Small: ‘This issue has been settled, we shouldn’t be here discussing it’
Nathan Small, who said he was first elected to the business council for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes back in 1988, recalled all the years of questions, negotiations and litigation over tribal gaming. “Believe me, I’ve heard every question that was brought up here today,” he told the House State Affairs Committee. “We went to court and we won. We went to court again and we won. How many times do we have to go to court? It just seems to me that we’ve got a whole new group of people, the same kinds of questions that was asked and answered back then. What we’re doing here today … are we acting in bad faith or not? I don’t know. You need to quit worrying about what we’re doing and leave us alone, because we are truthful with everything that we have been doing for this compact between the state and the tribe.”
Small said, “You’ve seen the good, you’ve seen everything that we’ve been able to accomplish with the gaming revenue. It’s not going in my pocket, it’s not going in anyone’s pockets,” but is going to “the services we’ve been able to provide on the reservation.” He said, “This issue that we’re discussing here today has already been settled. We shouldn’t be here today talking about it.”
