Indigenous Matters

Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, a Republican law firm with close ties to the White House, has registered as a lobbyist on the issue of registering the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians in California as a federally recognized tribe, but Jerry Reynolds writes in Indian Country Today that it's not clear "whether BGR is lobbying for or against Juaneno recognition," and it's also not clear who is paying them. "A third question is the extent to which prospective gaming revenues drive BGR's commitment," Reynolds writes, "because ancestral Juaneno territory in current Orange County, Calif., extends 'a little into Los Angeles County,' in the words of vice chairman Fran Yorba. The Juaneno, if federally recognized as a tax-exempt tribal government, are widely held to have potential for drawing from the nation's most populous untapped gaming market."