gaming

En Banc Petition in MichGO v. Kempthorne

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

We don’t have the petition yet, but here’s the D.C. Circuit clerk’s order and the article from ICT:

WASHINGTON – In what will likely be the last of its many legal challenges, an anti-Indian casino group has asked a federal appeals court to determine if a law that has been restoring swindled and expropriated indigenous land to Indians for almost 75 years is constitutional.

Michigan Gambling Opposition, or MichGO, petitioned the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia May 10 for an en banc court rehearing of its 2 – 1 panel decision to allow the Interior Department to take 147 acres of land into trust for the Gun Lake Tribe’s proposed casino.

MichGO wants the full nine-judge court to determine if the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 violates the nondelegation doctrine by unconstitutionally allowing the Interior secretary to acquire or take into trust land for Indians.

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Butte County v. Hogen – Mechoopda Permissive Intervention

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

A federal magistrate allowed the Mechoopda Tribe to intervene in a case challenging their compact approval by the NIGC, over the objections of Butte County. Here is the opinion.

Barona Band v. Yee — CA9 Tax Case

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Indianz reports the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Barona Band v. Yee. Here are the briefs:

barona-band-opening-brief

yee-response-brief

barona-band-reply-brief

Odawa Casino Revenue Sharing Numbers

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

For the article, see here. An excerpt:

When handing out the latest community proceeds from local Indian gaming, the Emmet County Local Revenue Sharing Board had about $250,000 more to work with than in the previous round.

This spring, the board used a new, more specific framework to allocate money, one which put the largest funding awards in categories such as infrastructure and education.

Local governments appoint the three-member board to allocate gaming dollars twice a year. Under its gaming compact with Michigan, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians must make 2 percent of electronic gaming receipts from its casino available to the community.

The latest payout — about $840,000 — included gaming receipts from July-December 2007, up from $590,000 in the previous round. In June 2007, the tribe opened the Odawa Casino Resort to replace its smaller Victories Casino.

Oregon Court of Appeals Revives Suit on Oregon Gaming Compacts

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The case is Dewberry v. Kulongowski, and it involves my favorite court rule, the indispensable party!

From the opinion:

Relators appeal from a judgment dismissing their petition for an alternative writ of mandamus. They argue that the trial court erred in concluding that they failed to establish that they do not have a “plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law,” ORS 34.110, and that the trial court misapplied ORCP 29 and ORS 28.110 in the present proceeding. As explained below, we agree with relators in certain respects, albeit at some points for reasons not advanced by the parties, and conclude that relators did not have a “plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law,” ORS 34.110, in the form of a declaratory judgment action. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.

LA Times on Soboba Killings

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the LA Times. An excerpt:

San Jacinto Mayor Jim Ayres and the City Council asked the tribe to withdraw an application to annex more than 500 acres of land for a hotel and casino complex until the violence is quelled.

But Salgado, 65, is having none of it.

No one, he says, has the right to tell Indians how to run their sovereign nations.

“Why didn’t Stone come to me man to man and say that? And who is the mayor of San Jacinto to tell us what to do?” he asked. “Where were these people when we had nothing? Now that we are self-sufficient, it makes them fearful.”

Greektown Restructuring Very Costly

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Crain’s Detroit Business Report:

Restructuring of Greektown Casino L.L.C. finances will cost $13.5 million in professional fees this year and an estimated $20 million by the time the Detroit casino emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2009, a workout consultant told the Michigan Gaming Control Board Thursday.

The board gave approval to Greektown securing a $51.3 million interim loan to pay past due and current bills owed contractors working on the $330 million casino expansion that includes a 400-room hotel.

The loan, which received preliminary approval Wednesday from U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Walter Shapero, is part of a $150 million two-part financing package, the rest of which also needs approval from the court and control board.

Charles Moore, senior managing director of Birmingham-based Conway MacKenzie & Dunleavy, told the board that coupling costs of the bankruptcy filed May 29 with loan interest payments that will run more than $51 million means the casino is projected to lose almost $16 million in 2008, compared with a reported profit of $2 million last year.

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PPI v. Kempthorne — Challenge to Class III Secretarial Procedures

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here’s another one, this time in the Northern District of Florida, and this one involving the Seminole Nation.

Here is the request for a preliminary injunction and here is the complaint.

David Wilkins on Tribal Disenrollment and Banishment

Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

David Wilkins has published “Exiling One’s Kin: Banishment and Disenrollment in Indian Country” in Western Legal History. This excellent piece describes banishment and membership laws from traditional law through the early 20th century and into the modern era of tribal banishment and disenrollment.

UNITE HERE v. Pala Band — Federal Court Lacks Jurisdiction over Petition to Enforce Arbitration Award

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the opinion:

On December 11, 2007 Petitioner Unite Here (“Petitioner” or “Unite Here”) filed this petition to confirm an arbitration award against Respondent Pala Band of Mission Indians (“Respondent” or “Pala Band”). (Doc. No. 1.) On April 4, 2008 Respondent moved to dismiss the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. (Doc. No. 4.) The Court decides the matter on the papers submitted and without oral argument. See S.D. Cal. Civ. R. 7.1(d) (1). For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS Respondent’s motion and DISMISSES Petitioner’s petition.

UNITE HERE Petition

Pala Band of Mission Indians motion to dismiss

UNITE HERE Opposition to Motion

Pala Band Reply Brief

DCT Opinion