Casino Stalker | Opinion

Column: Land-into-trust a big issue for Wampanoag casino

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

"The span between the signing of the law legalizing casino gambling in Massachusetts and the filing of its first legal challenge was measured in hours, not days. It likely won’t be the last challenge, either.

Meanwhile, lawyers defending the state have unwittingly stepped into a bitter gambling showdown in Washington state. The Washington dispute shows that Indian gambling - the cause of the first challenge to the Massachusetts casino law - is a legal minefield. All the blind optimism in the world can’t change that fact.

The federal government is getting hit from all sides in the dispute. It’s being sued by a county in Washington state, by the city of Vancouver, and a group of casino opponents. It is also being sued by the Grand Ronde, an Indian tribe that operates a casino outside Portland, Oregon. The force uniting all these characters is a trial balloon floated by the Department of the Interior, which tried testing the Supreme Court’s reach.

A year ago, Interior processed a reservation application for the Cowlitz, a tribe in southern Washington. Interior also ruled that this new reservation could be used for gambling. It was Interior’s first land-taking on behalf of the tribe, which was federally recognized in 2002. The problem: In early 2009, the Supreme Court said Interior couldn’t take reservation land for tribes."

Get the Story:
Paul McMorrow: Tribal casino? Not so fast (The Boston Globe 12/13)

Another Opinion:
Stephen Franklin White: Letter: On casino, feds disregard state laws (The Columbian 12/13)