My mail these days, with Thanksgiving just behind us and Christmas and New Years just ahead, contains more than a few solicitations from a group of citizens who should not be in need of a handout.

They are poor Indians. I’ve had a half dozen letters with pictures of dirty-faced youngsters in ragged clothing who will be cold and hungry this winter unless I send $100, $75, $50, $25 or whatever I can afford. There shouldn’t be one hungry Indian child anywhere in America what with hundreds of gambling casinos running day and night.

I am aware that the Indian tribes are not inclined to be their brother’s keeper. I learned that from Slade Gorton when he was a U. S. Senator chairing the committee that decided how much each tribe got in federal handouts. Some of them, through deals with previous chairs and committee members, get large entitlements even though they have thriving casinos, and/or other revenue producers, while many have no other source of funds at all, and exist only on what we dole out.

Gorton tried to remedy this inequity without additional cost by shifting federal appropriations from the richer tribes to the poorer ones and ran into a stone wall. The richer ones refused to give up a penny, and the poorer ones were cowed into silence. They wouldn’t complain or push it.

Where does tribal revenue go? Well, a lot of it goes into campaign contributions to help defeat pols like Gorton. A nationwide call went out to tribes for contributions to get Gorton in 2000 and they got him with Maria Cantwell, who was the top recipient in the Senate of Indian funds that year at $92,700. In 2002, when she wasn’t even on the ballot, tribes gave her $130,700.

Among the top 20 recipients in the House of Indian gambling money last year: Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, $35,100; Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, $23,750, and Rep. George Nethercutt Jr., R-Spokane, $22, 250, figures are courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Tribes are not limited on how much they can give nor do they have to tell to whom it went. In fact, says Howard Hanson of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance in the CERA News, it is illegal to use casino money for campaigns. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 lists only five legitimate uses for gaming revenues: to fund tribal government operations or programs, provide for welfare of the tribe and its members, promote tribal economic development, donate to charitable organizations or help fund operations of local government agencies.

“What they’re doing is illegal,” said Hanson. “But to date, there has been no legal challenge, probably for a variety of reasons. Money in that quantity is like mother’s milk to politicians, and very few would voluntarily wean themselves from it, nor would they seek to deprive their fellow legislators of this revenue source.

“Those groups who might take issue with the practice are, by and large, not well organized or well funded, and lawyers to bring a test case would cost money. Finally, the case for the source of the funds may be difficult to make, since it’s not always easy to track the fund when tribal entities donate under various names. The least we should expect is to be able to tell where money is coming from so we have some idea who is trying to support and influence our legislators.”

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, says it’s time “to end the fiction of tribal sovereignty. If the tribes are sovereign nations, why are they allowed to interfere in American elections by contributing huge amounts of money? When another sovereign nation, like China, pours money into American politics, as it did in 2000, it’s a national scandal and cause for an FBI investigation.

“Sovereignty has not only allowed tribes to make an end run around laws against gambling, but has perpetuated arbitrary Third World-style government on reservations that makes it impossible for businesses to operate there. End tribal sovereignty and perhaps Indians can begin to find less sketchy ways to make money than slot machines and then our image of Indians can once again be something more noble.”

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA., 98340.).