Jump to full article: New York Times, 2010-03-13
Author: DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Intro: By a unanimous vote, the Senate on Thursday passed a bill to eliminate mail-order cigarettes, a victory for public health advocates and a defeat for the New York Indian tribe that dominates the business.
The measure was approved by the House last spring but then stalled in the Senate amid a lobbying campaign by the tribe, the Seneca Nation, which controls a $1 billion-a-year tobacco-and-gambling empire.
The Senecas and their lobbyists rallied other tribes in the name of tribal sovereignty. They also asserted that the bill could cost the struggling economy of western New York more than 1,000 jobs. And they threatened to spend $250,000 urging the defeat this fall of Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, because she supported the bill.
Until Thursday, a handful of Democratic senators -- all of them acting anonymously -- had held up passage of the measure, but none had publicly opposed it.
. . .
In a statement, the Seneca Nation called the legislation "a 21st-century Little Bighorn-type battle."
"We will pursue an aggressive campaign of outreach and education to inform the voters of western New York which political leaders stand with the Seneca Nation and those who don't," Barry E. Snyder Sr., president of the Seneca Nation, said in the statement. He added: "Not one senator stood up for Indian Country; they should be ashamed of themselves for selling out our rights and local jobs."
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