"The devastating impact recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have had on the ability of the federal government to place land in trust for American Indian tribes was again the focus of a congressional hearing earlier this month on Capitol Hill.

As was the case in previous hearings, tribal leaders and members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs called for a congressional remedy to the rulings, primarily the 2009 Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v Salazar.

“Throughout my term as chairman of this committee I’ve made it clear one of my top priorities is passing a … Carcieri fix, this session,” Chairman Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), told those at the Sept. 13 hearing.

But neither Akaka nor tribal leaders who spoke at the hearing mentioned the one thing standing in the way of a congressional remedy to Carcieri.

There was not a single remark about the elephant in the room: off-reservation gambling.

“We’ve always advanced the position Carcieri should be fixed,” Wilson Pipestem, founding partner of IETAN, a government consulting firm, told tribal leaders at an April 2011 conference.

“But a number of senators said, ‘There’s no way we’re going to advance [a Carcieri fix] without addressing off-reservation gaming.’”"

Get the Story:
Dave Palermo: Gambling is the elephant in the Carcieri debate (Pechanga.net 9/24)

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