"Sometimes the lawsuit brought by a group of citizens and citizens’ organizations to block the Senecas’ downtown Buffalo casino seems like a soap opera: You think the plot is actually getting somewhere but then you realize it’s just going around one more time, and may very well continue doing so until all the current players have been worn out and replaced.

And other times it is like one of those inexorable processes slowly moving toward an inevitable conclusion, a process that is maddening because you think you know where it has to wind up yet the rules won’t let you just go there. You must go step by step by step by step.

In the most recent development, US District Court Judge William M. Skretny followed up on his July 6 ruling that the casino operated in downtown Buffalo by the Seneca Nation of Indians had been improperly authorized by the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) with an order to NIGC to do what it is supposed to do when a tribe of Indians is operating a casino improperly or illegally. He hasn’t told them what to do other than that: Get off your duffs and obey the law.

The law seems to prescribe two courses of action in such situations: a fine or shutting the operation down temporarily (“temporarily” in a legal case like this can stretch into forever if conditions are right). Since the basis of the judge’s order is his July 6 ruling that the Buffalo casino is illegal, a fine isn’t a rational option, since that would merely let the Senecas pay a fee for continuing an operation that would still be illegal. They would immediately have to pay another, and another, and another. They might be willing to do that, but the courts wouldn’t stand for that kind of foolishness. That leaves NIGC only one course of action: shutting it down.

The judge’s ruling is perhaps like telling a traveler, “Go down this road and when you reach the end of it you can turn left or right. Your choice.” The traveler gets there and finds a road on the left, but on the right there is only a loop that keeps bringing him back to exactly the same intersection. He can take the loop, but he’s not moving anywhere. NIGC can administer a fine, but that won’t be changing anything. "

Get the Story:
Stop Stalling, Says The Judge (Artvoice 8/28)