From the Detroit News:
Lawmakers reopened the debate over smoke-free workplaces Wednesday, launching hearings on an issue that has gridlocked the Legislature for years.
Owners of smaller bars and restaurants say a proposed statewide ban on workplace smoking could cost 7,500 hospitality jobs and drive them out of business.
Proponents say the ban is necessary to protect workers and customers from second-hand smoke, which they say claims 3,000 Michigan lives every year.
From the Columbus Dispatch:
Ohio’s four largest cities each would get a casino and local governments and schools would share most of a projected $600 million a year in tax revenue, gambling proponents said today in introducing the third casino proposal aimed at the statewide ballot in four years.
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“This proposal was carefully crafted to reflect what Ohioans want in a gaming proposal,” said Eric Schippers, spokesman for Penn National Gaming Inc., which switched sides to sponsor this year’s issue. “We’re going to build a broad-based coalition to support this proposal.”
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Penn National has armed itself with a February U.S. Supreme Court decision that forbids Indian tribes from placing land in trust — often a prelude to building a casino — if the tribes received federal recognition after 1934. There currently are no federally recognized tribes in Ohio, but casino opponents last year said a commercial casino could open the floodgates to Indian casinos in the state.
From Lloyd Miller, partner in the law firm of Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, LLP:
In only two months President Obama has already begun to make his mark in forging a new era in Native American affairs. After eight years marked mostly by neglect, this is welcome news, for Tribal leaders have been yearning for the profound change that can only come from a committed White House — change that calls upon the Nation not only to remember its forgotten First Americans, but to craft a new deal that embraces tribal governments as true partners in the Nation’s family of governments. Under President Obama, all indications are that this new deal will include promoting genuine tribal self-determination, honoring the unique place Indian Tribes occupy under the Constitution, and honoring fully the trust responsibility born of treaties and the Nation’s tragic early history with Indian Tribes.
Most Americans are only dimly aware of today’s tribal governments, and for many that knowledge is limited to casinos. Few know that less than one-half of America’s 562 Tribes actually operate gaming facilities of any kind (nearly half of them in California). Few know that, of those that do, the well-known top 10% account for over 50% of total tribal gambling revenues, while roughly half the Tribes account for less than 10%. The fact is, across Native America gambling is commonly little more than a breakeven proposition, providing local employment and moderately enhanced health, educational and public services.
Still, popular interest in Indian gambling has eclipsed the real picture of Native America, which remains largely out of the public eye: communities living in third world conditions without basic running water or sanitation and suffering disproportionately high rates of communicable diseases; reservations and villages with little physical infrastructure; child suicide rates 2.5 times the national average (and for teens in some regions, 17 times the national average); overwhelmed law enforcement and justice systems funded at 40% the national average, with half of all offenders on the street due to dangerously overcrowded facilities; and crumbling schools with over $800 million in deferred maintenance, producing children who score lower in reading, math and history than every other ethnic group in America.
Although in many places conditions are improving, for too many in too many places America has gravely neglected its First Americans.
Continue reading
VERY interesting case.The Little River Band created its own labor relations code. At least one union agreed to forego the National Labor Relations Act in favor of the tribal law, but the Teamsters — perhaps the definition of a dying union that won’t go away without bringing down everyone around it — filed a charge with the NLRB.
Even more interesting, the Interior Solicitor opined that the NLRA does not apply to this tribe, and requested that the NLRB back down. Of course the Board refused. And so we have this case in the Western District of Michigan.
Here are the relevant materials:
Here is the cert opp from Harrah’s — harrahs-cert-opp
Here is the cert petition.
Here is the cert opp — meyer-assoc-cert-opp
The cert petition is here.
There’s no reason to take a position on the Federal Circuit’s decision reversing the trial court in the Wolfchild case, but there are several big-picture issues that may have affected the Circuit’s decision or otherwise demonstrate that something is horribly wrong in federal Indian law.
First, the lawyer’s history propounded by the trial court, the Federal Circuit, and necessarily the parties is troubling. Let us not forget, as it would be very easy to do from the Federal Circuit’s opinion, that this whole thing started with the violent and illegal acts of the United States government. It was the United States’ actions that precipitated the so-called “rebellion” of the Dakota people near Fort Snelling. And it was the local non-Indian populace, the Army, and President Lincoln that characterized the “rebellion” as a series of “massacres.” The people called the “Loyal Mdewakanton” and the people, predominantly plaintiffs, that were not so “loyal” were all part of this community utterly ravaged by the United States. The end of this war in 1862 resulted in the largest mass execution of anyone in American history — about 40 men and boys, all Dakota. And the majority of Dakota people in the area were rounded up and sent on a death march that included at least three or four states, killing many, many people.
None of that is relevant to this case, apparently. But it really should be.
The Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review has published “Betting the Rancheria: Environmental Protections as Bargaining Chips Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act,” by Matthew Murphy. You can access the article here, but it begins on page 171 of the pdf, which takes some time to download. Here is the abstract:
In 2005, the State of California and the Big Lagoon Rancheria American Indian Tribe reached an agreement whereby the tribe agreed to forego development plans for a casino on environmentally sensitive lands in exchange for the right to build a casino in Barstow, California. In January 2008, the Department of the Interior denied the Rancheria’s land-into-trust application for land in Barstow based on the Department’s newly issued “commutable distance” memorandum. This denial represents a missed opportunity to allow California and the tribe to cooperate in fashioning a workable tribal-state compact. The Department should abandon the guidance memorandum and allow tribes to pursue off-reservation gaming in appropriate instances where the proposed development enjoys political support at the local level. In exchange, states should be afforded greater deference under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to achieve some level of regulatory control to address the off-reservation impacts of casino development.
The Southern District of California held in Harris v. Sycuan Band of Diegueno Mission Indians that, in a dispute over an arbitration award, the Federal Arbitration Act alone does not confer jurisdiction on federal courts.
Here is the opinion — dct-order-dismissing-harris-complaint
Here is the Court’s order list for today. Seminole’s bad news is on page 3.
This was to be expected, though at some point the Court will grant cert on an Indian Gaming Regulatory Act case, if enough state supreme courts come through with strange opinions. It might be awhile….
Turtle Talk 
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