The North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians took a significant hit in their quest to build a casino just outside of Madera along Highway 99.
On Tuesday, the Fifth District Court of Appeals sided with the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians in its long-running lawsuit against North Fork to prevent the proposed casino from being built far from North Fork’s Rancheria in the Sierra foothills.
The backstory: North Fork signed a compact with former California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012 to build a casino on a 305-acre site north of Madera.
- The planned casino would have 2,000 slot machines and 40 gaming tables.
- While the California Legislature ratified the tribal-state compact in 2013, California voters rejected the compact in 2014 when shooting down Proposition 48.
- With the results of Prop. 48 in hand, Chukchansi filed a lawsuit against North Fork in 2016, claiming that Brown’s concurrence with the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2012 that the proposed off-reservation casino would be in the best interest of the tribe and would not be detrimental to the community was void.
- Following other tribal lawsuits, a Madera County Superior Court judge sided with Chukchansi last year, ruling that the voters annulled Brown’s concurrence, meaning it never took effect.
- North Fork appealed the ruling, arguing that Brown’s concurrence was not void and that the status of his concurrence has no bearing on the tribe’s authority to operate the casino under federal law.
The big picture: The appellate court ruled that the people of California exercised their retained power to annul Brown’s concurrence by rejecting Prop. 48.
- The court ruled that the annulment rendered the concurrence void ab initio – meaning it never took effect and is not in effect.
Go deeper: The appellate court made the distinction that Brown’s concurrence was void from the start, instead of for the two-year-plus stretch from concurrence to the November 2014 election.
- The ruling continued, “Consequently, we conclude the voter’s rejection of Proposition 48 included an implied annulment of the Governor’s concurrence that rendered the concurrence void ab initio.”
- The court ruled, “[T]he voter’s intent to reject class III gaming on the Madera Site strongly favors treating the concurrence as void ab initio rather than in effect until the election.”
North Fork responds: The North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians sent The Sun a statement on Jan. 23 responding to the ruling:
- “The state appeals court ruled on a narrow question of state law and expressly did not consider what effect, if any, the 2014 voter referendum had on the 2012 and 2016 federal approvals of the North Fork’s project as a matter of federal law. Picayune Rancheria previously challenged each of those approvals in the federal courts and lost conclusively, providing North Fork the right to proceed with its project. North Fork will continue to comply with all applicable law, including the federal laws that govern Indian gaming, as it proceeds with construction of its project to benefit the regional economy and the lives of its more than 3000 tribal citizens.”
