Keep your eye on the ball

Back in April of this year, when it looked like the five-casino juggernaut had all but mowed us down, Sullivan County got a last-minute reprieve in the form of a United States Supreme Court decision, Sherrill v. Oneida. By determining that a principle called “laches,” or undue delay, was applicable to a dispute on property taxes between the Oneidas and the City of Sherill, the decision called into question the elaborate architecture of land-claim settlements in which Governor Pataki had embedded his “five or none” casino deal.

On June 23, the hypothesis that Sherrill v. Oneida might scuttle the casino-related land-claim settlements received confirmation, at least partially. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, applying the principle of laches, threw out the land claims of the Seneca Cayugas and the Cayuga Nation. The combination of that decision, and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s insistence on at least three casinos, meant that no casino deal made it to the floor of the state legislature in the last session.

But while Sherill has no doubt put a spoke in the wheel of casino proponents, it has by no means permanently stopped them. In fact, when hearing of the decision, Bruno—whose son Kenneth, by a remarkable coincidence, represents the casino development team of the Wisconsin Oneidas—remarked: “That was the best decision that was probably made in government this year.” He seemed to think it opened the way for the governor to drop all the complicated land-claim settlement talks and use his authority to grant three gaming compacts for tribal casinos in the Catskills.

Bruno’s optimism is based on the fact that the settlement of land claims, though it had been made a centerpiece of Pataki’s proposals, is actually incidental to the enterprise of establishing Indian casinos. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA) not only allows Indian tribes to host gambling activities on reservation lands (provided they are in a state that allows any other forms of gambling); it also allows them to purchase off-reservation lands and run gambling casinos there.

In order to do so, however, three parties must agree: the tribe, the state in which the land is located and the Secretary of the Interior. Bruno’s faith in Pataki’s authority notwithstanding, it is far from enough to clinch the deals. And in fact, there have been only three off-reservation gambling proposals approved since 1988.

It may be at the federal level that any proposed deal runs into the most resistance. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, is considering legislation that would limit off-reservation deals. On June 28 he remarked, “None of us ever anticipated that there would be casinos in the Catskills.… If we have enough off-reservation casinos set up in America we’re going to see a backlash against Indian gaming, because that was not the intent of the law.”

It is worth noting that, as the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, McCain is bound to be more responsive to pressure from citizens who are not technically his constituents than he would be as merely the senator from Arizona. To make matters worse for casino proponents, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has not been notably friendly to the expansion of authority for Native American gambling casinos.

Thus, as quiet as it may seem to be on the casino front right now, this is not the time to take our eye off the ball. There are plenty of developments cooking both in Albany and in Washington, and now is the time to keep the pressure up and make sure that our representatives in both cities know how we feel about gambling in our backyard.

Dr. Punnybone

UF Oh Oh!