Government asks for extension in Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe lawsuit

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Government asks for extension in Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe lawsuit

By Tanner Stening
Posted Nov 27, 2018

The U.S. Department of the Interior has asked for a 31-day extension on a deadline to respond to a lawsuit by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe challenging the federal agency’s Sept. 7 decision that threatens the tribe’s reservation.

Filled on Nov. 20, the request notes that the Interior leadership and “other agency personnel need additional time to help prepare and review” a response to the lawsuit, according to the court filing, which is signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jean Williams of the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and trial attorney Sara Costello.

Tribal attorneys filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 27 challenging an Interior Department ruling earlier that month that reversed an Obama-era decision to secure 321 acres of tribal land in Mashpee and Taunton into trust. The latest determination by the department found the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 — the year the Indian Reorganization Act was passed. The tribe has plans to build a $1 billion casino on the land in Taunton. Neighbors of the proposed casino had sued to overturn the earlier decision and a judge found in their favor, sending it back to the Interior Department.

The tribe’s lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his department alleges the agency “failed to apply established law” by “contorting relevant facts and ignoring others to engineer a negative decision” with respect to the tribe’s land.

The suit alleges that the department’s decision “indefensibly reverses course” from the administrative decisions it has made for other tribes in regard to federal jurisdiction and “badly ignores” the case law interpreting what that phrase means, court documents say.

The government’s court filing occurred days after the tribe marched in Washington, D.C., from the National Museum of the American Indian to the U.S. Capitol to protest the Interior Department’s September ruling.

At the same time, neighbors of the proposed casino who are suing the agency in a separate case over its 2015 decision to take land into trust for the tribe recently requested that the tribe withdraw its appeal of the case or be required to file opening briefs.

In a request filed Oct. 9 with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, attorney David Tennant argued the tribe should not be permitted another stay in the appeal process because it opted to “take its chances” with a remanded review of the eligibility of its trust lands, according to court documents.

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20181127/government-asks-for-extension-in-mashpee-wampanoag-tribe-lawsuit