The
Osage Nation has hired a team of lobbyists as it pursues a casino in Missouri, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The tribe hired Steve Tilley, a Republican former speaker of the Missouri House, the paper said, citing an August 15 filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Two other lobbyists at
Strategic Capitol Consulting were also hired, the paper said.
The tribe once had a reservation in Missouri but would need to acquire trust
lands in order to establish a casino there. The
land-into-trust
process typically takes years to complete.
The tribe also would need to negotiate a Class III gaming compact with
the governor if it intends to offer slot machines, blackjack, poker and related
games. The state has never entered into such an agreement.
Generally, the
Indian
Gaming Regulatory Act bars casinos on land acquired after 1988. But Section
20 of the law contains an exception for land within a tribe's "last recognized
reservation."
In the history of IGRA, the
Quapaw Tribe appears to be the
only one to have secured this particular exception. In that case, the land was
within a
former
reservation in Kansas.
After living in Missouri, the Osage Nation was forced to move to Kansas
and later to present-day Oklahoma. The tribe operates
seven gaming
facilities in northeastern Oklahoma
Read More on the Story:
Oklahoma tribe hires lobbyists in push for Missouri casino
(The St. Louis Post-Dispatch August 22, 2017)
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