1 st William “ Bill ” Houle , Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe in Minnesota ( staff led by Henry Buffalo ; over 25 tribes in NIGA by then )
2 nd Leonard Prescott , Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community ( gaming expansion beyond bingo after IGRA )
3 rd Charles Keechi , Delaware William “ Bill ” Houle Tribe of Western Oklahoma ( took Indian gaming fight more public with an appearance on the Larry King Show )
4 th Richard “ Rick ” Hill , Oneida Nation of Wisconsin
5 th Ernie Stevens , Jr ., Oneida Nation of Wisconsin
Rick Hill called NIGA ’ s executive directors “ war chiefs .” Hill poses with his chief , Jake Coin of Arizona ’ s Hopi Tribe .
NIGA ’ s Roots as a BIA Advisory Group
Frank Duscheneaux is considered by many to be the “ father of IGRA ,” ( along with IGRA ’ s “ mother ,” Virginia Boylan ). He believes it was Hazel Elbert who first recognized the need for a tribal advisory group to advise the Bureau of Indian Affairs ( BIA ) on Seminole bingo and other forms of gaming being offered across Indian Country . Elbert started in 1967 and worked her way up to acting commissioner at the BIA . According to Duscheneaux , in the late 1970s , Elbert “ put together a tribal advisory group , and the tribal representatives there took over a meeting in Oklahoma City .”
Rick Hill ’ s 2013 speech picked up the narrative from there . He recalled how the BIA “ called an emergency meeting to gather facts about high-stakes bingo after a lot of complaining by the states . Mark Powless was elected chairman of what was being called the National Indian Gaming Task Force . Shortly after that , Senator Daniel Inouye organized a meeting to tell the tribes that if we do not get organized , we are going to get rolled by the states . Powless went coast to coast , visiting tribes to get recommendations for the task force .”
Hearings were soon held by the Senate to assess the impact of highstakes bingo , which was estimated to be generating $ 100 million for tribal governments by then . According to Chairman Hill , “ Tribes got tired of being the ‘ think tank ’ for the BIA , so tribal leaders convened a national meeting to discuss the need for protective legislation , and to establish the National Indian Gaming Association .”
NIGA ’ s first meeting in 1985 was a humble event : the first NIGA board and a group of tribal leaders met in a single hotel room with two small beds , since there were not sufficient funds ( or participants ) for a conference room .
But tribal gaming was expanding rapidly , and NIGA soon had 50 member tribes and provided testimony to Congress about tribal regulatory authority and the purposes of tribal gaming . At that time , NIGA also established an alliance with the National Congress of American Indians ( NCAI ) committee on Indian gaming .
After the 1987 Cabazon decision clarified tribal regulatory authority , and the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act provided a remedy for Johnson Act restrictions on slot machines through the vehicle of a tribal-state compact , the state of Minnesota signed the first compacts that , according to Rick Hill , “ kept the focus on the economics of it — jobs .” Fittingly , the first two chairmen of NIGA were from tribes in Minnesota .
After Hill was elected NIGA ’ s third chairman in 1992 , NIGA hired its first full-time staff , starting with Tim Wapato as the first executive director , Gay Kingman as director of public relations and Chuck Robertson as policy analyst . There were no records , no office beyond a kitchen table , and NIGA was in debt with no budget .
As Hill described it , “ We had to build NIGA at the same time we maintained the fight . We set up the NCAI-NIGA Task Force , and created a board with 12 regions , two from each region . It was the perfect size , since we had exactly 12 chairs in the room . At that time , we decided that the mission of NIGA would be to promote tribal sovereignty and protect the principles of IGRA .”
Early Challenges
Once NIGA hired staff , Hill recalled , “ Tim Wapato had to travel to many of our member reservations to ask for contributions . Early donations came in from Shakopee , Mashantucket Pequot , Oneida , Morongo , Prairie Island , Sycuan , Fort McDowell and SoDak . I remember that SoDak ( an early equipment manufacturer , later bought by IGT ) gave NIGA a big check to keep the doors open , but there were no cellphones , so I had to wait in the hotel room to see if we were going to get the check or not . I was afraid to leave , in case the call came while I was out of the room .”
Of course , at the same time NIGA was building its operations to pro-
www . tribalgovernmentgaming . com 33