Attorney General tries to quell casino gambling in Mobile
Alabama Attorney General Troy King has filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of the Interior in attempts to keep the Poarch Band of Creek Indians from continuing informal conferences with the department concerning casino gaming limits.
The tribe wishes to include Class III gaming activities such as electric slot machines and table games in its casino centers. Under Alabama state law, Class III games are illegal.
“Federal bureaucrats simply lack the authority to override the will of the people of Alabama by allowing casino gambling to invade our state,” said King in a press statement released Monday, April 7. “I will not stand idly by and allow them to do so.”
The lawsuit is only the latest development in a conflict which has persisted for more than a decade.
In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Seminole Tribe of Florida vs. Florida that Congress does not have the right to repeal a state’s sovereign immunity as appointed by the 11th Amendment.
State sovereignty protects a state from being sued by a party without the state’s consent of the lawsuit.
Furthermore, the Court decided the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act does not give Congress a right to supercede its federal powers.
This specific court case prevents the PBCI from suing the state of Alabama after a dispute with former state Governor Guy Hunt.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, in 1999 the Department of the Interior designed different procedures for tribes to follow against future lawsuits against states.
Then, in early February 2006, Gov. Bob Riley and King announced new legislation meant to overhaul provisions in the Alabama state Constitution, as well as end all profit-earning gambling loopholes.
By August 2006, King sent a letter to the Department of Interior asking them to deny the PCBI’s request to expand its gaming within the state.
The PCBI used the new procedures outlined by the department in order to keep communications open with the department concerning their expansion requests.
In 2007, an Alabama Fifth Circuit ruling judged the new procedures followed by the tribe as invalid and ordered a dismissal of the tribe’s Class III requests.
According to King’s release, the Department of Interior ignored the state’s ruling, and announced on March 4, it would resume communications with the tribe.
“The Department of the Interior’s recent actions represent a complete disregard for fundamental principles of states’ rights and an arrogant lack of respect for the people of Alabama,” King said in his statement.
The statement also requested an injunction against the department. An injunction is an order from the court denying procedures the ability to move forward.
“This is a case more about state rights and the Department of the Interior and its rule-making process,” said Cheairs Porter, special assistant to the attorney general. “They drafted rules that the attorney general feels are invalid. The essence of the case is more about state’s rights.”
The tribe, located around the Atmore area in Escambia County, owns and manages three casino facilities located in Atmore, Wetumpka and Montgomery.
“The preliminary decision limits and defines what games can be played in the state by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians on their sovereign land,” the PCBI tribe said in a statement released April 10. “These games are the same games currently being played at competing facilities that our Attorney General Troy King has visited and approved for years.”
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said no comment could be made while the litigation was pending. As of yet, the tribe has not been named as a defendant.
