By Doug MacEachern | The Arizona Republic
(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are published for discussions purposes only.)
The southern Arizona tribe that’s building a new casino in Glendale has racked up a lot of court wins. As many as 13, we’re told, although that’s in dispute.
Just one case, though, has pertained to the legality of the Tohono O’Odham tribe’s Glendale casino plans. And that lower-court case remains on appeal.
But almost all those wins have come in court battles against other tribes — the ones that took the 2002 gaming compacts seriously, and not as an opportunity for backstabbing. And they’ve done it all in federal courts. Little did Arizona voters realize at the time that the legal spirit of those compacts, which were matters of state law, wouldn’t hold a lot of water in federal-land.
