CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday. February 12. 1993
3
Tribal gaming hidden among casino issues
Kansan staff writer
By Ben Grove
As the Kansas Senate yesterday voted down a resolution that would have paved the way for a colossal $300 million casino and entertainment complex in Kansas City, Kan., American Indians continued to wonder when legislators would get to them.
American-Indian casino gambling advocates in Kansas are in their second year of a legislative struggle to make casino gaming compacts legal between the state and the four tribes in Kansas.
Those advocates say their interests have been slighted by legislators who have focused this session instead on other gambling legislation.
"They view it as a form of discrimination that the Legislature didn't deal with it last year when they had a full session, and now a number of proposals are in to hurt the prospect of Indian gaming," said Lance Burr, a Lawrence attorney who represents the Kickapoo nation.
Burr and American Indians have said that a casino and entertainment complex such as the one proposed for Kansas City, Kan., would have hurt reservation casino businesses if both were permitted by law.
"It's really popular for legislators to say, We're not against Indians, we are just against the issue," Burr said. "Well, why would they be willing to support other projects when there aren't Indians involved?"
Despite the resolution's defeat, the
Senate yesterday reconsidered its motion and restored the resolution to its debate calendar to be considered again later.
Lori Learned, co-president of the Native American Student Association, said American-Indian reservations in Kansas needed the revenues from the casinos, which would generate funds for health care and education improvements.
"It would start a little boom, hopefully," she said.
Last week, members of the the House hurriedly passed a bill on to the Senate in an effort to show the Kansas
Supreme Court that it was serious about addressing reservation casinos.
Recently, American Indians called upon the court to decide whether the Legislature was dealing with the tribes in bad faith.
The court could decide as soon as today to take steps to remove all regulatory control from the state's hands
- control it possesses despite the fact that the four tribes in Kansas are sovereign nations.
The bill moved through the House so fast it did not define an age limit for gamblers and the word 'casino' was
removed, something House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, said defeated the purpose of the bill.
Donald Stull, professor of anthropology, who sometimes teaches a Native American Affairs class, said he no longer thought the Legislature's foot-dragging was a political power struggle.
"The fact that the state was able to hold off the compact for as long as they did was very detrimental," he said. "People are scurrying around the Legislature to enact something. I think that the issue of discrimination cannot be dismissed."
Administrator opposes bill on Legal Services
By Brett Riggs
Kansan staff writer
Student Senate saw it as a symbolic move to strengthen student advocacy. The administration looked at it as a severing of communication.
Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that pushed for the removal of the administration's representative from the Legal Services for Students advisory board.
Legal Services, financed by Senate, employs three full-time professional attorneys who provide free legal counseling for KU students.
Under the proposal, the board would be made up of four undergraduate students, one law student, one graduate student and one member of the Soyota university office committee.
tion, which the administration currently does not allow
Kaiser said the administration based its stance on the fact that the service's attorneys were employees of the state, like members of the faculty and administration.
"I think students need advocates, but I think it would be a conflict of interest," Kaiser said.
John_Allevogt, graduate senator,
said Senate also wanted to remove
s Day. The shop had about 100ansas City and from as far away
Renee Knoeber / KANSAN
or city vote
man said he thought the decision g overdue.
d election, then we would have about oople voting in a place that can barely 1,000. Another factor was that, as of there were 1,165 people registered in cinct."
k it was unfair of them to make sit to another district to vote," he said. more students will vote now that the use is open to them."
nts who do not live in the precinct, d on the north by 15th Street, on the y 19th Street, on the west by Iowa and on the east by Naismith Drive, te in their regular precincts.
nts must register by Feb. 16 in Doug
to be eligible to vote in the prima-
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