OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite a written request from multiple tribal leaders, Oklahoma’s governor is staying quiet on how her office is handling tobacco compact negotiations with the state’s tribes.

On April 23, the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas sent a letter to Gov. Mary Fallin’s office, asking for an explanation by April 30 as to why she has not been participating in the tobacco compact negotiating process and why extending existing compacts is not an option for the more than 20 tribes whose agreements with the state expire June 30.

Gov. Fallin’s general counsel, Steve Mullins, has been the state’s lead negotiator in compact talks.

Sac and Fox Principal Chief and UINOKT Chairman George Thurman confirmed via email that the organization did not receive a response by the deadline and would determine its next action at its May meeting. The organization counts more than 30 tribal governments among its members.

To date, only two tribes, the Kaw Nation and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, have signed new compacts this year, both of which take effect July 1. Neither new compact includes most favored nation clauses nor border tax rates, which the governor’s office has publicly come out against. Several tribal leaders have publicly spoken against the terms of those compacts, including a provision that calls for the state to receive half of the tax revenue from the tribes’ tobacco sales.

The organization has also asked that the state confine discussions to tobacco compacts only. Both the Kaw Nation and Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes signed burn ban agreements with their tobacco compacts earlier this year. Gov. Fallin’s office has maintained that it did not initiate those discussions, contrary to comments by leaders from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, who negotiated a tobacco compact last year.

Gov. Fallin’s office did not respond to requests for comment.



FILE PHOTO

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and Kaw Nation Chairman Guy Munroe sign the tribe’s renewed tobacco compact March 11.