Indian gaming

From Reznet News 3/21/2007

Gaming Games
Associated Press story by Felicia Fonseca

"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Navajo Nation Council delegates are threatening to amend tribal laws to set up another way to establish gaming if the tribe's executive branch fails to deliver a comprehensive gaming plan to the council.

Forty-eight of the council's 88 delegates signed a letter Thursday and delivered it to President Joe Shirley Jr. It gives the president two months to present a plan and a timeline, which delegates say they've been waiting years for." ...

"The council met in a special session Thursday in Window Rock, Ariz., to consider overriding two presidential vetoes that kept the To'hajiilee and Shiprock chapters in New Mexico from establishing local gaming boards. The measures failed 46-35 and 43-39, respectively." ...

"The tribal council voted in January to approve gaming boards for the Shiprock and To'hajiilee chapters, a day after it overrode a presidential veto aimed at stopping the Tse' Daa' Kaan Chapter in northwestern New Mexico from developing its own gaming board. The Navajo Nation Gaming Ordinance of 2001 allows individual chapter houses to pursue gaming, but that law was approved before the tribe signed compacts with Arizona and New Mexico.

The ordinance also makes it impossible for multiple gaming enterprises to obtain the licenses needed to operate, Navajo Attorney General Louis Denetsosie and chief legislative counsel Raymond Etcitty said in a joint opinion released Thursday.

They warned delegates about approving any more local gaming enterprises because they said those violate gaming compacts with Arizona and New Mexico, a point Shirley repeatedly has emphasized.

Shirley also has stressed that local gaming boards would hurt the tribe's ability to maximize revenue." ....

"The tribal council approved the central Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise last September to oversee and manage any casinos that might be built on Navajo land in the future. The appointment of the members and a chief executive officer are pending background checks, which Shirley said could be complete this month." ....



Gaming Games
Catawbas Lose Court Ruling

By The Associated Press
"COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Catawba Indian Nation's push to expand its gambling business took a hit Monday when the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on video poker also applies to its only federally recognized tribe.

The Catawbas argued their 1993 land deal with the state allowed them to use the video poker machines, which were outlawed statewide in 2000, on their reservation.

The state contends that the land deal means the tribe's reservation falls under state, not federal, gambling laws. State Attorney General Henry McMaster, who appealed a lower court's decision in favor of the tribe, said the higher court made "a sound decision." ....

"The tribe has said it doesn't necessarily want to put video gambling machines on its reservation in northwest South Carolina. But the Catawbas had hoped to use a favorable court ruling as a bargaining chip to build a high-stakes bingo parlor south of Columbia along Interstate 95.

The Catawbas say a new bingo parlor is critical to their future. The tribe's York County bingo hall began losing money after the state lottery started in 2002, they say. The Catawbas were forced to shut down the operation and have since sold the hall and the surrounding property near the North Carolina line." ...



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