Supreme Court update

Normally Indianz.com is hopelessly one-sided, but every now and again they produce some decent articles.

This article has a good recap of the Texas case that has recently gone to the Supreme Court.

Despite the success, tribes have faced numerous challenges, mainly from states that objected to gaming. While most have relented -- notably Florida and Oklahoma -- there are a handful that still won't agree to negotiate with tribes.

Texas remains the largest of these holdouts. The state has successfully blocked the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, also known as the Tigua Tribe, from engaging in any form of gaming on their reservations.

A third tribe, meanwhile, is limited to Class II games like bingo and electronic bingo machines. The Kickapoo Tribe believes it is entitled to additional types of gaming but the state refuses to negotiate a Class III compact.So Texas is just saying no. This has held up the Kickapoo tribe for years - I think we're going on 10. It will be interesting to see if this holds up in the Supreme Court. So far, lower court rulings have said that states cannot be forced to enter into a compact.A provision in IGRA allows the Interior Department to step in when a state won't come to the table. The Bush administration issued Class III secretarial procedures in hopes of resolving the issue for the Kickapoos.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, rejected the move. Last August, the court ruled that Secretary Dirk Kempthorne overstepped his bounds by cutting the state out of the process.

The court also invalidated the provision of IGRA that authorized Interior to step in. By a 2-1 vote, the judges said Texas was never found to be in "bad faith" as required by the law.

"The Secretary may not decide the state's good faith; may not require or name a mediator; and may not pull out of thin air the compact provisions that he is empowered to enforce," Chief Judge Edith H. Jones, a Reagan appointee, wrote in the 42-page opinion. "To infer from this limited authority that the Secretary was implicitly delegated the ability to promulgate a wholesale substitute for the judicial process amounts to logical alchemy."The fact is, that resistance by the state, region, or town presents significant problems. That is why the Mashpee Wampanoag were so determined to sign an agreement with Middleboro host a casino. Unfortunately for the town, we folded too quickly and sold ourselves cheap. In the end it may not matter since Massachusetts has given every indication that it does not want casinos and wants Indian casinos even less. That combined with the strong regional opposition will make things difficult for the tribe, cause years of delay(or complete defeat), and add up to millions of dollars in lost revenue for the backers.