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: