The editors complain about everything, and then assert whole states and localities should be allowed to vote on whether Indian gaming can come to the community. But the first two comments on the website have powerful responses.
Gun Lake Band
Supreme Court Declines to Lift Gun Lake Stay
From TV:
ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has dealt a blow to the West Michigan tribe trying to build a casino near Wayland.
Justice John Roberts has denied the tribe’s request to vacate a stay issued by a Washington DC circuit court. That court said that the tribe would have to wait until after the Supreme Court hears the latest challenge from the anti-gambling group MichGO.
Many speculate that Roberts’ decision is an indication that the court will hear that challenge, but that may not happen until sometime in 2009. So, for now, the Gun Lake Tribe has to wait and cannot start construction on the casino in Allegan County.
“Many speculate?” Since there has not even been a cert petition filed yet, I don’t see any reason to speculate on anything yet.
Gun Lake Band Moves to Vacate Stay
The Gun Lake Band has filed an application to Chief Justice Roberts to vacate the stay issued by the D.C. Circuit preventing the Secretary from taking its Shelbyville, Michigan parcel into trust for gaming purposes. Here is the docket sheet so far.
BIA Repairs Roads in Wayland Township
from the Kalamazoo Gazette:
WAYLAND TOWNSHIP — Motorists who are enjoying smooth rides on a section of Sixth Street in Wayland Township can thank the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which helped fund the repaving of the road.
Monte Davis, an environmental specialist for the Gun Lake Band of Potawatomi Indians, said Sixth Street between 126th and 129th avenues was repaved between July 23 and 25. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held there July 28.
Of the project’s $308,000 cost, the township is paying $108,000 and the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Reservation Roads Program is paying $200,000.
Davis said the Gun Lake Band joined the program in 2006. He said he learned in June 2007 that the funding for the Sixth Street project was coming.
“We’re very happy for the tribe, the township and the county. The road was one of the worst roads in Allegan County,” Davis said.
The Allegan County Road Commission’s managing director, William Nelson, said the funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the first contribution for roads that the county will receive from the agency.
MichGO v. Kempthorne — Stay Issued
From the AP:
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has issued a stay preventing a proposed tribal casino in Allegan County from moving forward.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order Friday pending a potential review from the U.S. Supreme Court. Opponents of the casino have asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The Gun Lake tribe wants to build a $200 million casino in Allegan County’s Wayland Township. A group called Michigan Gambling Opposition has spent years trying to stop the casino from being built.
The appeals court sided with the tribe earlier this year, upholding a decision by the federal government to set aside 147 acres of land where the casino would be built near Grand Rapids.
ICT on MichGO’s Ongoing Legal Wrangling
From ICT:
WAYLAND COUNTY, Mich. – In an effort to take advantage of every possible opportunity to delay the Gun Lake Tribe’s casino, the anti-Indian casino group Michigan Gambling Opposition – MichGO – has asked a court to stop all further action while the group files a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.
MichGO’s latest tactic followed a July 25 ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denying the group’s request for a full panel, or en banc, rehearing of the court’s 2 – 1 decision in April upholding a district court decision to allow the Interior Department to take 147 acres of land into trust for the tribe’s proposed $200 million casino.
D.C. Circuit Denies Petition for Rehearing in MichGo v. Kempthorne
Here is the order — michgo-rehearing-denial
Three judges (Sentelle, Griffith, and Rogers) voted to rehear the case en banc, three short of the necessary votes. Of course, that semi-near miss gives the attorneys for MichGO fodder for making noise about a cert petition (see news report here).
I really have to think that this case is getting so much attention — not because of the merits of the case — but because these same lawyers have been working on three cases so far (TOMAC, CETAC, and now MichGO) and this is finally the end. It bears repeating that these three cases were all carbon-copy cases, with little to differentiate them at all. They have almost no merit whatsoever, and even the D.C. Circuit all but labeled them frivolous in the CETAC opinion. The Gun Lake case is no different than the previous cases, except it is the last one.
En Banc Petition in MichGO v. Kempthorne
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.
Commentary on the MichGO En Banc and Cert Petitions
MichGo’s attorney asserts a plan to file a cert petition (see below the fold for the news article), and even boasts that he has three votes for cert already — Scalia and Thomas because they dissented in the South Dakota case in 1996, and Roberts because he represented a party making a nondelegation claim to 25 U.S.C. sec. 465 in 1999/2000.
This is spurious, given very recent events.
The Department of Interior just issued nearly-final IGRA Section 20 [25 U.S.C. 2719] regulations. These were the regulations I was talking about in my ICT editorial (not knowing they were about to be finalized). The very existence of these regulations severely blunts Judge Brown’s dissent in the D.C. Circuit case. Here, the Secretary is finally agreeing to formalize restrictions on his discretion contained in section 5 of the IRA [25 U.S.C. 465] in the context of Section 20 trust acquisitions.
One could make a plausible claim that, to the extent the SCT would be persuaded by a solitary dissent in a very minor case (nationally), it is now all but a dead letter.
What the D.C. Circuit should do is amend its decision to reflect the existence of the new regs, adding another nail to the coffin of the Section 5 nondelegation argument.
Finally, as MichGO’s attorney should know, one solitary dissent does not a circuit split make.
John Shagonaby in the Allegan News re: Gun Lake Casino
From the Allegan News:
To the editor: In response to Kathy Cassady’s letter—“Think tribal ancestors wanted casino?” No, our ancestors simply wanted to retain our land, culture and sovereignty.
Upon learning that the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in yet another court case that the Gun Lake tribe has the right to build a casino, Chairman D.K. Sprague thanked the Creator because our families have suffered economically and socially for centuries; ever since we lost all the land everyone else currently enjoys, including Kathy Cassady.
Turtle Talk 
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