Cowlitz Tribe hosts job far as opening date for casino approaches

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Construction is progressing quickly on the Cowlitz Tribe's gaming facility in Washington. Photo: ilani Casino Resort Construction Feed

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The Cowlitz Tribe is preparing for a big year as it debuts a long-awaited casino in Washington.

The ilani Casino Resort is due to open on April 17. The tribe is hiring more than 1,000 people to work there and a job fair this Saturday will be used to help fill the positions.

A legal cloud, though, hangs over the project. Non-Indian interests are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will derail the project on the grounds that the Bureau of Indian Affairs should not have approved the land-into-trust application for the casino site.

A group called Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, non-Indian card rooms and three local property owners filed their petition on October 27, according to the docket sheet for No. 16-572. But the Department of Justice has yet to file a response, leaving open the possibility for the administration of Republican president-elect Donald Trump to weigh in on the case.

Since the brief is due by January 27 -- only seven days after Trump is sworn into office as the 45th president of the United States -- his incoming team won't have much time to make a mark. But the expected response would be to defend the BIA's acquisition of the 152-acre site.

Non-Indian groups aren't the only ones interested in the case either. Four tribes from California submitted a friend-of-the-court brief that goes against the BIA and the Cowlitz.

"The Cowlitz Tribe will be permitted to build and operate a casino outside of its historic reservation and aboriginal territory," the November 28 brief states. "Other Indian tribes that played by the rules established by Congress are adversely affected by this type of federal action, especially when land is taken into trust outside the homelands of one tribe and within the aboriginal territory of another. This creates a double standard for tribes."

The Mooretown Rancheria of Maidu Indians and the United Auburn Indian Community signed the brief, along with the California Tribal Business Alliance, a small group that represents the Pala Band of Luiseño Indians and the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians. All four operate casinos in California -- three of them in fact were opened on land recently acquired in trust.

Once the Supreme Court receives the federal government's brief, the non-Indian interests will be able to file one last reply before the justices take the petition under consideration. After that happens, they will announce whether or not they have agreed to hear the case.

Given the rapidly approaching opening date for ilani, it's possible the Cowlitz Tribe will have already debuted the casino by that time.

The case is Citizens Against Reservation Shopping v. Jewell.

Read More on the Story:
Ilani casino job fair this Saturday (The Longview Daily News 1/12) $P D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Decision:
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon v. Jewell (July 29, 2016)

Department of the Interior Solicitor Opinion:
M-37029: The Meaning of "Under Federal Jurisdiction" for Purposes of the Indian Reorganization Act (March 12, 2014)

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