A federal judge who in July ruled that the Department of the Interior erred in 2015 when it put land into trust in Taunton for the Massachusetts tribe: the Mashpee Wampanoags, has refused to reconsider despite the intervention of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The department had put 321 acres into trust for the tribe, including 151 in Taunton that would have allowed the tribe to build its $1 billion First Light Casino and Resort.
Judge William Young let stand his earlier ruling in favor of a group of land owners from East Taunton who had challenged the right of the tribe to put land into trust given the 2009 Carrier v Salazar decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled that tribes recognized by the federal government after 1934 cannot put land into trust. The federal government recognized the Mashpee tribe in 2007. The judge added that the Department has the option of using a different rationale than it used to approve of putting the land into trust.
Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell has said he doesn’t consider the decision to be a setback, especially since the tribe has been granted the right to be included in the case, which was originally filed against the Department of the Interior.
Cromwell told the Taunton Daily Gazette, “The United States has a full opportunity here to further address our request to have our land in trust and we expect any setback caused by the court’s initial decision will be temporary,” he said. Cromwell said that the Interior Department, “is free and fully able to consider (the criteria) under the first part of the statute” dealing specifically with the government’s authority to take land into trust ‘for Indian tribes under federal jurisdiction.’ ”
On the other hand, the lead plaintiff, East Taunton land owner Michelle Littfiefield, has said that she too is happy with the court’s ruling. “This reaffirms what we’ve said all along,” she declared. About two-dozen persons are included in the complaint.
She opined that the Interior Department is unlikely to rewrite its 2015 decision to fit the requirements of the court.
At the moment all construction on the casino is in limbo.
The tribe’s backer, the Genting Group, has so far stood by the tribe. So has the city of Taunton, which will be paid $8 million a year if the casino opens.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which earlier declined to issue a license for the southeastern gaming zone to the lone proposal—a casino in Brockton— in deference to the Taunton casino—because it didn’t want to have two casinos competing in the same market— last week expressed frustration that the region. That part of Massachusetts, one of the most “economically disadvantaged and challenged” in the state according to one commissioner, would not benefit from the economic engine of a casino.
Commission member Lloyd MacDonald said, “Once the legal landscape is clarified, I hope we all work diligently to respond to the economic need in that region.”
MacDonald was the only commissioner who voted in favor of the Brockton casino last April.
At the time when the proponents of the Brockton proposal were making their case, one of their selling points was that the casino could be up and running by 2017. Their other point was that the lawsuit against the tribe had the potential to slow down their casino by years.
The commission majority didn’t buy those arguments. It now finds itself with something approaching buyer’s remorse. Recently Stephen P. Crosby, chairman of the commission, said at a meeting, “We’ve got to figure out how to make something happen,” but said that for the moment the panel would “sit tight.” He noted that a casino in the region would generate between $50 million to $100 million in state taxes. “That’s the tension we are wrestling with,” he said.
On the other hand, if the commission HAD granted the license to the Brockton casino, it would have lost out completely on the casino tax from the tribe. The tribal state gaming compact obligates the tribe to pay 17 percent if it has a monopoly in the region.
The tribe would still have the option of seeking the license itself, independent of its status of having the land in trust. Littlefield says she would not object to that, but only objects to the land being sovereign tribal land.
