The U.S. Supreme Court March 1 heard arguments from the decades-long case between the state of Texas and the Tigua Indians. The tribe is in its last ditch in its defense of its claimed right to offer Class II gaming at a tribal casino, Speaking Rock Entertainment Center.
Lawyers for the litigants, with the tribes and the U.S. Department of Justice on one side and representatives of the state attorney general on the other debated before the justices for 90 minutes.
Justices noted that Texas appears regularly in court over small details of the tribal casino, where they offer bingo and bingo-derived slot machines.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett commented, “Why would it make sense to enlist federal district courts to police all these aspects of gaming? It just seems to me like that would be an odd system.”
The case is centered on two cases. 1) the 1987 case California vs. the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, when the High Court affirmed the right of Indian tribes to offered gaming. 2) Congress’s Restoration Act of 1987 that established the Texas reservations for the Tigua and Alabama-Coushatta tribes—but stipulated that they must abide by state law regarding gaming. The next year Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) which created the framework under which all tribal gaming is conducted in the U.S.
The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe (the formal name for Tigua) claims that IGRA supersedes the Restoration Act. Lower courts, including the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has several times upheld the Restoration Act as banning anything but low-stakes bingo on tribal land.
That has created the unusual situation of the tribes being the only ones in the United States to not be allowed to offer Class II gaming. One tribe in Texas, the Kickapoo, were not part of the Restoration Act. The offer Class II gaming, but are not opposed by the state.
Despite the many rulings against them, the tribes have continued to operate casinos.
The Supreme Court in 2021 decided—after declining to for many years— to hear the case to end the dispute once and for all.
