Many years after the courts struck them down, the National Indian Gaming Commission is suspending its minimum internal control standards (MICS) for Class III gaming. While they will remain in the books, on August 14 the agency said the regulations are unenforceable.
In 2006, in the case of Colorado River Indian Tribes v. National Indian Gaming Commission, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the commission lacked the authority to issue the regulations and said tribes and states have the responsibility to regulate Class III gaming through tribal state gaming compacts.
At that time the commission did not appeal the ruling, so it remains the law of the land, the commission wrote in a notice filed in the Federal Register. At the time of the ruling the commission insisted that the decision only applied to Colorado River Tribes, and not to the rest of Indian gaming.
Senator John McCain, who wrote much of the law regarding Indian gaming, threatened to intervene with a bill that would have reversed the court ruling. The bill failed to pass.
In the interval the tribes have quietly regulated their own casinos without much untoward happening. Currently NIGC regards the regulations as “non-binding guidance.”
In June during the annual report on growth of the industry NIGC Chairman Jonodev Chaudhuri observed, “Here at the NIGC, we support each tribes’ inherent sovereign authority to serve as the primary regulator of its gaming.”
Last week the chairman announced, “The Commission is proud to provide this guidance as a service to tribal nations and Indian gaming stakeholders. Issuance of this guidance is in keeping with our on-going commitment to support tribal nations – as the primary regulators of Indian gaming – in their continuing efforts to safeguard the integrity of Indian gaming for the purpose of generating critical governmental revenue that supports countless jobs, programs, and services to tribal citizens and surrounding communities.”
