The Cape Cod Times reports that two congressmen from Rhode Island plan to vote against H.R. 312 the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, which would put 321 acres for the Massachusetts tribe into trust, allowing it to build a $1 billion casino in Taunton.
The Times quotes a spokesman for Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island as calling the act “bad for Rhode Island.” A spokesman also told the paper that Rep. James Langevin also plans to vote against it.
Although one reason for opposition may be that the bill would enable the tribe to build a casino that could compete against the state’s two commercial casinos, another reason might be that the bill would enable the Wampanoag to overcome the Supreme Court’s Carcieri v. Salazar that prevents tribes that gain federal recognition after 1934 from putting land into trust.
That decision prevented Rhode Island’s Narragansett Tribe from putting land into trust. A congressional action undoing the Carcieri ruling in one state might lead to a movement to do it in another: like Rhode Island, they reason.
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo admitted as much last year when she wrote in opposition to the bill, “Rhode Island successfully fought a ten-year legal battle with the Department to limit the Secretary’s power to take land in trust … only for those tribes under federal jurisdiction as of 1934.”
H.R. 312 could be considered by the House sometime this week. It would prevent the Bureau of Indian Affairs from taking the tribe’s land out of trust, and allow the tribe to build the First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton.
