In Alabama a battle over bingo has been raging for almost a decade. Former Governor Bob Riley, an anti-gambling extremist, formed a task force to harass non-tribal casino owners in the state. The current attorney general of Alabama is following the lead of former Governor Riley and has conducted a series of raids on non-tribal casinos in the state. Attorney general Luther Strange has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to pursue his peculiar vendetta against bingo. At first many thought that Strange was protecting tribal gaming interests because of the many campaign contributions from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
Recently Strange turned on his old allies and is now trying to shut down tribal gaming operations and is challenging the concept of tribal sovereignty in the courts. Strange says that the tribal casinos are ‘public nuisances.’ When Supreme Court Justice John Marshall decided in 1823 that the “savage” natives in America could not sell their land he set the stage for a series of rulings and events that allowed the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to operate casinos. Because of tribal sovereignty there is little the state of Alabama can do to stop the tribe from operating casinos.
AG Strange is suing the tribe in an effort to shut down their casino operations. Legal experts say that because of the tribe’s status as a sovereign nation within the US Strange’s efforts are futile. The state is refusing to answer questions about the lawsuit. What started out as a way to segregate Native Americans has placed tribes outside the reach of state authorities. Rose Stremlau, a professor of history at The University of North Carolina, stated “American Indian History is proof of the law of unintended consequences.”
The 1823 decision by Marshall is part of what is known as the Marshall Trilogy which is part of a series of three decisions by the Supreme Court that defined the legal status of Native American tribes. Katheryn Rand, a professor at the University of North Dakota School of Law, had this to say about tribal sovereignty “After the Marshall trilogy, tribes were recognized as having sovereignty, the right to self-govern, but only to the extent that the sovereignty is recognized by the federal government. The decision also strictly prohibited the ability of states to intervene in tribal affairs.”
Today, tribal sovereignty is a confusing hodgepodge of rules and regulations. When tribes opened a bingo hall a local sheriff in the California desert tried to shut the bingo hall down. The tribes fought back in court and in 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that states do not have the right to enforce state gaming laws on Indian land without the consent of congress. Since tribal sovereignty is a well-established concept it will be interesting to see what Strange’s next move will be.
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