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228the tough guyconvinced that ousting Gorton would keep the country from slidingbackward. Major tribes and the National Congress of AmericanIndians banded together in an effort to raise $1.5 million and defeatthe senator. When a thousand people gathered at the University ofWashington, they were filled with rhetoric to send Gorton packing.To Gorton, public tongue-lashings from Billy and the tribes werenothing new. Still, he refused to back off the mindset that Natives arequasi-sovereigns, not sovereigns. It was a matter of law, Gorton said,not race. The tribes called him General Custer and labeled him anIndian fighter. On the Navajo Reservation, they compared Gorton toKit Carson, who “rounded up the Navajos in 1863, burned their foodsupply, cut down their orchards and marched the starving tribe to aholding area in the desert of southern New Mexico.”The tribes accused Gorton of suffering from a bruised ego after his1979 defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court and carrying a vendetta againstthem ever since. “Then, when he did win a case against Indians, suchas his victory mandating tribes to tax their non-Indian customers,the tribes ignored the Supreme Court decision, contending tribalsovereignty against state taxation. Apparently, Gorton took hisIndian defeats personally,” declared an editorial in Indian CountryToday.In 1995, Gorton had whacked Native federal assistance by nearly30 percent. In 1997, he appended two riders onto a sweeping $13billion government spending package that waived Natives’ sovereign