Oklahoma Legislature Blocks Tribal Gaming Compact

A legislative citizens committee inwards Sooner State this week rejected a gaming thickset the governor had negotiated with 2 tribes inwards the state.

The relocation is another setback in Gov. Kevin Sitt’s long-running travail to modify the state’s draw close to tribal gaming.

At a sense of hearing Wednesday, members of Oklahoma’s Joint Committee on State Tribal Relations verbalized concerns that the renegotiated gaming compacts would top to cassino elaboration in OK County before voting down the stocky agreements.

A representative for the governor, Trevor Pemberton, argued the compacts would represent an economic boon for the commonwealth by increasing the proceeds self-collected from casino gaming, compared to an earlier compact, according to press out reports.

Sitt negotiated the compacts with the United Keetoowah Band and the Kialegee Tribal Town in 2020 as piece of a larger renegotiation mired in controversy. The compacts would reserve the tribes to offer up sports betting, otherwise illegal inward Oklahoma, and they would allow young tribes opened casinos inwards the state.

Tribes Disappointed

The committee’s decision came as a dashing hopes to the tribes, who were hoping that new casinos would pitch an economical supercharge to their communities.

We are disappointed that we didn’t catch to evidence our position of the story,” United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians Chief Joe Bunch said after the meeting, according to NonDoc, a local news site. “Today’s defeat, it hurt. It hurts big, peculiarly not to feature the opportunity to discuss these issues.”

Sitt has defended the compacts as an exertion to let littler tribes undetermined casinos, an chance currently useable only if to the largest tribes inward the state.

“I don’t understand, wherefore these guys can’t gritty and the other guys can,” Sitt told reporters after Wednesday’s hearing, according to the Oklahoman. “They are federally recognized. i don’t reckon to the highest degree Oklahomans cognize the difference or interpret why wouldn’t we tolerate this folk to biz if 20 other tribes are capable to gritty inward the commonwealth of Oklahoma. That’s what’s a head-scratcher to me.”

Litigation Continues

The 2 compacts rejected Wednesday were among quaternary Sitt negotiated inward 2020. The OK Supreme Margaret Court has antecedently rejected them, and related to judicial proceeding is on-going inwards the U.S. District Margaret Court for the District of Columbia.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has antecedently excoriated the governor’s handling of the tribal gaming number and is seeking to have over representing the province inward the on-going litigation.

Drummond has accused the regulator of wasting taxpayers’ money and misrepresenting the say inward the case. The regulator opposes Drummond’s involvement, and the two sides still reason the number in royal court briefs.

The example was filed past the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Citizen Potawatomi, and Chahta nations against the Interior Department, which oversees tribal gaming at the federal level, and other defendants.

At the audience Wednesday, State Sen. Kay Floyd (D-Oklahoma City) cited the ongoing judicial proceeding as a ground to hold up away on plausive the compacts, according to local TV post KOKH Fox25.

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