The Editor's Desk

These words have been tossed around by those opposing the Big Lagoon/Los Coyotes casinos as the reasons the state legislatures won’t approve the compacts.

I would classify that claim under the “weaselly ways” legislators have managed to duck the issue. In reality, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act does not require such ties to the land to be considered for gaming. Here’s what it says:

“Indian Lands” Acquired After Enactment of IGRA. Lands acquired in trust after IGRA’s enactment are generally not eligible for gaming if they are outside of and not contiguous to the boundaries of a tribe’s reservation. There are exceptions to this policy, however, that allow gaming on certain “after acquired” or “newly acquired” lands. One exception permits gaming on lands newly taken into trust with the consent of the governor of the state in which the land is located and SOI: (1) consults with state and local officials, including officials of other tribes; (2) determines “that a gaming establishment on the newly acquired lands would be in the best interest of the Indian tribe and its members”; and (3) determines that gaming “would not be detrimental to the surrounding community.”

That’s it. Now the other tribes the governor is obligated to consult with may object to the fact that the proposed tribes don’t have strong historical ties to the land, and that’s exactly what they’ve done, but that doesn’t obligate a particular decision from the state legislature. So again, they’re using a technicality to avoid taking responsibility for folding for money.

Again, I would point out that it’s not particularly shocking that tribes would use this method to try to stop a completing casino — it’s the legislators who are at fault for wimping out. (It’ll likely cost taxpayers millions of dollars if Big Lagoon restores their lawsuit over the state’s insistence they don’t build a casino on their environmentally sensitive reservation. But why should legislators care? — it’s not their money)

To be fair to the other side, the reverse is pretty much true as well. That the Chemehuevi won’t get permission to build a casino in Barstow is based on similarly arbitrary decisions by the government that work against them (that they already have a casino). We don’t have the power to alter the governor’s judgment in that area anymore than we have the power to alter the legislature in the matter of the Big Lagoon/Los Coyotes project.

Now if gambling were legal, none of this would be a problem at all. Though I suspect none of the tribes would be quick to give up their monopoly in exchange for such freedom.