EchoHawk creates reservation for casino

Larry EchoHawk, the Utahn who is the assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs, just did something that no other Utahn ever had the opportunity to do: create a new Indian reservation.

He signed into existence a small 147-acre reservation near Grand Rapids, Mich., that will allow a tribe there to build a casino. That may show the tribes that had delayed EchoHawk's nomination for months earlier this year fearing that he would not support Indian gaming need not have worried.

"I am pleased to issue this proclamation and to exercise the authority delegated to me by the secretary of Interior to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottwatomi Indians," EchoHawk said in a statement Monday.

"The land is for the exclusive use of Indians on the reservation who are entitled to reside at the reservation by enrollment or tribal membership. These properties will provide opportunities for economic development, self-determination and self-sufficiency," EchoHawk said.

The tribe, also known as the Gun Lake Tribe, plans a $200 million casino for the site and has worked toward that for 10 years. It asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2001 to take the 147 acres into trust and proclaim it as the tribe's reservation, which EchoHawk finally did.

Federal law since 1988 has recognized the right of tribes to establish gambling and gaming facilities on their reservations as long as the state where they are located has some form of legalized gambling. (Utah has no tribal casinos because the state bans all forms of gambling.)

Some tribes had managed to delay EchoHawk's nomination this year when they expressed concern that he may not support Indian gaming because of some actions he took when he was attorney general of Idaho (before he became a law professor at Brigham Young University).

Idaho had passed a constitutional amendment to allow a lottery with a promise the state would not allow other gambling forms. But when federal officials said the amendment's loose wording should allow tribal casinos anyway, EchoHawk's office suggested a special legislative session to fix it.

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