"The bustle of activity at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Perry Street should not obscure the fact that the future of gambling on the Seneca-owned site remains very problematic.

Travel east on the Thruway for three hours and you will see on the horizon the 250-foot structure known as Turning Stone Casino. For years, the Oneida Indian Nation had acquired land in Sherrill and other neighboring communities, taking the position that the tribe’s acquisition of land rendered the parcels “Indian land” immune from the jurisdiction of the state and local taxing authorities. Not so.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sherrill that the Oneida parcels are not immune from taxes, not sovereign and not Indian land. “The Oneidas long ago relinquished the reins of government and cannot regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders,” wrote the Supreme Court. To allow an Indian tribe to assert sovereign control over land without going through the established processes for doing so would create a “checkerboard of alternating state and tribal jurisdiction,” which, the court stated, could seriously burden the administration of government and adversely affect adjoining landowners.

In an effort to circumvent the ruling, the Oneidas are now scrambling to have the land placed in trust. Otherwise, they will lose the right to gamble there. But even if they succeed, it will have no effect on the Buffalo site, which is not trust land and which the Senecas have never sought to have placed in trust. If the Senecas have any hope of gambling on the land, this is something that they, too, must do.

Under federal law, an Indian tribe can conduct gambling only on “Indian land.” The Sherrill case instructs that Indian land does not spring into existence automatically and an Indian tribe cannot unilaterally create sovereign Indian land. "

Get the Story:
John J. LaFalce: Senecas will proceed on downtown casino at own risk (The Buffalo News 4/6)