For Christina Brown, a mother in Wildomar, the battle to get child support is over.
As California Watch and KQED Public Radio reported last month, Brown was having little luck collecting the more than $4,000 per month in court-ordered child support payments from her ex-husband, Sonnie Brown, a member of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians.

Sonnie Brown rarely has met his child support obligations, despite earning $13,250 per month for his share of gaming profits as a tribal member. As a sovereign nation, the Viejas tribal government does not have to honor a state child support order.

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But Christina Brown said that after submitting a formal petition to the Viejas Tribal Council on Aug. 31, it ruled to garnishee Sonnie Brown’s monthly stipend from the tribe to pay child support.

Christina Brown has been in and out of Riverside County Superior Court since 2008 trying to get child support for her children, ages 7, 15 and 17.
“I fought so hard for them,” she said. “Now I can make it up to my kids, and it feels good.”

Brown said it’s a blessing that the Viejas Tribal Council is stepping up to help her children. She said she’s going to buy her kids new clothes for school and plans to treat them with a trip to Disneyland. She also said she’ll no longer need food stamps or welfare assistance.

Viejas Tribal Chairman Anthony R. Pico said the tribal council is acting in the interest of its children.

He said the Viejas tribe has 270 members. So far, he said, the council, under a resolution passed in June, has honored the three petitions it’s received to enforce child support orders for its members.

“I think that the tribal council is involved with solving problems and this issue is behind us and we continue to move forward,” Pico said.

Pico emphasized that the council maintains the authority to deny any request for garnisheeing the wages of a tribal member for child support payments. He said the resolution will be used on a case-by-case basis.

Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up for California – a vocal critic of Indian gaming – said this is a step in the right direction. But she said most tribes in California do not have a formal policy in place to ensure that all parents receive the child support payments they’re owed. Only about 20 of the more than 100 federally recognized California tribes have official child support enforcement systems in place.

“If tribe’s are going to make the determination on a case-by-case basis, we have to continue to push forward to get language in tribal state compacts,” Schmit said.

Under negotiations with the Schwarzenegger administration, six of the 67 tribes with state gaming compacts included honoring state child support orders in these agreements.

They were for some of the largest in California – four are in Southern California: the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians in Riverside County and Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation in San Diego County. The other two are in Northern California – the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians in El Dorado County and the Yurok Tribe in Del Norte County.

Jacob Applesmith, a senior adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown on Indian gaming issues, said the Brown administration is negotiating with several tribes right now on gaming compact language.

Yesterday at a Native American government conference in Sacramento, Gov. Brown signed an executive order creating a tribal advisor in the governor's office, which he said would coordinate policy and legislation. The executive order said the state was "committed to strengthening and sustaining effective government-to-government relationships between the state and the tribes by identifying areas of mutual concern and working to develop partnerships and consensus."
The governor has negotiated two more compacts so far with the Habematolel Pomo tribe of Upper Lake and the Pinoleville Pomo Nation. Applesmith said both compacts include language requiring tribal casino employers to honor state child support orders for its employees.

The Legislature has ratified both of these compacts, and the Department of the Interior has to sign off on them as well. Applesmith says the federal government has approved the Upper Lake compact; the Pinoleville compact is still under review.

Schmit is calling on the governor's office to include in all state gaming compacts that tribal governments must honor state child support orders. As the compacts stand today, those agreements apply only to casino employees, not tribal members.

But Applesmith said requiring tribal governments to garnishee the earnings of tribal members does not fall under the purview of state compact negotiations.
“We wouldn’t raise this issue because it has nothing to do with gaming,” Applesmith said. “It has to do with the tribe, and gaming is only one aspect of a tribe’s economical development and functioning.”

That means parents need to petition the tribal government to get child support payments from tribal members. After years of trying, that’s what Christina Brown has done successfully with the Viejas tribe. She said she hopes her success will inspire others who are struggling to collect child support.
“Too many people are afraid to speak up, to petition their tribes, and they shouldn’t be afraid,” Brown said.