(CONNECTICUT) -- The Schaghticoke tribe sued the state of Connecticut in March in response to a law that created a process for the state’s two federally recognized...
Washington – A Connecticut tribe says it filed a voluminous petition for federal recognition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Friday, a bid it hopes will result in the rights to open a casino in the Danbury area.
William Buchanan, a consultant for the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe of Kent, said the tribe’s petition for federal acknowledgement is the culmination of a 35-year effort.
“Some 80,000 pages of history and genealogy are combined in our petition, proving we are still here, as we have been, long before European explorers hit the shores of what they called New England,” he said.
The filing could not be confirmed with the BIA over the weekend.
Gov. Dannel Malloy and Connecticut’s political leadership have fought for years the efforts by three tribes to win recognition, winning a substantial victory last year when the BIA streamlined rules for federal recognition but determined tribes that have lost their bids in the past could not reapply.
That barred the Eastern Pequots of North Stonington, the Golden Hill Paugussetts of Colchester and Trumbull, and the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation from making another application.
But the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe says it was never denied recognition because a petition filed years ago never moved forward, while the petition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation was rejected. The Schaghticoke split occurred in 1986, several years before the tribes made separate applications to the BIA for recognition.
“We and the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation are two separate groups with a shared history, each with its own and distinct petition for recognition,” Buchanan said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, who as the state’s attorney general led the state’s fight against attempts by tribes to seek recognition, dismissed the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe’s claims as “frivolous.”
“Based on the history of past, unfounded petitions, lacking any factual or legal merit, this latest attempt seems doomed to failure,” he said. “They can claim whatever they want; they can submit whatever they like. There’s a history of repeated, unfounded submissions to the BIA.”
To help press its claim, the tribe has hired Michael Anderson, a former assistant secretary for Indian affairs in the Clinton administration. Anderson specializes in tribal land recovery and focuses his Washington, D.C.-based practice almost exclusively on the representation of tribes.
In Connecticut only two tribes have won federal recognition, which grants tribes autonomy on tribal land from state and local taxation and control, the right to federal aid and the right to open casinos. They are the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans, who have run casinos in the state since the 1990s.
If the BIA approves the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe petition, it could revive land claims that include the site of the Kent School and the land where the Bull's Bridge hydroelectric plant was built. The tribe claims those lands were once part of its state-authorized reservation.
In addition, Buchanan said the tribe is interested in opening a casino in the Danbury area.
Meanwhile, the state’s other Schaghticoke tribe has not given up its efforts to open a gaming operation in the state.
Barred by the BIA from reapplying for recognition, the Schaghicoke Tribal Nation has hired former Sen. Joseph Lieberman – who once fought against the tribe’s efforts to win federal recognition – to help them sue the state over a law that allows only a joint venture of the state’s two gaming tribes to negotiate with towns interested in hosting a casino, though it doesn't grant the right to open one.
In their legal challenge, the tribe joined forces with MGM, which also has been blocked from building a casino in Connecticut.
Our View: Trouble brewing for tribes' joint casino venture
By Bulletin Editorial Board
Posted Mar. 12, 2016 at 8:34 PM
Nearly a year ago, the state implied eventual approval of a commercial casino run jointly by Eastern Connecticut’s two American Indian tribes, seemingly guaranteeing the venture’s success — even though the state’s top attorney at the time warned of legal uncertainty ahead.
After a tumultuous week in Hartford that proved Attorney General George Jepsen correct, the Mohegans’ and Mashantucket Pequots’ path to success is less clear. And that bodes ill for the more than 9,000 people their respective casinos employ — whose jobs depend upon stable business there — and for the entire Eastern Connecticut economy.
The tribes say their plan to build a third, off-reservation casino north of Hartford is all about protecting jobs at Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun — not about expanding gambling in Connecticut. MGM is building a $950 million commercial casino in Springfield, Mass., and our region’s tribes want to intercept the flow of patrons there.
The hurdles the tribes face, at this point, appear to be twofold.
Tribal, legal trouble
On Monday, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, with MGM’s backing, sued the state over the law passed last year giving the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribal coalition exclusive rights to pursue commercial casino development on nontribal land.
As Jepsen had warned, the Schaghticokes assert they, too, should be permitted to pursue commercial gaming, and the exclusivity enjoyed by the federally recognized tribes violates the Schaghticokes’ rights under the equal protection clause of the state and U.S. Constitution. The Schaghticokes have so far failed to gain federal recognition but have, for centuries, been recognized by the state.
The state Legislature, when it green-lighted the tribal coalition’s negotiations for a commercial facility in May, gave itself power of final approval over any deal. That gave the state an out in case the law’s legality doesn’t stand up in the courts. Today, it appears that back door was a wise addition.
That being said, the Schaghticokes reportedly were reluctant to admit their involvement with MGM, which reveals the lawsuit to be linked primarily to a business interest rather than a tribal or constitutional issue.
“After weeks of not returning phone calls from reporters, (Schaghticoke Chief Richard) Velky finally revealed that his operation is being bankrolled by MGM,” Andrew Doba, spokesman for the Mohegan-Mashantucket Pequot alliance, said in a statement. “This startling revelation — which according to the chief was a year in the making — should raise a red flag for anyone who is concerned about MGM's plan to steal jobs from Connecticut residents.”
It is unclear whether MGM has a solid interest in backing a potential Schaghticoke-run commercial casino — or if it just seeks to throw a wrench into the Eastern Connecticut coalition’s endeavor.
We are eager to see how the lawsuit plays in court, because if it succeeds, it will impede, and may even scuttle, the coalition’s plans. The fallout could be severe for Eastern Connecticut casino workers.
To study or not to study
Meanwhile, the Legislature is considering another measure that aims to evaluate the “costs and benefits” of establishing a commercial casino in the state — a law the Eastern Connecticut coalition opposes. The state Office of Policy and Management and Department of Consumer Protection would be charged with analyzing potential state tax windfalls and, more to the point, the “geographic locations within the state where a commercial gaming facility could be located to maximize state revenues.”
Those geographic locations, for all anyone knows, may differ from the strategic area identified by the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequots. That coalition and MGM have pointed to separate studies they’ve commissioned — which, unsurprisingly, reached different conclusions. An impartial study may be just the ticket.
And, perhaps more importantly, the law would require “an economic and legal analysis of the potential effects” of a commercial casino on existing slot revenue-sharing agreements between the tribes and the state — another uncertainty that Jepsen warned of in April, and one that evidently has not been clarified in the meantime.
There is still much to sort out, and MGM Springfield is slated to open in 2018. The clock is ticking.
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