Wisconsin tribes won't back down from casino

Monday, November 3, 2008  

Two Wisconsin tribes are still waiting for federal approval on their off-reservation casino project.

The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians and the St. Croix Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians launched the project in 2000 with the backing of voters in the city of Beloit. But then the Bush administration came on board and started making it harder for tribes to open off-reservation casinos.

"We don't think that (Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne) made the processing of these applications a priority of the interior department," Joe Hunt, a spokesperson for the Beloit Casino Project told The Janesville Gazette Extra.

In January, the administration rejected nearly a dozen tribes with off-reservation proposals but the Beloit casino was not one of them, largely due to a lawsuit the St .Croix Band filed last December. Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected the tribe's challenges but the tribe is appealing.

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Will casino's odds change? (The Janesville Gazette Extra 11/3)