Connecticut’s two U.S. senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy are pressuring the Bureau of Indian Affairs to rule favorably on the plans by the state’s two gaming tribes, the Mohegans and the Pequots to build a commercial casino in East Windsor with 3,000 slots and 150 gaming tables.
Although the casino would not be a “tribal casino” under the definition of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) the state law authorizing it requires that the BIA give it a favorable ruling before it can go forward.
They are fighting pressure by MGM Resorts International for the BIA to withhold that ruling since MGM is trying to drag out the delays the tribes are experiencing as they seek to build a casino that would partially shield tribal gaming revenues from being Hoovered up by the MGM Springfield in Massachusetts when it opens next year 14 miles from the state line.
The BIA has yet to issue a ruling on the amended tribal state gaming compact which would allow the tribes to operate the planned $300 million satellite casino without violating the compact’s stricture against allowing a commercial casino to compete against tribal casinos.
That the BIA has not ruled has created uncertainty, which the state’s Attorney General George Jepsen has warned the state could create legal problems if the tribes proceed without a ruling, and that it would pose “grave potential risks to the state of Connecticut.”
MGM has aggressively fought the tribes at every turn to keep them from building the satellite casino, and has challenged in court their exclusive right to build the casino—so far without success.
Several weeks ago, it added a complication by unveiling a proposal for a $675 million casino in Bridgeport, near the state line with New York. It’s a casino the state has not said it wants, but city officials in Bridgeport favor it.
The senators’ letter to Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, who oversees the BIA, asking for a review and ruling on the amended compact, says “The genesis of the compact amendments is the desire of the state of Connecticut to authorize an additional casino operation within Connecticut borders. This is a decision based on the state’s review of its gaming policies, the impact on the people of Connecticut and the state budget.”
MGM asserts that until the Department rules on the compact, that it constitutes a refusal, and would violate the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) under which all tribal gaming operates. Pointing to Jepsen’s warning, MGM spokesman Uri Clinton last week said the letter by the senators, raised “no new issues and provides no new information,” adding, “It also does not address the risks to the state of proceeding with tribes’ proposed casino without Interior approval that have been emphasized by Attorney General Jepsen’s office.”
The original 1990 compact between the state and tribes guaranteed them exclusive rights to conduct gaming in the state in return for paying 25 percent of their profits to the state. Jepsen worries that even if the competition is provided by themselves that the state is in jeopardy of losing those payments.
The money the state has collected has dropped from $430 million ten years ago to $260 million this year. The state estimates that the effect of the MGM Springfield would drop that amount to below $200 million.
The tribes had asked the Department to rule on the compact by September 15, but that deadline came and went. They want to start work on the casino by the end of 2017.
Meanwhile, Andrew Doba of MMCT, the joint tribal authority that would run the casino, said that the tribes are “looking at all of their options.” Which could include a lawsuit against the Interior Department to force some sort of action.
The tribal casino would be ground breaking in another way, in that it would be the first time a gaming tribe has operated a casino on land that hasn’t been put in trust.
Last month Zinke met with tribal representatives, at which time he asked them to submit information on why the department should rule on the compact’s legality. They demanded the meeting when they got a noncommittal letter from the acting assistant secretary for the BIA, who wrote that “action on the amendments is premature and likely unnecessary.”
The lobby for the tribes and against MGM and in reverse has been sort of a battle of the senators since U.S. Senator John McCain, who co-authored IGRA in 1988 and Nevada’s Senator Dean Heller and Rep. Mark Amodei have pressured the department for MGM. Other heavy hitters MGM has contracted with include former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Critics say that the tribes are attempting to expand Indian gaming off the reservation without going through the process of taking land off the reservation and putting it into trust.
Doba has called Amodei and Heller MGM’s “bought and paid for congressman and senator.” Other MGM lobbyists include former Senator Majority Leader retired Senator Harry Reid. MGM has so far spent $2 million this year lobbying Washington.
The Trump administration is sensitive about off-reservation gaming applications, which it is taking steps to rein in—a direct rebuttal of the Obama administration’s relatively open-ended policy. Zinke has reserved all such decisions to his office, and not by BIA career officers.
The tribes argue that under IGRA if the BIA does not actually rule on a compact, either for or against, that it is “deemed approved.”
Casino Negligence
In a separate but related development, the Foxwoods Resort Casino has been named by a lawsuit over a man who died there in October 2016 when he fell from a hotel balcony to his death.
The family of the man, Alonzo Depina, 22, accuses hotel staff of negligence because he was able to access the balcony, which is normally kept locked.
According to James Harrington, an attorney for the family, “We are claiming negligence because he got the key to the balcony from hotel staff. The balcony has a railing and ledge that make access to it very easy.”
Harrington is the same attorney who successfully argued the Lewis v. Clarke case before the U.S. Supreme Court that held that a limousine driver employed by Mohegan Tribe was not protected by sovereign immunity when he caused a car accident and the victims sued for damages.
