Gambling Foe’s Remark Irks Indians Committee Member Compares Gaming With Affirmative Action

Tribal leaders on the Governor’s Gaming Study Committee were upset that a fellow committee member suggested gambling could be considered “an affirmative action program” for Indian reservations.

Boise attorney Stanley Crow, an adamant gambling foe, on Tuesday proposed spending as much as $20,000 to cover the expenses of four to 12 experts to testify on the impact of legalized gambling on human behavior, as well as the economic, historical and moral considerations.

He said the committee has set an agenda to hear testimony from laymen, but expert testimony also is needed to meet Gov. Phil Batt’s request for an informed and thoughtful recommendation by Nov. 1.

“I believe we should carefully examine whether gambling is inherently a vice or whether it is a vice in some circumstances, or whether it is never a vice,” Crow wrote in a memo to the other 11 voting committee members who conducted a public hearing Tuesday night.

“If gambling is truly not a vice, then government has no business prohibiting it unless its practice or conduct leads to other results which adversely affect society,” he wrote. “Further, if gambling is not a vice, it should be available everywhere in Idaho and not just be an affirmative action program for tribal reservations.”

“If, however, it is a vice, it should be discouraged, controlled and, if possible, prohibited everywhere, regardless of the color of the skin of the player or the promoter.”

Crow also proposed that the committee compare the tribal communities to similar towns without Indians and without gaming operations other than the Idaho Lottery.

But Carla HighEagle, secretary of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said it was wrong to suggest tribal gaming is an affirmative action program based on race.

“I sincerely hope such antics will not become the norm,” HighEagle wrote in a memo responding to Crow’s proposals. “To allow unfounded reason and race to become the issue only serves to discredit this committee.”

Crow said he did not think he was making any racial comment, nor did he mean to offend anyone. He said he only intended to address the social and economic impacts of gambling.

But his explanation did not satisfy David Matheson, gaming manager for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

“To come here and say, ‘My intention was good and glorious,’ I can’t really appreciate,” he said.

The exchange came just five days after Lt. Gov. Butch Otter, the nonvoting chairman, applauded the fact that race never surfaced in any fashion during the three earlier meetings of the committee. In comments to the Idaho Press Club on June 26, Otter said he believed panel members were willing to divorce themselves from “their very personal gut feelings” on gambling to present to Batt “what the people are saying.”

Batt conceded when he set the committee up this spring that he did not expect unanimity since he intentionally split the membership evenly between those amenable to reservation gambling and those opposed to gambling anywhere.

But despite that split, none of the other committee members would even allow four of Crow’s five proposals to come to a vote. They did, however, split 7-5 to reject Crow’s proposal to spend up to $5,000 to pay for the expenses of at least one expert on the history of gaming to testify at the invitation of at least four committee members.

Rep. Bill Deal, a Nampa Republic who is not opposed to some gambling, said the committee could spend potentially $20,000 under Crow’s proposals, and that was not envisioned when Batt created the committee.