In Florida House of Representatives v. Crist, the Florida Supreme Court held that Gov. Crist did not have authority to bind the State with a Class III gaming compact. We’ve posted the briefs here.
indian gaming regulatory act
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.
PPI v. Kempthorne — Challenge to Class III Secretarial Procedures
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.
Kickapoo v Texas — Texas Asked to Respond to Cert Petition
Mildly interesting development in the Kickapoo case regarding the CA5’s decision to strike down the so-called Class III procedures (aka the “Seminole” fix). Kickapoo filed the cert petition, a tribal amicus brief supported the petition, but then Texas declined to respond (which is a respondent’s prerogative, especially in a case where there does not appear to be a clean circuit split). The US, the defendant in the original case, filed a brief urging the SCT to decline the case, although the brief went into detail into just how wrong the government thought the CA5 decision was.
Now the Court has asked for Texas to respond. In my limited experience with the Court’s internal dynamics, the Court might do this as a means of delaying a decision on a cert petition, but for what, in this case, I don’t know.
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.
State of Alabama v. United States — Challenge to Class III Procedures
Following Texas’s successful challenge to the Class III procedures in the Fifth Circuit, Alabama is doing the same in the S.D. Ala. (part of the old 5th Circuit, now the 11th Circuit). This case involves the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
alabama-motion-for-preliminary-injunction
Ho-Chunk Nation v. Wisconsin Cert Petition
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.
Kickapoo v. Texas on Petitions to Watch List
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.
- Opinion below (5th Circuit)
- Petition for certiorari
- Brief in opposition (Federal respondent)
- Petitioner’s reply
- Amicus brief of Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, et al. (in support of the petitioner)
Mich. Senate Republicans Appear to Concede Gun Lake Compact Fight
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.”
California Gaming Compact Good Faith Negotiations Case
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
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