Change in D.C. means likely change in Potawatomi’s big-money lobbying corps

The presidential campaign was all about “change,” and with a new party set to take the helm, the Potawatomi will likely be looking at change themselves. Changing from GOP to Dem lobbyists, that is.

The latest federal lobbying reports show the Forest County Potawatomi shelled out another $170,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30 to two heavy-hitting DC lobbying firms – Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

Combined, the two firms have made more than a half-million dollars from Potawatomi this year alone – lobbying everyone from Congress to the Department of the Interior to the Executive Office of the President of the United States (!) on matters related to gaming reform and land-into-trust issues. The goal is to get the federal government to deny the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s Kenosha casino project, effectively stamping out competition for Potawatomi’s Milwaukee gaming hall and sentencing Menominee, the country’s fourth-poorest tribe, to generations of continued poverty. (You can read more about Menominee’s economic and social struggles in this study by UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs.)

But it looks like Quinn Gillespie and Barbour Griffith may soon be looking for new work. Lobbying firms don’t come any more Republican than these two – we’re talking Bush confidantes and former Bush Cabinet advisors. It’s doubtful that they’ll have the pull to accomplish much of Potawatomi’s monopoly work under a Democratic president, a Democrat-controlled Congress, and a Democrat-appointed Interior Secretary.

So now that we’re past the election predictions, we’ll make a prediction of our own. We predict that in their never-ending bid to kill the Kenosha casino, hold Menominee down and preserve their own monopoly, the Potawatomi will start combing the K street corridor (and opening its checkbook) for D-leaning lobbyists. Look for some new Potawatomi lobbyists to register in January or February and file their first reports in March. And we’ll be sure to tell you when they do.

Frankly, we think the new Administration will see through Potawatomi’s monopoly game. Healthy competition makes businesses stronger – and economic studies prove that’s the case with the Milwaukee and Kenosha casinos.

By the way – Quinn Gillespie and Barbour Griffith aren’t the extent of Potawatomi’s D.C. lobbying army. During the most recent reporting period, the Tribe also spent $15,000 with Malcolm Chester, an Illinois-based pro who lobbied Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (the law that allows Tribes like Potawatomi and Menominee to establish off-Reservation casinos in the first place.) Less than $5,000 went to another lobbying firm, Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry.

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