gaming

Forest County Potawatomi Complaint re: Denial of Class III Gaming Compact — And Commentary

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

The Forest County Potawatomi Community has filed a complaint against the Department of the Interior over the disapproval of its gaming compact – the latest development in the Menominee Tribe’s efforts to develop a class III gaming facility in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Here are some initial thoughts about the case:

  1. These are very difficult cases to win. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, federal agencies have broad discretion in making decisions and interpreting statutory law.  The Department’s decision to disapprove the Forest County Potawatomi gaming compact strikes me as consistent with its approach in recent years to limit the scope of these types of agreements.
  2.  The Complaint alleges that the Department’s rejection of the compact “departed from long-established and consistent policies reflected in previous [compact] decisions…” However, the Department of the Interior has always expressed concerns over revenue sharing in gaming compacts.  In the past 15 years, the Department has also warned tribes that gaming compacts are not an appropriate means to restrict the ability of other Indian tribes to engage in gaming under IGRA – including the Forest County Potawatomi Community.  Finally, the Department of the Interior under the Obama Administration has rejected a number of gaming compacts for similar reasons.
  3. The Complaint alleges that “Potawatomi has not received what it bargained for:…the 50-mile non-competition zone.” Later, it asserts that “[Potawatomi] has paid the State over $243 million” for that benefit.  This sounds like Potawatomi intends the new compact to remedy the old compact’s supposed flaws, which is a tough sell considering the fact that the Forest County Potawatomi Community has enjoyed the exclusive right to operate a gaming facility in Milwaukee for more than two decades.  
  4. The Department’s decision to disapprove the Forest County Potawatomi gaming compact was based on its determination that the compact included terms that went far beyond what IGRA allows. The Complaint alleges that determination was wrong, and states, “IGRA expressly provides that a compact may include provisions that take into account the adverse economic impacts on existing gaming activities” and then cites 25 U.S.C. §§ 2710(d)(7)(A)(iii)(I) and 2710 (d)(3)(C)(vii).  Nothing in either of those sections of IGRA “expressly” allows a compact to include terms that mitigate a tribal gaming facility for lost profits.  The Department is going to get a lot of deference on its interpretation of those sections.
  5. The Complaint alleges that the Department had “a ministerial duty to approve the [Potawatomi] Compact amendment” because it was the product of an earlier compact amendment that survived the Department’s review. This is, perhaps, the biggest stretch in the complaint.  A court could see that argument as an effort to allow tribes and states to collude to avoid DOI review of gaming compact amendments.

Gaming compacts have become increasingly more complex, and the Department of the Interior has become much more active in reviewing those agreements.  This will be a difficult case for Forest County Potawatomi to win, as I suspect the Court will defer to the Department’s expertise in this area. All in all, there are lot of interesting questions for the court to consider in this matter.

Here are related documents:

1-1 Exhibit A — Compact Amendment

1-2 Exhibit B — Disapproval Letter

TalkPoverty: “Of Stereotypes and Slack Reporting Standards: The Economist’s Claim that Native American Gaming Leads to ‘Sloth'”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

An excerpt:

But an article in this week’s The Economist is a reminder that we haven’t put the bad old days of racially distorted coverage of poverty beyond us. The article claims “cash from casinos makes Native Americans poorer.” According to the author, a particular problem is that tribes distribute part of the revenues directly to members—typically known as “per capita payments”—which encourages “sloth.” The article is accompanied by a photograph of an American Indian man in front of a slot machine, a grin on his face and his arm pumped in the air.

Given research like Gilens’ and the long history of stereotyping American Indians as lazy, The Economist should have been particularly careful to ensure that it had solid evidence to back up its claim. In lieu of such evidence, The Economist relied on a few anecdotes and a single article by a private attorney published in a student-run law review.

We took a closer look at the law review article that The Economist relied on and were not impressed. It purportedly shows that poverty was more likely to increase in certain Pacific Northwest tribes that distributed part of their gambling revenues to members than in those that did not. But there were only seven tribes (out of a total of 17 that the article focused on) that did not distribute gaming revenues directly to members. The total reported decline in poverty among these seven tribes amounted to only 364 people. The study contained no controls for any of the many factors that affect poverty rates, nor did it take into account size differences in the tribes, differences in the size and structure of the per capita payments, or other relevant factors. In short, the study is absolutely useless in terms of providing meaningful evidence to supportThe Economist’s claim.

Ninth Circuit Decides Redding Rancheria v. Jewell (Affirming Section 20 Regulations)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion. The court’s summary:

The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the federal government insofar as it upheld the Secretary of the Interior’s denial of the application of Redding Rancheria (the Tribe) to operate multiple casinos on restored lands, and reversed in part and remanded to the agency for consideration of the Tribe’s proposal to close its existing Tribal gaming operation upon construction of a new facility.

The Secretary denied the Tribe’s request to take into trust a substantial parcel the Tribe recently acquired for the construction and operation of a new gambling casino. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act generally banned gaming on lands that tribes acquired after its enactment in 1988, but created an exception for tribes with restored lands. The agency denied the Tribe’s application because, at the time it was submitted, the Tribe was operating a modest casino on land it acquired earlier. The district court granted summary judgment to the government because the Tribe was seeking to operate multiple casinos, which the applicable regulations sought to prevent. While the application was pending, the Tribe advised the agency that it was willing to close down its original casino once the new one was in operation. 

The panel held that the regulation at issue was reasonable, and the Secretary reasonably implemented the restored lands exception. The panel further held that the Indian canon (which provides that where a statute is unclear, it must be liberally interpreted in favor of Indians) did not apply in the circumstances of this case. The panel also held that the Secretary’s denial of the Tribe’s application was not inconsistent with prior agency practice, and was not arbitrary and capricious. 

The panel held that the agency should have considered the Tribe’s alternative offer to move all gaming to the new casino, and vacated in part the district court’s summary
judgment with instructions to remand to the agency to address the issue.

Judge Callahan concurred in parts I, II, and III of the majority’s opinion; and agreed that the regulation at issue was reasonable, the Indian canon did not apply, and there was no unexplained change in agency policy. Judge Callahan dissented from part IV of the opinion because the Tribe did not fairly prompt the Secretary to consider its alleged offer to move its casino and did not ask the district court to consider the alleged offer to remove the casino. Judge Callahan would not reverse in part and remand for further consideration.

Briefs and other panel materials here.

Lower court materials here and here.

Forest County Potawatomi FOIA Suit against Interior over Menominee Fee to Trust Materials

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the complaint in Forest County Potawatomi Community v. Jewell (D. D.C.):

1 Complaint

An excerpt:

For over two years, Plaintiff Forest County Potawatomi Community (the “Community”) has attempted to obtain records from Defendants, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. §552 et seq., related to the Secretary of the Interior’s reconsideration of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin’s (“Menominee’s”) request to acquire land in Kenosha, Wisconsin, into trust for gaming purposes under Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act (“IRA”), 25 U.S.C. §465, and a request for a Secretarial Determination under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“IGRA”), 25 U.S.C. §2719(b)(1)(A) (the  “Kenosha Casino Application”). The Community sought the information as part of its effort to meaningfully consult with and provide comments to the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs (the “Assistant Secretary”) before he made critical decisions on the Kenosha Casino Application. Defendants have improperly withheld the requested records and have repeatedly violated their clear statutory obligations under FOIA. The Community seeks, inter alia, a declaratory judgment that Defendants are in violation of FOIA for improperly withholding records and engaging in a pattern and practice of violating FOIA, a finding that the Department of the Interior (“DOI”) personnel acted arbitrarily and capriciously and in violation of law in withholding records, and an order requiring Defendants to immediately and fully comply with the FOIA requests set forth herein.

California Law Review Comment on Indian Gaming and Worker’s Rights

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Jonathan Guss has published “Gaming Sovereignty? A Plea for Protecting Worker’s Rights While Preserving Tribal Sovereignty” (PDF) in the California Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

Tribally owned gaming facilities have become an increasingly popular vehicle for economic development throughout Indian Country. As an incidental consequence of this industry’s growth, many non-tribal members now come into contact with tribal-gaming enterprises as either customers or employees. Consequently, tribal gaming establishments have become a vital nexus in battles over what tribal sovereignty should entail in a modern social and economic context. Indeed, the legal framework surrounding these entities highlights a central tension within our modern-day federal Indian law regime-one that often forces tribal governments to choose between maintaining absolute sovereign self-governance on the one hand, and providing modes of economic development, such as gaming, on the other. Both state and federal authorities play a role in the often complex regulatory structure around labor relations at tribal-gaming facilities. This means that non-tribal members may take labor and employment disputes outside of tribal laws and courts-a situation that tribes regard as an incursion upon tribal sovereignty. Nonetheless, labor advocates argue that the opposite situation would give tribal employers little incentive to give fair, adequate protections to their workers.

This Comment seeks to address the tension between tribal sovereignty and workers’ rights by proposing a positive approach. In concrete terms, this approach seeks to funnel labor and employment disputes through tribal courts by strengthening tribal labor and employment laws and alternative dispute resolution systems. The positive approach represents a third way to tribal sovereignty- where tribes, much like other nation-states facing the perils of globalization, can navigate global and local power networks from a position of strength rather than remain outside of them. The positive approach can also benefit workers by creating a strong internal tribal authority to protect labor and employment rights and by fostering opportunities for tribes to settle disputes through traditional or culturally based dispute resolution practices. This approach is in stark contrast to the decidedly anti-worker positions that some tribes have recently adopted by passing right-to-work laws and waging court battles against unfavorable shifts in the law. While the positive approach has the significant drawback of curbing some traditional elements of tribal sovereignty, its chief strength is its pragmatism, in that it works within, rather than against, recent shifts in federal Indian law jurisprudence. The approach can also provide a blueprint for economic development and tribal self-governance that can successfully coexist.

Federal Court Dismisses Duluth Suit over Carter Hotel Property

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are the materials in City of Duluth v. Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians (D. Minn.):

12 Fond du Lac Motion to Dismiss

23 City Motion for PI

32 City Response to Motion to Dismiss

33 Find du Lac Response to Motion for PI

37 Fond du Lac Reply

38 City Reply

43 DCT Order Dismissing Complaint

Complaint was posted here.

Washington and 27 Tribes Agree on Compact Amendments

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

PRESS RELEASE: http://www.wsgc.wa.gov/publications/press-releases/compact-amendment-27-tribes-123014.pdf

COMPACTS: http://www.wsgc.wa.gov/publications/press-releases/summary-all-amendment-123014.pdf

Tenth Circuit Issues Amended Opinion in Oklahoma v. Hobia

Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

Here. Like its earlier decision, today’s amended opinion concludes that the district court erroneously granted the State’s request for a preliminary injunction and held that the State’s complaint, which alleged class III gaming activities on non-Indian lands, failed to state a claim under IGRA.

The Tenth Circuit also reiterated that arbitration provisions in the state’s gaming compact effectively barred Oklahoma from suing tribal officials in federal court for purported violations of the compact. The court remanded the matter to the Northern District of Oklahoma with instructions to vacate the preliminary injunction and to dismiss Oklahoma’s complaint with prejudice.

Also, the court denied the petition for en banc review.

Panel materials are here.

Student Scholarship on Mashantucket Pequot Tribe v. Town of Ledyard

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Connecticut Law Review has published “Mashantucket Pequot Tribe v. Town of Ledyard: The Preemption of State Taxes Under Bracker, the Indian Trader Statutes, and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.” It is here on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

The Indian Tribes of the United States occupy an often ambiguous place in our legal system, and nowhere is that ambiguity more pronounced than in the realm of state taxation. States are, for the most part, preempted from taxing the Indian Tribes, but something unique happens when the state attempts to levy a tax on non-Indian vendors employed by a Tribe for work on a reservation. The state certainly has a significant justification for imposing its tax on non-Indians, but at what point does the non-Indian vendor’s relationship with the Tribe impede the state’s right to tax? What happens when the taxed activity is a sale to the Tribe? And what does it mean when the taxed activity has connections to Indian Gaming?

This Comment explores three preemption standards as they were interpreted by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case between the State of Connecticut and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. In deciding whether preemption was the legally required outcome, the Court looked to and applied the landmark preemption analysis case White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, the Indian Trader Statutes, and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. While more than one legally correct outcome exists in this case, this Comment endorses and argues in favor of preemption based on the application of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and the preemption analysis required by Bracker.

Materials in Cayuga Nation v. Tanner

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Originally filed by Clint Halftown’s group against the Village of Union Springs to enjoin the village’s effort to regulate Class II bingo; now a challenge to the Halftown group by the Cayuga Nation Unity Council. News coverage here.

Here are the materials:

1 Complaint

5-1 Motion for PI

7 DCT Show Cause Order

27 Cayuga Nation Unity Council Motion to Intervene

28 Cayuga Nation Unity Council Motion to Dismiss

32 Defendants Cross-Motion to Dismiss

33 Plaintiffs Response

The IBIA decision on the Cayuga leadership dispute is here.

A state court decision on the leadership dispute is here.