Keep the promise to
Native American Tribes
President Trump and Secretary Burgum
Keep Your Promise to Tribes
The Biden Administration’s Department of the Interior allowed an Oregon Tribe an unprecedented exception to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that will have a devastating social, cultural, and economic impact on at least five other Tribes.
This unilateral action in the final days of the Administration flew in the face of Congress, which is why a bipartisan group of Senators, Representatives, Governors, and local elected officials are urging President Trump and Secretary Burgum to immediately rescind this action and reinstate President Trump’s denial of the same decision in 2020.
The Facts vs. Fiction of Coquille Tribe's Reservation Jumping
How the Tribe is using erroneous and self-serving historical facts to claim land that they never occupied.
What's At Stake
a bad deal
for tribes
Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) to support Tribal communities through gaming revenues, while limiting the risks associated with gaming in communities across the country. Now, one Oregon Tribe used Interior to help them circumvent the law and open more casinos, which will not only harm Tribes in Southern Oregon and Northern California, but open the floodgates for casino development across multiple states.
When Congress passed the Coquille Restoration Act (CRA)—an act to provide restoration of the Coquille Indian Tribe—they rightfully evened the playing field by allowing the Tribe to develop gaming in conjunction with the IGRA. The Tribe opened its Mill Casino in their ancestral territory of Coos County in 1995 and continues to operate the casino successfully today. But in the final days of the Biden Administration, they convinced the Department of Interior to give them an unprecedented and unfair exception by allowing a second casino in a region where they lack any historic connection, upending Oregon’s “One Tribe, One Casino” policy.
Allowing one Tribe to open a second casino not only defied Congress, but will irreparably deprive at least five other Tribes of significant gaming revenues, which will, in turn, impair their ability to provide programs and services to their Tribal members. The devastating economic impact of this decision would pit some of our country’s most marginalized communities against each other, forcing them to compete in a “race to the bottom” and set back progress in State/Tribal relations by decades.
But the Trump Administration had correctly rejected Coquille’s argument in 2020, saying they could not use the CRA, but had to go through the traditional “two-part determination” process of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) that involves state and local government consultation and the Governor of Oregon’s concurrence.
Bipartisan
Opposition Letters
As codified at 25 USC §2719, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) generally prohibits gaming on lands acquired in trust after October 17, 1988, with exceptions only as specified in that provision. The IGRA’s general prohibition is the primary barrier for Tribes seeking to have land taken into trust for gaming.
We write today to urge you to reject the Coquille Indian Tribe’s application to have land taken into trust under the restored lands exception to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).
A Deal That
Nobody Wants
Oregon has long had a “One Tribe, One Casino” policy—which is why the last four Governors of Oregon have stated their opposition to allowing the Coquille Indian Tribe to open a second casino in Medford, Oregon. Seeking to circumvent the state of Oregon’s longstanding opposition, the Coquille Tribe manipulated the Coquille Restoration Act (CRA) by asking the Department of Interior to grant them an unfair and unprecedented exception to gaming law.
Each of the original authors of Coquille’s restoration act have opposed The Department of the Interior using that act to restore these non-ancestral lands for gaming.
The impact is already being felt well beyond Southern Oregon as other Tribes have similar language in their restoration acts – including Tribes in Michigan, Nebraska, and Northern California – will be able to open casinos on parcels of land far beyond their ancestral or historic territories.
Don’t Reward
an unfair process
The Bureau of Indian Affairs wrongly approved the Coquille’s request despite the serious economic and existential harm it will have on at least five other Tribes, including those who have played fairly with a “One Tribe, One Casino” policy of Oregon.
They also disregarded the bipartisan coalition of elected officials in Oregon and California that warned, for over a decade, about the precedent of this decision that will enable an explosion of casinos, and undermine the hard-won trust between Tribes and their neighboring communities. This group of Senators, House Representatives, Governors, state, local elected and Tribal officials opposed this plan from the start.
This decision is already pitting Tribes—some of the nation’s most marginalized communities—against each other in building gaming facilities, in a race to the bottom. The effect is a devastating disruption of inter-Tribal kinship systems, and a loss of revenue that supports tribal healthcare, safety, mental health, economic development, and education.
Casino Locations of the
Native Peoples of Oregon
and California
make the
right decision
President Trump’s Administration should make the right and fair decision and reverse the Biden Administration’s manipulation of the Coquille Restoration Act just days before President Trump returned.
They should refer to their correct decision in 2020 and require the Coquille Tribe to go through the two-part determination as laid out in the IGRA.
BIPARTISAN opposition TO
THE COQUILLE'S CASINO:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-CA
Fmr. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA
Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-OR-02
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-OR-01
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR-03
Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-CA-01
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-CA-02
Governor Tina Kotek
Fmr. Governor Kate Brown
Fmr. Governor John Kitzhaber
Fmr. Governor Barbara Roberts
