A tweet by President Donald Trump wasn’t able to kill the H.R. 312, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, and neither was a defection of two Democratic representatives from Rhode Island. The bill passed 275-to-146, with 47 Republicans crossing party lines to vote for putting land into trust for the Massachusetts tribe.
The bill still faces great uncertainty in the U.S. Senate.
The bill, if passed by Congress and signed by President Trump (a very big if) would put about 321 acres in Taunton and Martha’s Vineyard into trust for the Mashpees. It would allow them to build a $1 billion casino with its partner Genting Malaysia.
Rhode Island opposes the bill because it estimates a casino in Taunton would cost its two Twin River casinos about $37 million annually. Gaming is the Ocean State’s third largest source of government revenue. That amounts to about $300 million annually.
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s spokesman said last week, “She thinks it is a bad bill and is focused on protecting Rhode Island’s revenue.”
President Trump had tweeted two weeks ago, calling on Republicans to oppose the bill, mainly because of its connection to Democratic presidential contender Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom he derides as “Pocahontas,” because of her claims of having Indian blood in her ancestry.
One of Twin River’s lobbyists, Matthew Schlapp, whose wife is White House communications director, is credited with swinging Trump’s opposition to the bill. Warren’s involvement doesn’t help, however.
Other critics of the bill accuse the Mashpees of “reservation shopping” because they found land outside of their ancestral homeland and purchased it for a casino and tribal offices.
Rep. William Keating, who sponsored the bill in the House, said the vote gave him hope that it might pass in the Senate. He told the Providence Journal in a phone interview, “That was a significant vote that helps its chances a great deal,” adding “I think the central issue was that this was the tribe of the first Thanksgiving. It was an easily identifiable tribe, the only one in New England that was not federally]recognized.”
The bill is probably the tribe’s last hope for a sovereign reservation. The 2015 land into trust decision by the Department of the Interior was overturned by a federal judge a year later after the tribe had already broken ground on the First Light Casino & Resort. The judge ruled that the Taunton residents who sued were correct in their argument that the tribe was not able to demonstrate that it was under federal jurisdiction in 1934, as required by the Supreme Court decision Carcieri v. Salazar. The tribe was recognized by the federal government in 2009.
The judge gave the department a chance to find another route for the tribe but it wasn’t able to. Last year the Trump administration reversed the department’s previous decision.
Keating declared, “To deny them the right to their land is an absolute disgrace. Without land, the Mashpee Wampanoag are essentially treated as a second-class tribe with no ability to properly govern [their] people or provide essential services such as housing and education initiatives.”
During the House vote, Keating added, “The cast of characters behind the scenes spewing misinformation is revealing. Cultural warfare to benefit bank accounts. Corrupt intent for personal gain, all in the form of a racist tweet. And some members of this body are eager to let him get away with it — but not me, not my co-sponsors and not the majority of this House.”
Rep. Joe Kennedy, who represents the town of Taunton, had characterized the vote as a “matter of right and wrong, of correcting a historical injustice that has been perpetrated for far too long.”
One of the leaders of the opposition, Rep. Paul A. Gosar, argued that the bill would enrich a foreign corporation, Genting Malaysia. “Do you really want to vote for a $500 million bailout for a foreign gaming corporation?” he demanded.
Now that the battle shifts to the Senate, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse spokesman Meaghan McCabe said he would oppose bringing the bill up for a vote.
A spokesman for the state’s other senator, Jack Reed, said he opposed it too.
