Massachusetts: Do It Yourself Slot Barn Legislation

Massachusetts legislators are woefully ignorant of the issues surrounding Tribal Gaming and Sovereignty or incredibly naive.

Cross posted from Blue Mass Group:

Watching the sham Hearings on Beacon Hill [in 2010], the ignorance of legislators of IGRA (Indian Gaming Regulatory Act) was, frankly, embarrassing.


In support of Slot Barn Legislation, proponents point to their success in Connecticut.

Casinos Failed to Bring Prosperity to Connecticut
Despite developing two of the largest casinos on the planet in the 1990s, the state of Connecticut is in dire fiscal shape. The New York Times piece below states that “Connecticut’s finances are among the most troubled in the nation: it is last or close to last in financing pension obligations and retaining reserves for emergencies, and near the top in per-capita debt…Moody’s lowered its outlook for the state’s bond rating to negative from stable.” This is just another example that casinos fail to provide the revenue promised by lobbyists of the predatory gambling trade. And what about jobs? The state has “an abysmal level of job creation and economic growth that has left the state with fewer workers employed now than in 1987.”

Stop Predatory Gambling

NYT



So much for the great prosperity Massachusetts residents have contributed to Connecticut.

Of Foxwoods:

Casino Capitalists Swallow $500 Million in Foxwoods Deal

...D-rated junk bonds - a rating that the Mashantuckets obtained after defaulting on some of their debt.


The tribe, hampered by the recession's effect on revenues at its Foxwoods Resort Casino, defaulted last year on a $700 million revolving bank loan and has also defaulted on several bond interest payments [in 2009]. It has been trying to restructure more than $2 billion worth of debt for more than a year.



Of economic development:

Ledyard Town Planner Brian Palaia backed up [former mayor of Ledyard, Conn., home to Foxwoods Resort Casino] Mendenhall’s assertions in a telephone interview Tuesday, saying the only thing the community has seen in economic growth is a new Dunkin’ Donuts and a hotel that was built by the casino.


Of Mohegan Sun [2010], the Tribe proposing a Slot Barn in Palmer, MA, with the silly down-sized 'dance floor' of 1500 SQUARE FEET [not even 40 feet by 40 feet]:

Moody's Investors Service downgraded its bond ratings Tuesday on the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority and raised doubt about whether the authority can avoid a financial restructuring.

[Because the debt of Mohegan Sun is publicly traded, their SEC filing is publicly available for those who care to do their homework.]

And there are the words of those specializing in Tribal Gaming Law:

He added: “The sidebar is the legal malpractice. Nobody should be doing this stuff who doesn’t have tribal gaming counsel - somebody who is familiar with tribal gaming issues but doesn’t represent the tribe in question.”


In 2010, Senator Rosenberg repeatedly misquoted IGRA: HERE and HERE:

Senator Morrissey and Spilka both of whom are attorneys have also researched this exhaustively and have come to the same conclusions.

This is particularly egregious considering the expertise of Ropes & Gray.

Allow me to suggest that those unfamiliar with the provisions contained in the proposed Slot Barn legislation consider the information below. It's lengthy, but this bears on the future of the Commonwealth for years to come.

A must read for what Indian trust land does to communities
...to remove the land from all jurisdiction and control of state and local governments, so they can do whatever they want to and ignore the hundreds of laws and rules protecting the public, the community, any workers in businesses located there, including all of the planning and zoning laws and rules, enacted to preserve the character of the Valley community and the quality of life here. They also seek to evade all the state and local taxes needed to pay for the public services and infrastructure used by the tribe and all of its businesses on a daily basis, and which would then become the tax burden of the non-Indian taxpayers and businesses.
The payments in lieu of taxes proposed are not only woefully inadequate; such an agreement is essentially worthless and unenforceable.

The following relevant and important legal facts and principles apply here:
A. The federal government, B.I.A. and Department of Interior do not recognize any restrictions or limitations that purport to have been agreed upon as a binding condition to the approval of a transfer to federal trust and as a condition for obtaining the support of any state or local government for any fee to trust transfer.

The federal government refuses to accept any such condition and take the position, the tribe can simply change its mind after the land is brought into trust, do whatever it wants, and the state and local governments can do nothing about it.

B. Once the land has been transferred from fee into federal Indian trust, it can never be taken back no matter what, unless the tribe and the Department of Interior agree. No one else has any standing or say so, even if there are purported “agreements.”

C. There is no source from which the county could collect monies it claims to be due under any agreement. The agreement purports to limit any and all recovery to the revenue from the casino that is distributed to the tribe. Paragraph 11 (a) No other asset or business can be used to pay money due. In addition, claiming sovereignty, this tribe like most, refuses to divulge any information such as income, expenses, etc., thus making it impossible to determine how much money might be owed, what deductions for overhead and tribal “salaries” and “benefits” are permissible and even if money from gambling losses is being “skimmed off.”

D. Normal methods to collect debts owed are basically useless when the debtor is an Indian tribe. For example, if the land is in trust, the county cannot put a lien upon it because the federal government owns the land and it is not susceptible to an attachment for a tribal debt. The slot machines are typically leased and not subject to any execution for an antecedent debt of the tribe and any other debts are entitled to first priority. A receiver cannot be placed in the casino to collect monies to satisfy any debt because the gambling operation is being conducted under the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act, giving only lawfully recognized Indians the right to run a casino. A creditor or its receiver would not have any such right even to collect a debt owed.

E. An existing and badly out-dated, court-created doctrine, entitles Indian tribe to a legal immunity from unconsented lawsuits. Currently being litigated before the Supreme Court is the law of New York (maybe all states), which a District Court in New York concluded that even if a tribe owes back property taxes the county (or state) cannot collect them by enforcing a tax sale of the affected Indian tribe’s land.

The court reached that conclusion by stating that in order to foreclose or enforce a tax lien that the county would have to sue the tribe and the tribe had immunity from lawsuits it did not consent to. There are numerous instances of tribal governments owing money under agreements with counties or local governments all over the country and tribes have simply refused to pay it, or delayed payment for years, or demand a “renegotiation,” reduction in amount, etc. These same tribes use and abuse this legal immunity whenever it suits their purposes.

F. Tribes who have appeared to have “waived” the legal immunity via some agreement are often found to have NOT waived it at all. The tribe may claim it was an invalid waiver. Perhaps because the person executing the agreement did not have the authority. It wasn’t approved by (take your pick) a vote of the tribe, a vote of the business committee, a vote of the gaming committee, the Secretary of Interior, not authorized by tribal constitution or any lawfully enacted tribal ordinance or maybe all of the above.

G. Besides the numerous legal hurdles facing any county, state or local government in supporting any fee to trust application which, in a case like this, provides little or no benefit to the county, there are numerous practical considerations. In the event of litigation, the county or other government must use tax revenue to prosecute any action. Typically, the casino tribe has an immense war chest of millions being collected from the massive gambling losses of gamblers rolling in every day. In addition they still collect millions in grant and welfare payments from the federal government and these funds are often mis-applied and not used for their intended purposes and, whenever it suits their purpose, call upon the federal government lawyers to defend them as part of the federal government’s trust obligation to Indians and Indian tribes.
As an example of this attrition strategy, five years ago the Court of Appeals and the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the National Labor Relations Act applied to Indian businesses and their workers. That decision and its fall-out is still being litigated in Connecticut by a gambling tribe claiming it’s so-called sovereignty means it can enact (or decide not to enact) any and all laws regulating wages, hours and the working conditions of its employees, most of which are non-Indians.

Frankly, it would be foolhardy at best for the county to enter into any worthless agreement like this so-called “cooperative agreement” in order to support any proposal or legislation to transfer 1,400 acres of fee land from fee status which they can tax and regulate now, to lawless, untaxable trust lands – thus giving the tribe a license to a demonstrably irresponsible, untrustworthy tribal government, like the Chumash tribal government, allowing them to do whatever they want on it and thumb their collective noses at the state, the county and the non-Indian residents and citizens of the community.

Here's another issue to consider: Native American tribes shield parents from child support




Bear in mind that there are 6 or 8 other Tribes in Massachusetts that have applied for Federal Recognition, as well as the Aquinnah Tribe that has already received recognition. And there is the Native American group the Governor met with secretly and made promises to.

Should this Folly pass with preferential treatment of one Tribe, there will be food fights in federal court that will outlive us all – and cost more than any phony revenue promised.