Congressional interest in the issue
With concerns about reservation shopping mounting nationwide, Congress attempted during the 2005 and 2006 sessions to craft amendments to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). None were adopted.
Leadership of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Resources Committee has since changed, and from what we hear, concerns about IGRA will likely take a back seat to other issues in 2007.
When Congress passed it in 1988, IGRA was intended to set guidelines for the development and oversight of tribal gaming, but loopholes—including exceptions to the prohibition on gaming on newly acquired lands—have led to casino proliferation. There are more than 400 casinos nationwide, and many more are at various stages in the application process. In 2006, news that rules proposed by Sen. John McCain would be applied to gaming applications received after April 15, 2006, led to a flurry of applications—more than 50—from across the country.
The reforms that were discussed—but not made—in 2005 and 2006 illustrate broad concerns about reservation shopping:
- requiring that lands taken into trust for gaming be “where the Indian tribe has its primary geographic, social and historical nexus.”
- requiring “public notice and an opportunity to comment and a public hearing” when the Department of the Interior is determining whether gaming should be allowed on an “initial reservation” or “restored lands,” two exceptions to IGRA. (The Cowlitz Tribe has applied for both exceptions.)
- requiring governor and state legislature concurrence with federal gaming decisions.
- requiring that tribes within 75 miles of the proposed land acquisition concur.
- requiring a county referendum to be held before the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs can recommend a land acquisition for gaming.
- eliminating off-reservation gambling for tribes that already have reservation land.
Cowlitz situation discussed by Senate committee
The Cowlitz Tribe’s restored lands application process became the subject of concern in a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing Feb. 1, 2006, and led to a call for regulations to govern IGRA.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) counsel Penny Coleman that “communities, local governments and other tribes affected by the Cowlitz proposal seem to have been caught completely off guard” by the NIGC restored lands opinion, which was released in November 2005. He asked her, “What’s going on here?”
Addressing the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Coleman called the manner in which the Cowlitz Tribe had applied—by tying the restored lands application to the time-sensitive gaming ordinance—“an anomaly.” She said, “…when the tribe came to us and told us they were going to do it, we were not exactly thrilled with it because we knew that this was a very unusual situation….”
Ridgefield resident Al Alexanderson told the committee that the NIGC’s opinion gave Clark County residents a “sense of betrayal.”
Sen. McCain directed the Department of the Interior to create rules for implementing IGRA and said they are long overdue.
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