The 113th Congress failed to adopt a measure that would block the Tonoho O’odham Nation from building its casino in Glendale, Arizona, despite strenuous efforts by the state’s senior U.S. Senator, John McCain.
McCain’s bill to prevent the tribe from building in Glendale until 2027 passed in the House as H.R.1410, the Keep the Promise Act, but failed to get a majority in the Senate. That could change in the new Congress, which will have a larger Republican majority in the House, and have a majority in the Senate for the first since 2006.
Nevertheless the failure to adopt such a bill encouraged the Tonoho tribe, whose chairman Ned Norris Jr. declared last week, “It is time for our opponents to stop wasting millions of dollars on frivolous lawsuits and lobbying campaigns and time for us all to move forward together with creating economic opportunity for the entire West Valley.”
Gregory Mendoza, chairman of the Gila River Indian Community, which opposes the Glendale casino, is optimistic that the 114th Congress will pass the bill and prevent what he terms as a “catastrophe for Arizona tribes and neighborhoods.”
McCain’s bill would rewrite a previous act of Congress that paid the tribe compensation for the loss of tribal land that was inundated by a federal dam project. It allowed the tribe to buy land with the money in three Arizona counties, including the county that includes Glendale.
The city of Glendale, which spent millions to fight the tribe in court, recently made its peace with the Tohonos and signed an agreement that will pay the city $25 million over 20 years. The tribe broke ground on the casino earlier this year. It plans to begin operations by the end of 2015.
That leaves the Gila River Indians as the main opponent of the casino along with the state of Arizona. Both assert that when voters approved of the 2002 initiative that included gaming compacts with all of the state’s tribes, that it was with the understanding that there would be no more casinos in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
That interpretation has been ruled irrelevant by U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell, who said that the ballot measure allowed the tribe to build. His decision has been appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
