Ho-Chunk Nation has filed a cert petition in its dispute over revenue sharing with the State of Wisconsin.
Here is the petition — hcn-cert-petition
Here is the docket site — No. 07-1402.
Here are the rest of the materials — CA7 opinion and some briefs — rest of the materials.
SCOTUSBlog isn’t taking any chances with Indian law now. 🙂
The Kickapoo v. Texas petition is on its watch list for the May 29, 2008 conference (here).
Docket: 07-1109
Case name: Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas v. Texas, et al.
Issue: Whether, following Seminole Tribe v. Florida (1996), the Secretary of the Interior may establish procedures for Indian gaming if a state declines to enter a compact with the Tribe and invokes immunity from suit under the 11th Amendment.
From Indianz:
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians is facing pressure to make sure its commercial casino in Detroit complies with state law.
The tribe has fallen behind on construction of a permanent Greektown Casino. Revenues have dropped and the facility’s debt-to-earnings ratio isn’t meeting state requirements. In hopes of resolving the issue, the tribe last week announced that it landed a $100 million investment. The tribe would retain 60 percent ownership of the casino. But the Michigan Gaming Control Board is questioning whether the deal will resolve the tribe’s financial concerns. The board gave the tribe until June 10 to defend its future.
Get the Story:
Greektown Casino financing questioned (The Detroit News 5/14)
From the AP:
DETROIT (AP) — If smoking is banned in Detroit bars, restaurants and workplaces, Betty Gilbert says it will hurt the city’s casinos.
Gilbert, who was smoking a cigarette Friday with members of her bowling team on a sidewalk near Greektown Casino downtown, should know. The 69-year-old from Cape May County, N.J. — who said she usually gambles weekly in Atlantic City — plans to cut back when that city’s smoking law goes into effect.
“If they cut out the smoking, they should also cut out the drinking,” Gilbert said.
A ban passed by the Michigan Senate on Thursday now heads to the House, which passed a narrower bill five months ago. If the new bill becomes law, smokers could pass up the trip downtown to gamble and head instead to Indian casinos, which aren’t affected, industry observers said.
From ICT:
The federal government’s recent actions involving its authority to make decisions on acquiring land in trust for tribal gaming purposes may inadvertently threaten the authority and duty of the secretary of the Interior Department to take land into trust for Indian tribes.
On April 29, the D.C. Circuit decided an innocuous case involving the secretary of Interior’s decision to take land into trust for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (also known as the Gun Lake Band). It was the third such opinion in recent years involving Michigan Potawatomi Indian tribes, each brought by well-funded citizens groups opposing Indian gaming. The suits were mere harassment suits, intended to delay rather than prevent the opening of the Potawatomi gaming operations. Each of the suits brought similar claims.
Of import, one claim was that Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act, the statute that authorizes the secretary to take land into trust for Indian tribes, was an unconstitutional delegation of congressional authority. The first two D.C. Circuit panel decisions (2006 and 2007), involving the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, rejected the constitutional challenge to Section 5 without much discussion or dissent. In fact, since 1995, at least three other federal appellate circuits have rejected the same kind of challenge to the statute, so this is unsurprising.
The case is In Re DeCora. It involves a Ho-Chunk member declaring bankruptcy and whether the Ho-Chunk Nation Bank’s interest in the member’s per cap proceeds were secured. The opinion is a little entertaining, beginning with a reference to Frank Zappa:
Musician and satirist Frank Zappa once quipped that “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” Whether this is an accurate take on geopolitical realities or not, the concept of personal property rights is certainly deeply ingrained into American culture and jurisprudence. In America, people may own all the stuff they can afford, and they can sell or give their stuff to someone else. Even when life doesn’t take Visa (or some other unsecured form of credit), people find ways to use their stuff as collateral for loans so that they can run out and buy more stuff. The present case involves competing interests in an intangible bit of stuff that this Court has encountered before-namely, a debtor’s right to receive tribal per capita distributions from tribal gaming revenues. The debtor used his right to future distributions as collateral for a loan so that he could afford, among other things, a new car. The question is whether the creditor took sufficient steps to protect its security interest from challenge.
The court also cites to numerous Ho-Chunk tribal court opinions. For example:
Third, the tribal courts of the Ho-Chunk Nation have themselves indicated that tribal members have a right to per capita distributions, if and when they are made, as long as that member is on the rolls of the Ho-Chunk Nation. See Kedrowski, 284 B.R. at 448-49; Hendrickson v. HCN Enrollment, CV 99-10 (Ho-Chunk Nation Trial Court 1999).
Here are the materials:
From the GR Press:
LANSING — Legislative opponents of a Wayland Township casino may be ready to fold their cards after last week’s federal appeals court ruling in favor of the Gun Lake tribe.
Republicans who control the state Senate will meet this week to discuss whether to continue their block on a gaming compact between the state and the tribe.
“At some point, you need to take a look at what the reality is,” said Matt Marsden, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.
“We can oppose it and wax on about the ills of gaming,” Marsden said Monday. “But the fact of the matter is, it’s not a gaming issue at this point, it’s a regulatory matter.”
From the Detroit News (H/T Indianz):
Owners of the Greektown Casino may sidestep a potential state-ordered sale after a group of suburban businessmen announced Tuesday it will invest $100 million in the struggling downtown Detroit gambling operation.
The casino’s owners, Greektown Holdings LLC, already had missed an April deadline from the state to bring its financial performance up to required levels, and saw its debt downgraded in April by two major rating agencies over fears the state would force a sale by the end of June.
Now, Bloomfield Hills-based Entertainment Interests Group LLC, says it will buy a 40 percent stake in Greektown.
The deal needs approval by the Michigan Gaming Control Board.
I spoke to the author of this news article yesterday. He quotes me as making yet another prediction on whether the Court will grant cert as being “zero,” but what I thought I said was that MichGo’s chances of getting a stay is close to zero. I did say that I think a plausible Section 5 challenge will have to come from a different fact pattern, such as an off-reservation fee to trust decision, assuming there will ever be any again. Or a decision involving a wealthy gaming tribe like Oneida or Mashantucket Pequot.
Of note, the reporter told me that the MichGo attorney thought that the Carcieri case was a good sign for MichGo, in part because so many states signed on to an amicus brief supporting the cert petition. He thinks those states will support MichGo’s petition, too. But I wonder. States like Michigan and California are actually banking on the revenues from new Indian gaming operations in order to help balance their budgets. I don’t think these states would sign on, or else they’d be hurting themselves.
From Indianz:
An Indian law professor says there’s “zero” chance the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a land-into-trust case involving the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan. Matthew L.M. Fletcher, an assistant professor of law and director of the Indigenous Law & Policy Center at Michigan State University, said the court, at some point, will hear a challenge to the Indian Reorganization Act. The 1934 law authorized the land-into-trust process and opponents say it is unconstitutional. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and ruled that the Bureau of Indian Affairs can acquire 147 acres for the tribe. A casino and other development are planned at the site. One judge, however, agreed that Section 5 of the IRA is unconstitutional. A group called Michigan Gambling Opposition hopes to convince the Supreme Court that the law is too broad. But Fletcher says the case is bogged down by other details to make it appeal-worthy. “I don’t think there’s any chance,” he told The Grand Rapids Press. “I really think the odds are close to zero that the Supreme Court would hear it.”
Get the Story:
Foes of Gun Lake Casino cling to slim legal hope (The Grand Rapids Press 5/2)
Gun Lake casino opponents down to last try (The Muskegon Chronicle 5/2)
The case, reported on Indianz (here), is Rincon Band v. Schwarzeneggar. Here are the materials:
first-amended-complaint-rincon-v-schwarzenegger
rincon-motion-for-summary-judgment
Turtle Talk 
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