GOP tries to limit tribal gifts

OLYMPIA – In Washington, it has long been illegal for the state’s elected insurance commissioner to accept campaign donations from the insurance companies he regulates.

That only makes sense, some lawmakers say. Someone sitting across the table from insurers, they say, shouldn’t be getting cash from them.

Now, as Washington’s governor signs a growing number of multimillion-dollar agreements with Indian tribes, some lawmakers say it’s time for a similar restriction on tribal donations to governors.

Republicans – repeatedly pointing to the insurance commissioner rule – floated that idea late Tuesday night in a heated debate in the House of Representatives.

“There is what appears to be – or could appear to be – a conflict of interest in these negotiations,” said Rep. David Buri, R-Colfax. Regardless of who happens to be governor, Buri said, that person has a tremendous amount of power negotiating agreements between the state and Washington’s 29 federally recognized tribes.

“Appearance is very important,” Buri said.

Democrats quashed the proposal, which was contained in two amendments to otherwise routine bills dealing with tribal gas tax agreements. Such a rule, several implied, would be patently discriminatory. Tribes and tribal members have just as much right to participate in elections as anyone else, they said.

“This, without a doubt, excludes one particular group from our democracy,” said Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle.

Several Democrats pointed to Washington’s campaign-finance laws, which require the public naming of every major contributor to a political candidate or political action committee. That public information – easily available to anyone with a computer – is intended to prevent the sort of quid pro quo deals that Republicans were alluding to.

“We have to report every single dime we get,” said House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam. “We have to report who gave it to us, and where they work.”

“It seems to me that we have open sunshine here,” said Rep. Geoff Simpson, D-Covington. “Where’s the secret? There is no secret.”

During her 2004 run for office, Gov. Chris Gregoire received $25,000 from tribes, including organizations representing the Tulalips, Puyallups, Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. She received another $3,800 from people who worked for a tribe, according to her campaign-finance reports. All told, the money was less than half of 1 percent of Gregoire’s $6.3 million campaign war chest.

Tribes or their employees have so far donated about $9,000 out of the $1.6 million the governor has stockpiled for a 2008 re-election run. The Tulalips and the Puyallups also gave $100,000 each last year to Citizens to Uphold the Constitution, a judicial-race political action committee that Gregoire championed.

The tribes have been increasingly active in state politics, with the narrow ouster of Republican U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton in 2000 seen by many tribes as a key success. But the vast majority of their state-level political contributions have been spent on ballot measures, rather than individual candidates. In 2004, they contributed about $4.8 million to various campaigns, with $3.5 million of that going to an effort to defeat a proposal to expand gambling in non-tribal casinos. Overall, tribes contributed about $608,000 to a variety of candidates, PACs and issues in 2006.

After years of wrangling over issues like cigarette taxation, gambling and gasoline sales on reservations, Washington and tribes have increasingly been working together in recent years.

Every gambling tribe in the state has signed a compact. More tribes are agreeing to stop selling untaxed cigarettes to non-Indians, instead now charging a tribal tax that’s the equivalent of what the state charges. And some tribal gas stations are now charging their customers a tribal gasoline tax that’s split – typically 75 percent for the tribe, 25 percent for the state – with state government.

With tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars now at stake, Republicans say, it’s time for closer scrutiny of the state’s sole representative in those negotiations: the governor.

“The stakes are higher now,” said Rep. Bob Sump, R-Republic.