Indian Gaming Tradeshow 2019

John Tahsuda
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs
Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior


John Tahsuda III, a member of the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, was appointed as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs (PDAS) effective September 3, 2017. The PDAS serves as the first assistant and principal advisor to the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs in the development and interpretation of policies affecting Indian Affairs bureaus, offices, and programs. Tahsuda came to the Department from Washington, D.C.-based Navigators Global, LLC, where he was a principal. While there, he led the company’s tribal affairs practice providing clients with advocacy and counsel services on a range of tribal affairs policy issues at state and federal levels, including gaming, tax incentives, tobacco sales, land-into-trust issues, health care, economic development, energy policy, federal recognition, and self-governance. Tahsuda had served as staff director of the U.S. Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee, where he directed policy and legislative efforts relating to Indian tribes. He also was directly responsible for federal policy and legislation affecting gaming, federal recognition, self-governance, and Indian health care. From 1991 to 2001, he served as general counsel and legislative director of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), the Indian gaming industry’s trade association, where he monitored legislation and policy issues affecting the organization’s 180 member tribes and assisted them in their lobbying efforts. In the years preceding his tenure at NIGA, Tahsuda served the Oneida Indian Nation of New York as acting general counsel with responsibilities that included overseeing its legal needs and business enterprises. From 1997 through 2001, he also served as an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School where he taught courses on federal Indian law, policy and history. Tahsuda received a juris doctorate from Cornell Law School in 1993 and a Bachelor of Science degree from Oklahoma State University in 1990.

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