Editorial: White man speak with forked tongue on tribe's casino

Yesterday’s unanimous vote by the Gaming Commission is a disgrace.

As Mashpee Wampanoag tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell said, governments have been breaking promises made to the Wampanoag nation for the last 400 years. Now an appointed commission has un-done the work of our elected officials, who negotiated a gaming compact with the Tribe which would have brought considerable revenue to state coffers, while eliminating the possibility of two competing casinos in Southeastern Massachusetts.

The Commission cited delays and uncertainty in the Wampanoag’s progress on their casino project. We think it’s worth reminding the Commission that one of those delays was caused when the Tribe’s first compact was rejected by the Bureau of Indian affairs because it was too generous with the revenue it proposed to share with the Commonwealth.