It appeared to work. On Oct. 1, in a settlement of a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, the tribe was placed on "active" consideration status for recognition.
After a final round of reviews, the Mashpee will probably be officially recognized by March 30, 2007.
The settlement would permit the Mashpee to seek a casino license if Massachusetts legalizes gambling.
Tribal Council President Glenn Marshall and tribal chief Vernon Lopez acknowledged in separate interviews that their unconventional strategy had paid off. "Sometimes," Lopez said, "it's necessary to go out of your way to get some of the things you need."
Pombo, whose congressional district straddles California's Central Valley, was clearly their biggest champion.
Now in his seventh term, he went to Washington on the cusp of the GOP revolution in Congress and soon hitched himself to Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who became House majority leader.
Their friendship was born of a shared conservative ideology. Like DeLay, Pombo has worked to reduce government regulations and to cut taxes and spending. And he has strongly advocated private property rights, sometimes to the chagrin of environmentalists.
DeLay sponsored Pombo's successful 2003 drive to become chairman of the Resources Committee, which oversees Native American affairs. The post was seen as a coup for Pombo. One disgruntled rival for the chairmanship publicly attributed Pombo's rise to his fundraising prowess.
But the Capitol Hill landscape has sharply altered since. DeLay is fighting money-laundering charges in Texas and has had to leave his House leadership post. Abramoff reportedly is near a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. And Pombo, through his work on behalf of the Mashpee, has attracted investigators' attention as well.
Pombo, 44, did not reply to several requests for interviews this week.
His Resources Committee spokesman, Brian Kennedy, said the chairman had simply been trying to draw attention to "the poster tribe on the need for reforming the recognition process."
Kennedy said Pombo first learned of the Mashpee when the son of Pombo's chief of staff learned during a school project that the tribe that greeted the Pilgrims had been trying since 1975 to win federal recognition. "That's sort of how the chairman got engaged," Kennedy said.
The Mashpee also were getting to know Pombo.
