On the recordDecember 8, 2010
I actually proposed the amendment on the floor. It was passed unanimously on a bipartisan vote by our subcommittee of Interior. And the bill, frankly, the measure has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court fix that it addresses didn't involve gaming at all. It involved a housing case, land put into trust and used for housing by an Indian tribe. What the Supreme Court has done--by a very narrow interpretation of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act--is to create two classes of Indian tribes, some of whom can receive land in the trust, as they have for 80 years by Secretaries of the Interior of both parties, and some of whom now cannot. Almost all the cases involved here, almost every single one, involved cases that have absolutely nothing to do with gaming. This is ultimately a sovereignty issue and a process issue.
