312 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
approach to a whole range of issues that have nothing to do with Indians.”
Keefe had married a Nez Perce, which gave him some reservation cred.
Gorton also secured money for a new school for the Lummi Tribe, but the
vast majority of the minority still despised him.^6
Across the street from the Capitol that same September day, the Na-
tional Congress of American Indians was in emergency session. They
were there, 230-strong, to fight two riders Gorton had appended to a
spending bill containing a host of provisions the Clinton Administration
wanted passed. Some $700 million was earmarked to protect parks and
ancient redwoods. Gorton was threatening to slash nearly half of the
tribes’ federal funding—$767 million—unless they agreed to waive sov-
ereign immunity from civil lawsuits. He was out to “overturn almost two
centuries of jurisprudence,” Secretary Babbitt said. Gorton shot back, “I
find nothing in any Indian treaty that says they must be continuously
supported by the federal taxpayers.”7*
The other rider—a “chairman’s mark” in the parlance of prerogatives—
called for a need-based formula to distribute subsidies. Wealthier tribes,
especially those with lucrative casinos, would see their payments sharply
reduced, Gorton acknowledged, but “the poorest of the poor in Indian
Country” would benefit.^8
The Indians snorted at the notion of Custer as a born-again Robin
Hood. “The only reason we are all here is Senator Gorton,” said Henry
Cagey, chairman of the Lummi Nation and newly-elected leader of the
Northwest’s Affiliated Tribes. “He will take any chance he can get to at-
tack our sovereignty. If anything, he has become more hard-line and anti-
Indian and devious in his attacks on us, and he’s been fighting us for as
long as anyone can remember... .We see him as an individual that will
wipe out future generations.”^9
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only Native American in the Senate,
criticized Gorton for adding his proposals to the Interior appropriations
bill without a hearing and promised they would be passed only “over my
dead body.” The Colorado Republican was chairman of the Indian Affairs
Committee, so it was a big body. Senator McCain told tribal leaders they
could count on help from him and Senator Domenici. Gorton was a good
man, McCain said. “This is not some personal vendetta of his. He has a
philosophical, intellectual difference with me and many others here
- Babbitt and Gorton enjoyed their sparring and mutual respect, based on a 30-year rela-
tionship. “He’s very liberal and a very good friend, somebody I really liked, even when we
were profoundly disagreeing on issues,” Gorton says.