Plymouth Casino
Posted on by admin
Working to Preserve Rural Amador County
Highway 49 Construction / Status of Our Lawsuit
Rumors abound that construction on the Casino has started due to the activity on Highway 49 between the 49er RV Park and the Hardware store. Contrary to what you may have heard the construction has nothing to do with the proposed casino.
Booking a Plymouth Casino Party Rentals through GigSalad offers you extra protection you can’t get anywhere else. You can rest easy knowing that your payment is secure, and that we’ll have your back in the event of any trouble that may occur. Grosvenor Casino Plymouth is owned and operated by Grosvenor Casinos Limited (a company incorporated in England and Wales under company number 00877080), whose registered office address is TOR, Saint-Cloud Way, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 8BN. To make a table reservation please fill in the form below.
The pace of our lawsuit has slowed and is the primary reason for the infrequency of updates as months and in some cases years pass with nothing to report. NCIP’s opposition to the proposed casino remains strong and continues with the recent filing of our appeal brief to the 9th Circuit by our Attorney Ken Williams.
Our appeal included a Constitutional challenge to the delegation of the Secretary of Interior’s authority under 25 USC 465 to take land into trust to a hired employee acting as the Assistant Secretary who was neither appointed by the President nor confirmed by the Senate as required by the Constitution. If we are successful with this challenge, an important precedent eliminating the current expanded fee to trust process allowing GS employees at regional offices to take land into trust could result.
We also reasserted our argument based on the Supreme Court’s 2009 Carcieri decision that the Secretary has no authority to take land into trust for the Ione Indians because they were not recognized in 1934. Our argument is based on the 1992 Federal District Court order that Ione was not in 1992 or any time prior to 1992 ever recognized by the United States. This order was based on the fact that the Ione Indians admitted they were not a treaty tribe and presented no evidence to the Court that they were recognized by an act of Congress, via a Court decision, or by completing the Section 84 recognition process. The final decision in 1996 included a finding of no recognizable tribal government at Ione and was not appealed by the Ione Band or the Federal government and is binding on both parties.
Reply briefs from the Defendants and the intervenor Ione Band were due in June but the defendants have been granted a 30 day extension so our reply will now be due in September.
Until then we continue to wait and we remain confident that we will prevail in this matter on appeal at the 9thCircuit.
We are planning a fund raising event later this year.
On a related note, NCIP continues to monitor significant Indian law cases at the U.S. Supreme Court and during the recent term the Supreme Court accepted five Indian related cases. This was extraordinary as the Court has not in last 100 years accepted this many Indian cases. Three of the cases have been decided but the two with the most far reaching impact to Federal Indian Policy, (Dollar General and Bryant) have been argued with decisions from the Court before adjournment in late June.
The first of three decided cases was Menominee Tribe v. United States. This case was believed to be a routine contract payment dispute that turned into much more. After deciding the contract issue in favor of the United States, the Court then went further in declaring that all statutes of the United States will be interpreted based on what it actually says for everyone. This effectively removes the deference/preference to Indians that laws should be interpreted for their benefit. This was a unanimous decision of the Court.
We are encouraged that major changes in federal Indian policy are likely this year from the unanimous decisions in two more Indian cases. These two cases involve issues whether State jurisdiction can be displaced by the United States after jurisdiction has been vested in the State. In Nebraska v. Parker the question involved whether an 1882 surplus land act was intended by Congress to diminish the Omaha reservation. The Supreme Court decided the statute was ambiguous as to congressional intent to diminish and decided the reservation was not diminished. The unanimous decision written by Justice Thomas explained that a reservation that had been “opened” under the public land laws was not “Indian country” and whether the tribe had any jurisdiction over the area in question should be determined by the courts below by applying the factors in City of Sherrill as suggested in Amicus briefs from CERF and the Village of Hobart, Wisconsin. If the factors in the City of Sherrill decision are applied then jurisdiction over the lands in question will remain with the State of Nebraska.
The other case with issues related to State jurisdiction versus Federal jurisdiction involved an Alaska business man, Mr. Sturgeon, who was told by the National Park Service he could not operate his hovercraft ferry on an Alaskan river because it was in a “national conservation area”. The congressional act allowing the set up of “national conservation areas” to be administered by the National Park Service specifically prohibits the Park Service from displacing the sovereignty of the State of Alaska to the waterways, state land and all private property within the declared bounds of the conservation area. The Park Service by regulation displaced the State jurisdiction, and refused to give the State any real explanation as to the source for their alleged authority. The Park Service said the alleged authority was generally based on the Commerce Clause without identifying any specific source for the authority.
Plymouth Casino California
At oral argument all the Supreme Court Justices were focused on the source of the alleged authority. The U.S. attorneys were going to have to explain specifically the source for the authority to displace the State’s jurisdiction to the Court. The assistant Solicitor General evaded every question from the Justices as to the source of the authority and the Justices became noticeably agitated at the U.S. attorneys. Finally, a combination of questioning from all the Justices including Chief Justice Roberts forced the associate solicitor to admit the source for the authority was the Commerce Clause which caused the Justices to become noticeably agitated After quieting the angry Justices, Chief Justice Roberts very assertively stated to the associate solicitor that she was going to answer his questions specifically or she would be held in contempt.
The associate solicitor then explained the United States could reassert the reserved rights doctrine even though Congress had disposed of all of the Indian lands in Alaska because there had in the past been Indians in Alaska. The United States was claiming because there had been reserved rights in Alaska in the past the United States could at any time reassert the long ago disposed of reserved rights and remove State jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause.
When she finished with this explanation there was an audible gasp from attorneys in the courtroom. The United States was arguing that since the Supreme Court had deferred for more than 150 years to the plenary authority of Congress and the Executive Branch over Indians and denied individual Indians rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution that the United States now believed they could at any time apply the reserve rights doctrine to remove state jurisdiction under any regulation of the United States.
CERA/CERF is pleased that Chief Justice Roberts stated in the unanimous opinion in Sturgeon that the United States has no continuing authority to assert it can change the rule of law by attempting to extend their jurisdiction by promulgating a regulation that claims jurisdiction over non-public lands. (State lands) The Court ruled that jurisdiction of the United States only applies to lands it still holds as public lands. This seemingly obvious conclusion could present problems to the current manner in which the fee to trust process is administered by the BIA and Dept. of the Interior where privately owned land subject to State jurisdiction is routinely taken into trust pursuant to the regulations at 25 C.F.R. 151.
Plymouth Casino Miwok
NCIP attorney Ken Williams continues to monitor and review the Court’s decisions and determine whether and how the decisions may impact our case while waiting for the Court’s decisions in Dollar General and Bryant. NCIP will provide an update on the impact if any on our case when those decisions come down.
Plymouth Casino 2021
NCIP THANKS YOU for your Continued Interest & Support