Jurisdictional Arbitrage, Native American Style

From Let a Thousand Nations Bloom:

Jurisdictional Arbitrage, Native American Stylefrom Let A Thousand Nations Bloom by Mike GibsonFrom Reuters:




New York’s Oneida Indian Nation moved a cigarette-manufacturing plant to their upstate reservation to shield smokers from steep taxes that Governor David Paterson has vowed to impose.



“By moving the plant to the Oneida homelands, the Nation is availing itself of a long-settled law that recognizes the right of Indian tribes to sell products they manufacture on their own reservations without interference from state tax laws,” tribe officials said in a statement.



New York for more than a decade has tried but failed to force Native Americans to collect cigarette and fuel taxes from their reservation stores. The tribes, who say they do not have to charge the levies because they enjoy sovereign immunity, face another test on September 1, when the state will begin requiring cigarette wholesalers to prepay the taxes before supplying reservation stores.



Michael Strong wrote about leveraging Native American sovereignty into a robust market in governance as part of our Independence Week blogging

Mayor Bloomberg Makes Racist Remarks About The Seneca Tribe

From The American Thinker:

August 21, 2010


Mayor Bloomberg's racist remarks about the Seneca tribe

Jack Kemp



Fox News reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the same person who was browbeating fellow New Yorkers about their "intolerant" opposition to a mosque near Ground Zero, has insulted the Seneca Nation tribes while complaining about not being fully taxed on sales of cigarettes. On a radio broadcast, the Mayor urged that New York Governor Patterson should grab "a cowboy hat and a shotgun" and get the money from the Seneca Nation.

The Seneca have replied by stating:



‘If it were any other race of people, he would really have been ridiculed over the words that he said," said J.C. Seneca, a Tribal Council member with the Seneca Nation of Indians.



The Seneca Nation passed a resolution Saturday condemning the comments. They said the mayor was taking "contradictory positions" by targeting the tribes while at the same time expressing support for constitutional protections of those looking to build a controversial Islamic center near Ground Zero.



"Mayor Bloomberg's cavalier attitude and inflammatory remarks, by which he encourages armed conflict as a means for resolution, evidences tremendous disrespect," the resolution said. "Mr. Bloomberg's hypocritical support of constitutional protections, only when they don't impact the New York City budget, coupled with his uneducated and uninformed statements on the issue, serve to fan the flames of aggression, and undermine the potential for peaceful resolution of these matters, while perpetuating a long dormant policy of Indian termination which dates back to the days of General Custer's failed battle of Little Bighorn."



The nation said that the mayor should resign "effective immediately" over his "inflammatory and racially insensitive" remarks -- or at least apologize.



The Seneca Nation also stated that they are considering filing a hate crime complaint with the US Justice Department.



Incredibly, Mayor Bloomberg is proving to have an elitist tin ear worthy of a Washington politician and is refusing to apologize for what I also would call racist remarks. And he is refusing to resign for these remarks, remarks far worse than anything Jimmy the Greek - or Dr. Laura - ever said, leading to the end of both their careers. One would think that if Mayor Bloomberg were an Oklahoma politician - particularly a conservative Republican - his political career would be over by now.



But there may be a silver lining here for New Yorkers, as the Mayor's ability to lecture his constituents on the virtue of tolerance has apparently just gone up in smoke.









Posted at 09:33 AM