UEBLO OF SANDIA RESERVATION - When Stuwart Paisano leaves his office in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains to visit Capitol Hill, he flies first class. He can walk right in to meet his representatives and urge them to preserve the mountains or fight a growing anticasino sentiment.
The face-to-face contact available to Paisano, the 28-year-old governor of New Mexico's smallest Native American tribe, was unheard of when his father was the leader of the tribe, which was so poor that children swam in ditches.
''He was frustrated with the way the political world worked, that you had to give something to get something,'' Paisano said of his father.
Through the years, however, small tribes like the Sandias - whose numbers, unlike African-American and Latino communities, are too small to make a difference at the polls - gained riches from casino ventures and have become top political donors. What they once lacked in numbers, tribal leaders said, they have made up for with their checkbooks.
New Mexico's 10 gaming tribes, like the Sandia and Santa Ana, have become symbols of a wave of Native American power players in a political game from which they had once been excluded.
''The only kind of influence Indians had before was the guilt factor,'' said David Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. ''Now they have money, and last I checked, money makes politicians pay attention.''
This election year, campaign finance watchers say, tribes nationwide may give up to three times the $2 million in unregulated ''soft-money'' contributions they made in the last presidential election year. The Sandia tribe, with fewer than 500 members, has already made donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton's US Senate race in New York, and the House minority leader, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri. By November, said Paisano, his tribe's contributions could total $100,000.
Such donations are being matched in other states. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors campaign spending, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in Connecticut has given $119,000 since last year, while the Seminole Tribe in Florida has given $285,000 in combined soft money and political action committee contributions to both parties.
In California, a recent report by Common Cause said Indian tribes ''emerged from political obscurity to become the largest political donors in the state.'' The tribes have spent more than $8.5 million between 1994 to 1999 in statewide political contributions, exceeding major special-interest contributors such as attorneys and teachers, according to figures compiled by Common Cause.
''You know the old saying `money talks?' It really does,'' said Paisano. ''When you dish out money, people come lining up.''
Tribal leaders say donating money to politicians has enabled American Indians, who make up 1 percent of the US population, to launch expensive fights for such things as achieving the ''compacts'' between the state and tribes that set the terms needed to run casinos.
Critics, however, say the tribes' practice of spending money on high-powered lobbyists has not only created tension between themselves and the government, but symbolized what's wrong with campaign financing.
''They [Indians] get their way in the legislature, they throw their weight around, and have all the politicians scared,'' said Dr. Guy Clark, an Albuquerque dentist who leads antigambling interests in New Mexico. ''So what you have is the Democrats and the Republican leaders saying Indian contributions are fine and both parties promoting casino gambling in the state.''
The controversy surrounding the growing political power of New Mexican Indian tribes is mirrored in other states such as California, said Clark.
But nowhere has the issue of Indian contributions been so tense and contentious as in New Mexico.
Indians here are placing big bets on the reelection campaigns of legislators, who are paid only per diems, as well as judges and other top policymakers who will decide on tribal land issues and the fate of casino gambling, observers said.
In 1994, a federal appeals court upheld the tribes' right to run casino gambling in New Mexico. During that time, Indians around the country had to solidify political alliances with both Republican and Democrat legislators, because of a federal law that required the tribes and the state to reach compacts before starting gaming operations.
Local residents here point to Governor Gary Johnson's relationship with tribes as a prime example of how they have benefited by pouring money into political campaigns. Johnson, who received nearly $240,000 in Indian casino contributions in 1994, supported casino gambling, unlike his Democratic opponent.
Johnson's supporters said Indian tribes decided to support him only after they heard his position on sovereignty. ''He [Johnson] didn't change his positions for them,'' said Diane Kinderwater, press secretary for governor's office.
Since Johnson approved the compacts allowing the tribes to do business, said Clark, the Republicans who were previously against casino gambling are now big supporters of it, and they have benefited from the tribe's financial support.
Now, Tribes in New Mexico want the Legislature to change a 1997 law that requires Indians to give 16 percent, or nearly $50 million annually, of their casino proceeds to the state.
Critics said the Indians have been so aggressive in lobbying legislators about the 1997 law that the effort has backfired, and some politicians are beginning to vote against the tribes.
Last January, the issue of whether the gaming industry should make donations to legislators who are deciding the fate of casino gambling came to a boiling point: Legislators were meeting to discuss whether to accept a gaming plan negotiated by Johnson and Indian leaders when a lobbyist for a local Indian tribe began handing out contributions to legislators, said state Senator John Arthur Smith.
''It wasn't coincidental, but set by design,'' said Smith, a Republican who said he doesn't accept contributions.
Most of the money the tribe makes from the casino, said Sandia tribal leaders, is poured back into the community's education and health-care system.
Not far from the Sandia reservation sits a 27-hole golf course owned by the Santa Ana tribe. The course has become a favorite fund-raising site for local politicians, said Bruce Sanchez, former governor of the Santa Ana Tribe.
''We are only doing what the mainstream has done for hundreds of years,'' Sanchez said.
