Politics

John McCain To Obama Indian Affairs Official: That’s A ‘Smart Ass’ Answer

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain accused Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn of supplying a “smart ass” answer to McCain’s questions in Wednesday’s Senate Committee on Indian Affairs legislative hearing on casinos.

Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake have put forth a new bill to ban Indian casinos except if they’re actually next to Indian reservations.

Kevin Washburn, an Obama pick and former law school dean who notes in the first line of his Indian Affairs staff bio that he is “an enrolled member of the Chickasaw nation,” appeared before McCain’s committee to defend the proud Tohono O’odham people, who are trying to build a casino in Glendale’s Westgate Entertainment District.

“I’m pleased with that kind of money,” said Glendale city councilman Gary Sherwood after the Tohono O’odham offered $26 million over 20 years to the city. “I’m pleased because there’s developers we already started talking to that had no intentions of doing anything there without that casino.”

Washburn has been a well-known advocate for Indian gaming during his time in the Obama administration. “In fact, gaming revenues have been pretty flat since 2007,” Washburn recently said. “The days of tremendous growth are probably behind us for Indian gaming” so tribes “are going to have to learn to live with existing amounts of revenue.”

“We’ve broken a lot of treaties, and we’ve broken a lot of promises to Indian people in the past,” Washburn railed in his remarks before Sen. McCain at the hearing. “The only way the federal government can keep its promise to the Tohono O’odham is for your committee to reject this bill.”

“Well, Mr. Washburn. You talk about impoverished tribes,” McCain said. “Would Tohono O’odham fit into that category since they already have three casinos?”

“Yes, senator, despite all of that-” Washburn began to reply.

“So in other words you just falsely gave the committee the impression as if the Tohono O’Odham was an impoverished tribe without Indian gaming. They have three casinos, right? Is that true?”

“I didn’t mean to give the impression that they are not a gaming tribe. Indeed they are. But I will tell you that their gaming is in Tucson. Phoenix is a much larger market than Tucson,” Washburn said.

McCain tried to ask Washburn about whether the proposed casino — in the middle of Glendale — is really next to an Indian reservation like his bill requires.

“Senator, it was your bill. You wrote the language. We’re just applying it,” Washburn said.

“You know something, Mr. Washburn? That’s [a] pretty smart ass answer and the fact is I’m telling you what the intent was, OK? Now, we wrote the bill, and we wrote it so that there would not be exactly what has happened now and if you want to interpret it that way, fine. You can interpret it how you want to. I interpret it as not ever intending to have a gaming operation in the middle of an incorporated area without the permission of the people, not only in Glendale, because as you said this is a large metropolitan area, but the people of the metropolitan area. They should have a say in this. You’re not giving them a say in this.”

Washburn later said that Phoenix is a “fast-growing area” and McCain shot back, “That has nothing to do with the law.”

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Patrick Howley