As electronic gaming machines chime away at the Eklutna Tribe’s new casino near Anchorage, the high stakes legal battles over its right to operate goes on.
The Native Village of Eklutna has won a victory of sorts, this time in a lawsuit filed by the State of Alaska to block the casino.
A federal judge has granted the tribe’s motion to transfer the case from a federal court in Washington, D.C. to one in Alaska.
A longstanding disagreement is at the heart of this conflict: whether Alaska Native lands can be considered “Indian Country,” a designation which has allowed gaming on tribal lands. The land in question involves a Native allotment near the Birchwood airport. The state is challenging the tribe's jurisdiction over the property.
The state has argued that the case should be heard in Washington D.C., because that’s where the U.S. Interior Department had repeatedly rejected the Eklutna tribe’s earlier efforts to build its casino on the Native allotment. It seeks to overturn the Interior Department’s reversal of that decision during the Biden Administration.
But in sending the case back to Alaska, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled that Alaska is the home forum for both the tribe and the state -- and also where the land is located. Friedman said public interest in the case also weighed heavily in his decision to move the case to Alaska.
In a separate case last month, another federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of neighboring property owners, who want to shut down the casino.
The Alaska Department of Law said in a statement that it will continue to pursue its case, despite its transfer to Alaska and the dismissal of the other lawsuit.
It said, “The state is not focused on gaming. The State continues to be focused on foundational issues of who has authority over what lands in Alaska."
On Monday, the judge assigned the state’s case to the same federal judge who dismissed the property owner’s lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart.
The Native Village of Eklutna had no comment on this latest development, other than to say that it’s proud of its gaming hall’s continued success.
