"Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne made exactly the right call when he recently denied permission to 11 Indian tribes around the country to acquire more land in order to build casinos.

His decision was unpopular with the tribes and their friends in government. They complained that Mr. Kempthorne had robbed the tribes of income. But the secretary’s reasoning was sound, not least because the casinos would be hundreds (and in two cases more than a thousand) miles from tribal reservations and thus of little benefit to tribal residents.

Under the law, tribes cannot acquire new land unless the Interior Department first gives the land federal trust status. This, Mr. Kempthorne, who has long been opposed to Indian casinos on nonreservation lands, refused to do.

Mr. Kempthorne also sensed, correctly, that granting the tribes’ requests would undermine the spirit of the law. Washington started putting land in trust for tribes during the 1930s as a way of increasing tribal unity and preventing reservations from being sold off. These applications seemed to have more to do with money than tribal cohesiveness."

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Editorial: Good Decision on Tribal Casinos (The New York Times 1/17)
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