of that year, two state lawmakers, Rep. Max Coll, D-Santa Fe, and Rep. George Buffett, R-Albuquerque, sued over the validity of the compacts Johnson signed. By July, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled the compacts invalid without the Legislature's approval.

"The landmark ruling was a clear victory for opponents of expanded reservation gambling and for legislators who said Johnson had unlawfully bypassed the Legislature in approving the compacts," the newspaper reported.

"I have been taken out of the equation," Johnson said at the time.

In an unrelated case, the state Supreme Court ruled in November 1995 that all electronic and casino-style gambling was illegal in New Mexico.

Then-U.S. Attorney John Kelly threatened to go to court to close the casinos if the tribes didn't cease their gambling operations voluntarily, prompting the tribes to sue Kelly in federal court.

The tribes' casinos remained open amid ongoing litigation.

"We entered into an agreement with the U.S. attorney called a 'standstill agreement' in which we agreed that we would maintain our operations at the level that we were engaged in right at that moment, and he would agree not to come in and shut us down unless things changed in the future," Hughes said. "The tribes were able to continue their operations without the United States trying to close them."

Resolution

But tension continued.

The fight reached a boiling point in Northern New Mexico in 1996 when Pojoaque Pueblo, under the governorship of the late Jacob Viarrial, threatened to install toll booths on U.S. 84/285.

"Viarrial said the proposed booths ... would bring in about $15 million a year — money needed to offset lost jobs and profits if Indian gambling is not legalized and the tribe's casino, Cities of Gold, is forced to shut down," The New Mexican reported.

The pueblo followed up the threat days later by slowing the early morning commute to hand out fliers urging the state to approve Indian gaming.

In March 1997, the issue was largely resolved when the Legislature approved a gambling bill Johnson signed into law the following month.

"I remember getting input from a lot of the constituents [in House District 41] and from a lot of tribal leaders throughout the state," said Rodella, whose change of heart got the bill across the finish line in the House.

Hughes said Rodella's original vote against the bill was seen as a "stab in the back" to Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh pueblos in her district.

"She'd always held herself out as being a great friend of the tribes and supporter of their goals," he said.

Hughes described the effort to pass the bill as a "very hard-fought battle."

"I think I spent every day [of that 60-day legislative session] over in the Legislature dealing with the most horrendous efforts to change and defeat that bill that you've ever seen," he said. "It was one of the most excruciating periods of my life."

New Mexico now has about two dozen tribal casinos.

Rodella said she recognized the benefits of Indian gaming, from providing jobs to generating revenue for state government.

"As far as tribal governments are concerned, it has improved the economic status of those tribal governments, for sure," she said.

Johnson echoed the sentiment, saying he often hears from New Mexicans about the role he played.

"It's tribal and pueblo members that you see out on the street that'll come up and say how life has changed so dramatically," he said.

Hughes said Indian gaming has elevated tribes' status in New Mexico.

"Gaming tribes are now seen as players," he said. "They have a seat at the table with other non-Indian entities and institutions that they never had before. They're involved in making decisions about what happens, what goes on in their communities — involvement they never really had before — and they're able to create economic activity that didn't exist."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.