While in Congress, former Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.) made a name for himself as a friend to Native Americans. But since his 2013 retirement, Kildee has proven to be selective in which tribes he counts as friends.
After retiring from Congress in 2013, Kildee began working for lobbying firm Akin Gump as well as niche government affairs firm Ietan Consulting. Ietan specializes in federal advocacy for tribal governments and businesses.
Kildee filed his first lobbying papers last week on behalf of a pair of tribes, including the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indian. Also known as the Gun Lake Tribe, it owns and operates the Gun Lake Casino in Wayland, Michigan. According to the filing, Kildee will lobby Congress, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior on gambling and land trust issues.
In 1997, Kildee authored and helped pass the Michigan Indian Land Claims Settlement Act. Last month the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians attempted to use the law as justification for putting land into trust in Lansing and Huron Township to build new casinos - ones that would compete for business against his casino-owning client. In response, Kildee penned a letter to the Department of the Interior arguing that the law was not intended to allow for off-reservation casinos. Kildee told Michigan publication MLive that, "Congress would never have passed the bill if that had been in there."
The proposed site for the Sault Tribe casino in Lansing is less than 70 miles from the Gun Lake Casino.
