Florida Governor Rick Scott reportedly has negotiated a gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, granting the tribe exclusive rights to offer blackjack at their casinos. In exchange, the tribe will increase the current amount it gives the state by 40 percent, to at least 0,000 million annually.
If the legislature had allowed destination casino resorts in South Florida and expanded gambling at pari-mutuels, the Seminoles could have stopped making payments to the state.
Any agreement Scott may have reached with the tribe will have to be ratified by legislators. However, Democratic lawmakers who supported destination casinos in South Florida said unless they are allowed to participate in the negotiations, they will vote against any gambling agreement with the Seminoles.
State Rep. Jim Waldman said, “If you grant exclusivity or continue exclusivity to the Seminoles you have destroyed and ended that conversation. And I think the state would be making a tremendous mistake by ending the conversation. Unless we are at the table during the negotiations, we will not vote to ratify the contract should one be presented to us.”
And the state of Florida recently won a victory over the Seminole Tribe when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Florida Department of Revenue in a dispute over a refund of $393,247 the tribe paid in fuel taxes between June 7, 2009, and March 31, 2012. The Seminoles said they were entitled to the refund since the fuel was used to provide government services on tribal land.
The appeals court ruling declared sovereign immunity shields Department of Revenue and other top officials from the claims. “An Indian tribe can sue a state and its departments in federal court only if Congress has validly abrogated the immunity of the state or if the state has waived its immunity, but neither of those conditions has occurred here,” said the ruling, written by Judge William H. Pryor and joined by Judge Paul L. Friedman.
Previously the tribe unsuccessfully sued to get refunds of fuel tax paid in 2004, 2005 and part of 2006.
