Monday, February 11, 2008

EDITORIAL: Gov. Patrick gets tough over casinos

2.11.08

Patrick gets tough over casinos

Efforts by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to place its planned casino site in Middleborough in a federal trust are more likely to end in a drawn-out fight than a healthy payoff for either the tribe or the residents of Massachusetts. The Patrick administration is right to resist the Wampanoags' efforts and to encourage the tribe instead to bid for a state-issued casino license.

The tribe, which won federal recognition last year, is now seeking to establish official sovereignty over more than 500 acres, which would place it largely outside the state's jurisdiction. The Patrick administration has sent an 125-page objection to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, arguing that the tribe has failed to provide adequate safeguards in such areas as zoning, public safety, labor, consumer protection, and the environment. These are substantive issues, but the real message is that the administration is serious about following its own casino plan.

Patrick proposes sensible legislation that would license three destination casinos across the state. The plan is carefully crafted to generate new jobs and new tax revenues, including an estimated $600 million to $900 million in one-time licensing fees and about $400 million in annual revenue. The proposal even offers special consideration to casino developers who join with federally recognized Indian tribes from Massachusetts. The Wampanoags' gambit could weaken this well-designed plan by diluting the worth of the licenses and reducing the state's take. And it opens the door to the snarled world of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which poses risks for the tribe as well as the state.

The 1988 law, known as IGRA, provides the statutory framework for tribal gambling. But what, if anything, gets built on that framework is far from predictable. It often takes years for an Indian casino proposal to wind its way through the Department of Interior. More complicated still is the requirement that the tribe and the state negotiate a compact that can cover oversight, payments in lieu of taxes, and methods to handle civil and criminal matters. Such negotiations often break down when one side accuses the other of failure to negotiate in good faith.

The bramble of IGRA-related court cases should serve as a warning. Some decisions place few restrictions on the kinds of gambling that tribes can offer on their land, including full-fledged casinos in states where slots and table games are prohibited. Other decisions leave the tribe with little recourse if it believes a state has failed to negotiate in good faith. One day, the wind blows toward tribal self-determination. The next day, it shifts in the direction of state sovereign immunity. And the secretary of the Interior, not a state's elected officials, calls the final shot.

The federal law is too big a crap shoot. Massachusetts - and the tribe - can do better.

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