Californians in 2014 will decide whether the 2000 state constitutional amendment, Prop. 1A, authorizing casinos on tribal lands also allows them on off-reservation lands.
A referendum that qualified for the November ballot will put the fate of the casino that the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians want to build in the Central Valley in the hands of voters. The initiative was put forward by Stand Up for California, a casino watchdog group, but largely funded by gaming tribes in the southern part of the state who oppose tribes being allowed to put casinos in urban areas.
About $2 million was spent to gather the necessary 500,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
The tribe in question says its reservation wasn’t appropriate for a casino, so it bought 350 acres in Madera County that was part of what it considers its aboriginal homeland.
Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up for California said that unless the reservation shopping is stopped that Governor Jerry Brown would be able to put a casino anywhere he wants one. “This is an irresponsible action because it upsets what the procedures were in constitutional law when we voted in Prop. 1A,” she said.
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, one of the main contributors to the initiative, also opposed the gaming compact with the North Fork tribe. However, it insists that the compact violates the state constitution.
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians says allowing the casino to go forward would violate the A1’s promise to the people of California.
Charles Banks-Altekruse, spokesman for the North Fork tribe, responds, “We think it’s a really sad development when a couple of local gaming tribes and their Wall Street backers can upend the desire of the local community, the state of California and the federal government, who spent nearly a decade examining this issue.” He disputes the notion that his tribe’s casino qualifies as “off-reservation,” because the tribe maintains the land is part of its historic homeland.
Stand Up for California has also challenged the compact in federal court.
Some political observers blame the Obama Administration’s more permissive policies on off-reservation for sparking this opposition in California and elsewhere.
The number of tribes recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs has risen dramatically since Obama took office. Most of the tribes recognized and allowed to build casinos were rejected under the previous administration.
Five off-reservation applications have been processed by the administration, but many more are pending. According to Michael J. Anderson, an Indian law attorney quoted by the Los Angeles Times, “The Obama administration has taken the bolder approach. The approvals granted by the Bush administration were in cases where there was no significant opposition.”
Because California has more tribes than any other state, the opposition to the more permissive policy has found its strongest focus there. Some state lawmakers are starting to be alarmed by the trend. In 2013 Senator Kevin de Leon sent a letter to the governor asking him to hold off on any further off-reservation compacts.
California’s senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein is a longtime critic of off-reservation casinos, and has tied any movement on a Carcieri “fix,” i.e. doing something about the Supreme Court Decision of 2009 that said that tribes recognized after 1934 cannot put land into trust, to also reining in the practice.
In recent testimony before a congressional subcommittee, the senator declared, “As it is now, a tribe can buy a mall somewhere in a community, shut it down and open a gaming establishment.”
At the same hearing Rep. Don Young of Alaska said, “It’s remarkable how tone-deaf the administration has been to concerns expressed by members of Congress, Indian tribes and others with respect to off-reservation casinos.”
Gaming tribes that operate the most successful existing casinos generally oppose letting other tribes establish casinos near urban areas.
