SHAKOPEE, Minn. -- In Minnesota, who qualifies as a Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota is a million-dollar question.
As a member of the tiny tribe that owns Mystic Lake Casino, vice chairman Glynn Crooks makes about $36,000 every two weeks from his share of casino profits -- or about $935,000 a year.But his cousin David Crooks was rejected for tribal membership, and lives modestly in south Minneapolis.
"What do I need to get enrolled?" David Crooks asked. "Is there a secret handshake I don't know? A password? What is it?"
It's also a question that has prompted several members of Congress to call for hearings into the enrollment process.
The federal government gives American Indian tribes wide discretion in defining their members. Some require one-fourth, one-eighth or 1/32nd blood; others have less precise standards.
But when a few tribes started to distribute hefty profit-sharing checks from their casinos, membership took on greater significance -- and controversy. In August, differing membership philosophies among 2,500 Saginaw Chippewas in Michigan boiled into a dispute that led to standoffs with police, federal intervention and lawsuits over tribal control.
The Shakopee haven't disclosed their membership, but estimates range from 250 to 300. By some accounts, the tribe has expanded its rolls by about 65 people in the past six years by "adopting" applicants who could demonstrate they were direct descendants of tribal members.
Crooks, 32, says he meets a more restrictive standard also allowed by the Shakopee tribe -- that members have at least one-fourth Mdewakanton blood. He says he is more than one-third Mdewakanton.
"He is who he says he is," said William Hardacker, a tribal spokesman. "He is related to the Crooks family."
But that doesn't guarantee admittance.
"By majority vote, his membership request was denied," Hardacker said. "The reasons why? Nobody knows. It's done by secret ballot."
Crooks doesn't deny he'd like the money, but says he's also among the thousands of Indians who rediscovered their roots in the past few decades, dramatically increasing their census representation.
He grew up in St. Paul at a time when it was common for Mdewakanton and other Indians to live outside their reservations. His efforts to be enrolled began in 1992 -- the same year the tribe's casino opened and tribal members were poised to become millionaires.
Four years later, the tribe rejected him. Asking his cousin, Glynn, why, he said he was told: "It's just because people in the tribe don't know who I am."
"Here I am, a first cousin to Glynn," he said, "and I'm not getting anything."