The board of selectmen of East Windsor, Connecticut last week received an update on the $300 million satellite casino that MMCT Venture hopes to build in town.
The board is worried that recent legal roadblocks the tribes have encountered imperil the casino’s future.
MMCT Venture is the joint tribal authority of the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes, the operators of the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods; formerly bitter rivals who forged an alliance to build and operate a casino to help deflect the financial drain of the MGM Springfield Casino that opened in August, 14 miles away from East Windsor, just across the state line.
David Cappiello, a lobbyist for MMCT, told the board that the tribes are considering several options despite challenge such as the recent federal ruling that they couldn’t force the Department of the Interior to approve an amended tribal state gaming compact that they need to operate a casino.
The compacts were written in the 1990s but need to be amended because the tribes will be operating a commercial rather than tribal casino, and thus could technically be considered in violation of the compacts, which don’t allow commercial competition to the tribal casinos. The legislature amended the compacts, but Interior’s blessing is required for a tribe to operate a casino. Normally such action takes place within 45 days. However, the tribes waited for many months, without result.
The department has so far only allowed one of the amended compacts (the Mohegan tribe’s) to be published in the Federal Register and has sat on the other one. The tribes and the state congressional delegation fear that the Nevada congressional delegation suborned the Secretary of the Interior to do nothing.
The tribes and state sued in federal court to force Zinke’s hand, but the lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge several weeks ago. They say they will appeal.
The judge ruled that the compacts were not identical. Cappiello told the board of selectmen: “One is called a procedure because they predated compacts; the other is called a compact,” he said. “They’ve been treated the same for the last 20-something years by the Department of the Interior, but they said we’re treating them differently all of a sudden.”
Secretary Ryan Zinke is in fact now the subject of a probe by the Justice Department on this and other issues. Cappiello said this presents an opportunity to the tribes. He added that some lawmakers are “vehement” about changing the state law that requires the department’s blessing.
Asked if just one of the tribes, the Mohegans, could move forward, Cappiello said the state law mandates that both tribes must be equal participants.
He attributed the delays to the continuing lobbying and legal roadblocks thrown in the tribes’ path by MGM Resorts International, which has fought the tribes at every step.
“We have different options at our disposal legally, administratively, legislatively, and we’re looking into all of the best options to move forward,” he said.
The probe of Zinke was referred by the department’s inspector general to the Justice Department according to a report by the Washington Post that cited unnamed sources. At least three probes were conducted by the inspector general, so it’s uncertain whether the one referred to DOJ concerned the Connecticut tribes. Zinke has also been investigated for his involvement in a Montana land transaction and used his office to enrich himself.
Zinke recently told CNN that the DOJ investigation was politically motivated.
