Off-reservation gaming is heating up in the Great Lake State (or, to those of us who are University of Michigan grads, the Wolverine State)!

Shortly before we rang in 2012, the Bureau of Indian Affairs issued a decision approving the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community's application for an off-reservation casino in Marquette County.  This was a rare approval under the "best interests" exception to IGRA's general prohibition against gaming on lands acquired after 1988.

Then, just over a week ago, the news broke that the Menominee Tribe was once again aggressively pursuing its dream of a Kenosha casino, with help from KMD Consulting Services in California.

And this week, the Detroit Free Press is reporting on the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe's efforts to open an off-reservation casino in Lansing.

The Lansing casino project has some interesting twists and turns.  First, Phil Hogen, former NIGC Chair, is representing the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe in opposing the project.  Second, it appears that the Sault Ste. Marie are counting on a federal law to automatically place any land the tribe purchases in Lansing automatically into federal trust.  We've seen this strategy in Michigan recently, and it didn't meet with much success.  Here's some background.

The 1997 Michigan Indian Lands Claims Settlement Act is a federal law that set up funds related to land claims filed by Ottawa and Chippewa tribes in Michigan, including the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe.  The Act set up a “Self Sufficiency Fund” for the Sault Ste. Marie, and a "Land Trust" for Bay Mills.  Language in the Act raised the question of whether land acquired by tribes using these fund would somehow automatically become trust or reservation lands.  The Act states, for example, that “any lands acquired using amounts from the Self Sufficiency Fund shall be held as Indian lands are held.”  The same provision applies to lands acquired using interest or income from the Fund.

This very question was raised by the Bay Mills Indian Community with regard to the land on which it was operating the Vanderbilt casino.  The National Indian Gaming Commission, in reviewing the status of the Vanderbilt parcel, asked the Office of the Solicitor (in the Interior Department) whether the Act’s language about “shall be held as Indian lands are held” meant that the Vanderbilt parcel was automatically trust land, or at least automatically “Indian lands” within the meaning of IGRA.  The Solicitor said no.  (The Solicitor’s lengthy opinion letter is available on the NIGC website at http://www.nigc.gov/Reading_Room/Indian_Land_Opinions.aspx)