A U.S. District Court agrees with the Martha’s Vineyard-based Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) that its dispute with the state of Massachusetts over a casino it wants to build on the western tip of the island belongs in federal rather than state court.
The judge, Dennis Saylor IV, in essence predicted that the tribe was likely to prevail in the case where Massachusetts claims that the tribe signed away its rights to offer gaming when it agreed to a land settlement in the 1980s. Saylor noted that the 8th Circuit ruled that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) “pre-empts state laws regulating gaming on Indian lands,” and that in general courts have held that Indian gaming rights trump state law.
Saylor set an August 6 court date for a scheduling conference for the case.
Bay State Governor Deval Patrick in December of 2013 sued the tribe, which had announced its intention to open a small Class II casino in a community center that has been unfinished for years. The tribe has a 400-acre reservation on Martha’s Vineyard, near the town of Aquinnah. Under federal law tribes can offer Class II gaming without state approval.
However, when the tribe acquired the land in 1983 it signed an agreement to abide by state and local land use laws. Five years later Congress adopted IGRA, which the tribe claims takes precedence over its agreement. The state’s position is that the agreement, which Congress later adopted, binds the tribe. The tribe has received two letters from federal agencies, including the National Indian Gaming Commission that offered opinions supporting the tribe’s case, but the judge noted that those letters “provide no basis for federal jurisdiction.”
Shortly after the Massachusetts legislature adopted the 2011 Expanded Gaming Act the Aquinnah sought to negotiate a tribal gaming compact with the Patrick administration. Patrick declined.
The Aquinnahs were quick to claim victory, citing Saylor’s statement,
“The fact that the central issue in this case necessarily requires an interpretation of federal Indian gaming law suggests that the jurisdictional question here is not particularly close.” Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Aquinnahs’ tribal gaming authority, issued a comment: “We are very pleased that Judge Saylor has recognized that the question of Aquinnah’s right to game is governed by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, passed by Congress in 1988, and belongs in federal court.”
Despite the judge’s footnote in his ruling that the opinions by the U.S. Department of the Interior and National Indian Commission do not constitute approval, Maltais went on in, “We now have all of the federal approvals required to proceed with gaming on our existing trust lands, and we are confident, in light of this decision, that the federal court will confirm Aquinnah’s sovereign and federal statutory rights to do so.”
