Threat to Tiverton casino seen in Taunton land bill advanced in Congress

Amid all the hoopla surrounding the opening of the new Twin River casino in Tiverton is a gnawing worry that legislation introduced in Congress by U.S. Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and other members of the Massachusetts delegation could put a projected $48 million in Rhode Island gambling dollars at risk.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Amid all the hoopla surrounding the opening of the new Twin River casino in Tiverton is a gnawing worry that legislation introduced in Congress by U.S. Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and other members of the Massachusetts delegation could put a projected $48 million in Rhode Island gambling dollars at risk.

The legislation would effectively overturn a 2016 federal court decision thwarting the efforts of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to build a 400,000-square-foot gambling resort in Taunton, Massachusetts, with financing from a Malaysian company known as the Genting Group.

It is a short bill that would give the landless Massachusetts-based tribe the “land-in-trust” designation it secured from the Obama administration, lost in court, and is battling to regain. The legislation would also require the immediate dismissal of any litigation challenging the tribe’s eligibility for this critical designation.

Thanking the lawmakers who introduced the legislation this past spring, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell said: “It was our ancestors who greeted the Pilgrims and helped them survive. It was our forebears who signed the first treaty with the settlers, sharing our land and natural resources which made the establishment of Plymouth Colony possible. Re-affirming our right to a reservation for our people, as this legislation does, is just and honorable and ensures that our Tribe will be treated equally under the law as other federally recognized tribes.”

The news release did not once mention the word “casino.”

In response to a Journal inquiry, Warren’s office issued this statement on Tuesday: “Our bill is about recognizing the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal homelands and the tribe’s right to keep their reservation. The federal government should not renege on yet another deal with Native Americans.”

But Twin River’s owners are concerned. So are top government officials in Rhode Island officials, at the prospect of a huge revenue loss.

A market study that Christiansen Capital Advisors conducted for the Raimondo administration in 2017 looked at a number of scenarios, including the potential financial impact on Rhode Island’s gambling industry of competition from a Taunton casino. The study projected a total revenue decline of $49.8 million in fiscal 2022 and a further decline of $13.7 million in fiscal 2023.

For Rhode Island, where gambling is the third largest source of state revenue, that drop could translate into a projected $26.1-million loss of state revenue in the first year, and a further decline of $6.6 million the next year, according to an analysis of the Christiansen report provided by Twin River spokeswoman Patti Doyle.

According to the Christiansen report: “The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, also known as the People of the First Light, proposed to build a $500 million casino and resort facility in East Taunton, which is located approximately 35 miles south of Boston and 20 miles east of Providence.”

“Construction on the project had already begun when in 2016 U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young ruled that United States Department of the Interior (DOI) erred by taking 151 acres in Taunton and 170 acres in Mashpee into trust (which in essence makes it tribal reservation land) because the tribe was not formally under federal jurisdiction in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted.”

In late August, without any fanfare, Gov. Gina Raimondo sent letters to President Donald Trump and the members of the U.S. House committee that held a hearing this summer on a version of the legislation.

“Dear Mr. President,″ wrote Raimondo, a Democrat running for a second four-year term. “On behalf of the State of Rhode Island, I write to express serious concerns regarding ... the ‘Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act’.”

“If passed,″ echoed Raimondo, “the Act would allow the Mashpee to by-pass the well-settled Indian Reorganization Act (the IRA) and have land taken into trust for purposes of operating a resort casino in Taunton, Massachusetts.″

As such, it would “directly undermine decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the United States District Court for Massachusetts and the current view of the Department of the Interior that the Secretary of the Interior is not authorized to take land into trust for the [Mashpee Wampanoags] or any other tribe that was not under federal jurisdiction as of 1934,″ she wrote.

It would also undermine a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Rhode Island case, known as Carcieri V. Salazar, that blocked the Narragansett Indians from securing federal trust status for a parcel of land they own in Charlestown.

Citing this case in her letters, Raimondo wrote: “Rhode Island successfully fought a ten-year legal battle with the Department to limit the Secretary’s power to take land in trust ... only for those tribes under federal jurisdiction as of 1934.”

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island said: “The entire delegation has made its opposition to this bill well known to their colleagues.” When pressed, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who is seeking reelection this year, confirmed that Whitehouse is opposed but would not say why. U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I. delivered Raimondo’s letters of opposition to members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources.