The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Gaming Authority in Taunton, Massachusetts, has apparently closed and phone calls to the number there get a recording that says the number has been disconnected.
Last week the tribe itself laid off some employees, effective January 12, citing budget concerns. One termination letter said, “recent changes to the tribe’s funding source and litigation around potential gaming enterprise have caused this layoff.” It also stated, “We value your commitment to the tribe and while this layoff is permanent, it is not related to your individual performance.”
The closing and layoffs seem related to the collapse of the tribe’s efforts to build the First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton, although a spokesman for tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said the layoffs were part of that effort to put land into trust.
Cromwell told the Cape Cod Times, “The tribe has taken steps to conserve resources to ensure that it can fight to protect its current trust lands for however long it takes, whether the litigation lasts months or many years.” He added, “With those resources now secured, the tribe is confident it will outlast any challengers and ultimately prevail.”
This chain of events has caused the group of Taunton residents who challenged in federal court the tribe’s efforts to build a $1 billion casino in the town to cautiously declare a preliminary victory.
Their attorney told the Taunton Gazette: “It appears they have packed up and left the site.” Other opponents say they believe the tribe’s dream of a casino are as good as dead.
The tribe is also apparently closing its tribal offices in Taunton, although no tribal official would confirm that.
Supporters say that the U.S. Department of the Interior could still step forward with a new methodology for putting the 151 acres in Taunton into trust, but Taunton Mayor Tom Hoye, a longtime supporter of the casino, isn’t betting the farm on that possibility.
“We’ll wait to see how this plays out, but I’m also realistic,” he told the Gazette. “My concern at this point is the city of Taunton. There will be a casino in southeastern Massachusetts. The people of Taunton have spoken saying they would love to see it here.”
The decision by the Interior Department to put the land into trust for the tribe two years ago was challenged in federal court, which ruled in July 2016 that the action violated the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which says that a tribe cannot put land into trust unless it can show that it was under federal jurisdiction before that date. The tribe was officially recognized in 2007.
In the now infamous (at least in tribal circles) 2009 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Carcieri v. Salazar, the high court ruled that the government could not put a Rhode Island tribe’s land into trust because the tribe wasn’t under federal jurisdiction in 1934.
The law provides three criteria for qualifying as Indian: 1) “All persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe now under federal jurisdiction” 2) “All persons who are descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation”; and 3) “All other persons of one-half or more Indian blood.”
The department, mindful of the Carcieri ruling, used the second definition when it put the Taunton land into trust. The U.S. District Court judge rejected that, saying it violated the “plain meaning” of the law. Last April the Department of Justice dropped its appeal of that ruling, although the Department of the Interior began looking for an alternative way of putting the land into trust, using the first definition.
After spending several months exploring this route, the department in June concluded that the tribe didn’t qualify under that definition either. But, just as the tribe was exploring going to federal court to appeal this decision, the department asked both sides of the dispute to submit briefs on a new rationale for taking the land into trust, i.e. that the state of Massachusetts might be considered “surrogate for federal jurisdiction.” It gave them until November 14 to submit their arguments.
There was little doubt that the tribe had been under Massachusetts since the early days of the colony’s settling. Most historians agree that the tribe was the first to greet the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth in 1620.
Cromwell quickly jumped on this possible solution, while opponents said it was a weak argument.
David Tennant, the attorney who represents the opponents of the tribe, told the Gazette “It’s a completely absurd concept. It’s a complete conflation of our dual sovereign structure. It would take someone who’s completely unfamiliar with our Constitution to come up with that. If you took it to its logical conclusion it would mean every act of a state was an act of the federal government.”
As for the third definition, it is rarely used because few would qualify under it, says Tennant.
Hoye told the Gazette, “My hope is the Bureau of Indian Affairs will look favorably on this since the tribe is working off a suggestion from them, but if in the future it doesn’t go forward through the tribal process, we will ask the legislature and the Gaming Commission to open Region C (Southeastern Massachusetts) and put forth a commercial license,”
What will happen now is unclear. The tribe has not officially given up its quest of a casino with its partner the Genting Group of Malaysia. Moreover, the tribe owes Genting more than $350 million in interest-bearing promissory notes and recently began cutting social services to members. If the casino is built, Genting would get 40 percent of gaming revenue as part of a management agreement.
A tribal elder, Paul Mills, told the Cape Cod Times that those jobs were supported by Genting cash. “That money is drying up. It may be already gone,” Mills said. “There are some departments that operate on grants from the federal government, and they are safe (from cuts).”
