The Eighth Circuit Court recently ruled that the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska can move forward on its plan to build a casino on five acres in Iowa. The court unanimously determined a 1990 law allowing the tribe to conduct business in the state does not exclude gambling.
U.S. Circuit Judge Steven Colloton wrote the 1990 Ponca Restoration Act does allow a parcel of land the tribe purchased in Carter Lake, Iowa, can be considered restored land without restrictions on the tribe’s plan to conduct gaming there. Colloton wrote, “Congress has shown that it knows how to limit a tribe’s ability to conduct gaming on its land when it wishes to do so. The Ponca Restoration Act, by contrast, contains no language limiting gaming or the ‘restoration of lands’ for the tribe.”
An 1858 treaty guaranteed the Ponca a permanent reservation, but the same land later was included in a treaty with the Lakota/Sioux. The Ponca were forced to move from their historic lands to Oklahoma in 1877.
The tribe was de-recognized by the federal government from 1966 to 1990 when the Ponca Restoration Act granted recognition and services to Ponca members living on reservations in 15 counties across Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.
Since the tribe purchased the Carter Lake land in 1999, the state of Iowa has sued to stop the Bureau of Indian Affairs from taking it into trust for the tribe’s benefit. That litigation was terminated and the land was put into trust in 2002 when the Ponca promised to build a tribal clinic, not a casino, on the land.
However, in 2007, the tribe sought authorization from the National Indian Gaming Commission to conduct gaming on the land. It received permission in 2017 after a number of appeals including the first in the Eighth Circuit. But then the Ponca Tribe was sued by the city of Council Bluffs, Iowa; that lawsuit soon was joined by Iowa and Nebraska. The plaintiffs argued the land was not eligible to be designated “restored Lands” under the Ponca Restoration Act and could not be used for gambling.
Colloton write, “That Congress specified a geographic area in which the secretary is required to accept land for the tribe under the Ponca Restoration Act does not mean that only land within that area can be part of the restoration of lands for the tribe. “
