Former U.S. Representative Dale Kildee said the Michigan Land Claims Settlement Act, which he authored and helped pass in 1997, was never intended to be used by Native American tribes to develop off-reservation casinos. Kildee said he is “deeply troubled” that the Act recently was cited in Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state cannot sue a tribe to prevent it from building an off-reservation casino.
Now, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians claim the Settlement Act requires the U.S. Department of Interior to approve their land trust applications for 2.7 acres in Lansing, where it wants to develop a $245 million gambling resort, and 71 acres in Huron Township.
But, in a letter to the Interior Department, Kildee wrote, “As the author of this legislation, and as the Congressman who steered this bill through the legislative process, I strongly reject any claim that any intended or unintended consequence was to authorize any type of gaming. In fact, if that were ever the case, I would have never sponsored the bill and the U.S. Congress would never have approved it.”
In the letter, Kildee wrote the law was intended to help settle the distribution of a settlement fund ordered by the Indian Claims Commission. In 1970, Congress appropriated $10 million to Chippewa and Ottawa tribes in the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan that were deemed unfairly compensated by the ICC for land ceded in an 1836 treaty. He added allowing the Michigan sites to be taken into trust for off-reservation casinos would not comply with certain provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. “I understand the Indians’ feeling, they want to expand, but this really upsets the balance we tried so hard to put into IGRA,” Kildee said.
The Sault Tribe said Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community would allow the land acquisitions. Tribal officials also noted earlier this month, state Attorney General Bill Schuette withdrew a lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court blocking tribes from filing land-trust applications.
In a statement, Sault Tribe Chairperson Aaron Payment said, “The law is clear: the Secretary is required to accept these parcels in trust. It is a clear, plain-language legal argument. Our Tribe is within federal law and our legal rights to pursue these opportunities to create thousands of new jobs and generate millions of dollars in new revenues that will benefit our members, the people of Lansing, public school students in Lansing, the people of Huron Township, and the entire state.”
Another issue concerns a prerequisite found in a 1993 compact between Michigan and the Sault tribe, that all 12 federally recognized Michigan tribes must agree to an off-reservation before a tribe applies to the Interior Department. Sault officials said that’s not necessary because their application is not specific to gaming. In addition, Sault Tribe General Counsel John Wernet said, “The purpose for what land will be used is irrelevant from the legal determination.”
But Wernet’s statement was called “very brazen” by James Nye, spokesman for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi and Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, which opposes the Sault’s casino plans.
