Gov. Fallin did not answer any questions. The meeting was closed to non-elected officials, including attorneys, tax commissioners and reporters.
TULSA, Okla. – More than 25 tribal leaders met with Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin Tuesday at River Spirit Event Center to discuss concerns over expiring tobacco compacts.
“We’re very encouraged by what we were able to share with the governor on our concerns on a government-to-government relationship,” Muscogee (Creek) Nation Principal Chief George Tiger said. “We believe this is a good start. One of the things we’ve proposed to the governor was having the ability for tribal nations to visit with her twice per year so we can all be on the same page on issues.”
The United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, which counts almost 50 tribal governments among its members, facilitated the face-to-face meeting, as tobacco compacts for all but a handful of Oklahoma’s 38 federally recognized tribes expire June 30. Despite a written request from more than 20 tribes to extend existing compacts through August 2017, Fallin’s office has maintained that it will only extend short-term extensions to tribes still engaged in “good faith” negotiations on June 30.
“We’ve had a tremendous meeting,” Fallin said. “The purpose was to sit down with tribal leaders and…talk sovereign-to-sovereign about various issues that face not only the tribes, but certainly ways that the state can work together and collaborate.”
Fallin did not answer any questions. The meeting was closed to non-elected officials, including attorneys, tax commissioners and reporters.
To date, only four tribes have signed new compacts this year, which all take effect July 1. None of the new compacts include most favored nation clauses or border tax rates, which the governor’s office has publicly come out against.
Under the current compacts, lower tax rates are available for tribal smoke shops within 20 miles of Oklahoma’s borders with Kansas or Missouri, which have lower tobacco tax rates than non-tribal Oklahoma smoke shops. Tribal smoke shops outside that radius can sell cigarette packs with either a 52-cent stamp or an 86-cent stamp, depending on the exact terms of the tribe’s compact. Tribal smoke shops without a compact and non-tribal tobacco retailers must sell cigarettes to the public with a $1.03 stamp.
“There are several of us asking to keep our compacts the way they are,” Comanche Nation Chairman Wallace Coffey said. “I’m satisfied. That should be sufficient.
“Our members are her members. And we vote.”
The Comanche Nation has nine smoke shops, all of which currently sell cigarettes with a 52-cent stamp.
The most recent tribe to sign a compact, the Fort Sill Apaches, signed its agreement Monday. The compact only extends to the tribe’s Lawton, Okla., smoke shop and does not apply to its Akela, N.M., store. Prior to Monday’s agreement, the Apache, Okla.-based tribe was one of nine in the state without a tobacco compact.
Like the Kaw Nation, Apache Tribe and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Fort Sill Apache Tribe also signed a burn ban agreement, which included a provision that the ban does not extend to tribally-sponsored religious and ceremonial activities.