Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Nation, which operates the Desert Diamond Casino West Valley and is enmeshed in a lawsuit with the State over certification of its ability to offer Class III gaming, has declined Governor Doug Ducey’s offer of a settlement: a new compact recognizing the tribe’s rights to operate its casino, and open more gaming for other tribes.
The tribe’s cold shoulder appears to indicate that the tribe thinks it can do better by continuing the lawsuit against the state.
After Ducey announced his offer the federal judge, David Campbell asked if he should still hear legal arguments from both sides. The attorney for the tribe said that since the state had offered the deal as “take it or leave it,” the tribe chose to leave it.
The attorney wrote, “Although the nation is still reviewing the state’s proposal and determining how to respond, the proposal’s current terms are unlikely to be acceptable to the nation for a number of reasons.”
According to Tribal Chairman Edward Manuel there are some terms that have not yet been revealed. One of them may be that the tribe would have to agree not to oppose federal legislation that would limit its rights to further expand gaming in the Phoenix Valley.
Given that the two sides have not come together, Judge Campbell announced that he is ready to hear oral arguments.
Governor Ducey’s legal counsel, Michael Liburdi said he was puzzled by the tribe’s attitude. “This is what they say they want in the litigation,’’ he said, i.e. Class III gaming. “And we’re willing to give it to them.’’ He speculated that perhaps the tribe wants to preserve its ability to open additional casinos.
However, Chairman Manuel denied that is the case. He said the tribe is willing to consider language that would shut the door to more casinos in the area. That possibility apparently remains active because the Tohono tribe may be exempted by the current compact because its land was acquired through purchase using money from a federal land settlement.
In 1986 Congress voted to pay the tribe $30 million as a settlement for its land that was lost to inundation created by the Gila Bend dam project.
The tribe filed its current lawsuit when the state denied certification for its Class III games, claiming that because the tribe concealed its plans to build a casino in the Phoenix Valley from the voters in 2002, when the tribal state gaming compacts were approved, that it committed fraud.
Other gaming tribes, and the state, have long felt that the tribe violated the spirit of the 2002 compacts.
The state has no authority to regulate Class II gaming, something the Glendale casino has offered for a year now.
Ducey wants to settle the case—but he wants to make sure another casino isn’t in the offing. His proposal recognizes reality: that the tribe is operating a casino. But it also wants to close the door to further casinos by the tribe while opening more gaming activities to the state’s ten other gaming tribes.
The Gila River Indian Community and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, two of the largest gaming tribes in the state, earlier this year resigned from the Arizona Indian Gaming Association, declaring “actions of the Tohono O’odham Nation to secretly develop a casino in direct opposition to the promises made by AIGA and other tribes has destroyed AIGA’s unity and undermined the principles of the organization.”
Currently the state collects about $100 million from Indian gaming revenue sharing.
