Posted on Tue, Jan. 16, 2007

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GAMBLING LAWSUIT

Court to hear tribe’s case

S.C. Supreme Court to rule whether Catawbas can open video poker or bingo operation

By RICK BRUNDRETT

rbrundrett@thestate.com

The S.C. Supreme Court will consider Wednesday whether the Catawba Indian Tribe has the right to operate video poker on its Rock Hill reservation.

A special circuit court judge in December 2005 ruled that a 1993 settlement between the Catawbas and the state allows video poker. The S.C. attorney general’s office appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Oral arguments in the case are set for Wednesday. A ruling will be issued some time in the future.

The state’s only federally recognized tribe has threatened to open a video-poker operation on its reservation if it can’t open a high-stakes bingo hall in Orangeburg County, which it contends also is allowed under the settlement.

The Catawbas say they need high-stakes bingo because their Rock Hill bingo hall, now closed, lost millions of dollars after the state-run lottery began in 2002.

The proposed bingo operation, along I-95 in Santee, would generate 1,827 jobs for the area, creating $37 million in labor earnings, $3.2 million in state income and sales taxes, and $1.8 million in tax revenue for local governments, according to a 2004 University of South Carolina study.

“It’s sort of our BMW,” said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, when contacted last week. “It would be one of the largest developments to come to a small, rural county.”

Hutto has unsuccessfully tried twice to push through legislation permitting the Santee operation. He said he likely will file another bill this year if the Supreme Court sides with the tribe, noting it “would be a much closer vote” without a favorable ruling.

Critics including Gov. Mark Sanford, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster and members of the York County legislative delegation say the state should not be forced to choose between video poker — now banned — and high-stakes bingo.

The attorney general’s office contends the 2005 ruling by Richland County Master-In-Equity Joseph Strickland, acting as a special circuit judge, “now reopens the door for the return to this state of video poker.”

“I didn’t support the lottery,” said Sen. Wes Hayes, R-York. “But with the lottery, I haven’t seen evidence that it is as destructive or addictive as video bingo or video poker.”

Hayes, a lawyer who was involved in the 1993 settlement, said the proposed Santee operation likely would have at least 1,000 video bingo machines, which he contended are “the same thing” as the outlawed video poker machines. He described video poker as the “crack cocaine of gambling.”

Hayes predicted it would be “very unlikely” that Hutto’s bill, if reintroduced, would pass this year.

“We’re opposed to the expansion of gambling in South Carolina in general,” said Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer. “We believe the Catawbas should live within the limits of the 1993 agreement.”

Under the 1993 settlement and related state law, video-poker machines would be banned on the reservation if the state made them illegal statewide, which occurred in 2000, the attorney general’s office contends in court papers. It says state legislators never intended to allow the tribe to operate video poker “in perpetuity.”

The Catawbas contend the settlement allows video poker even if the state banned it. They say the settlement, ratified by Congress, has the force of federal law and can be changed only by Congress or with the consent of the tribe.

“The state’s argument is to treat the Catawbas like everyone in South Carolina,” said Columbia attorney Jay Bender, the tribe’s longtime attorney. “That’s just historically inaccurate and legally inaccurate.”

Bender, a USC law and journalism professor, specializes in media law and First Amendment issues. His clients include The State newspaper and the S.C. Press Association; The State is a member of the association.

In 1980, the tribe filed a federal lawsuit claiming the state, without necessary congressional approval, cheated it out of nearly 144,000 acres that had been its reservation created by treaties in 1760 and 1763. The lawsuit led to more than a decade of negotiations, which resulted in the 1993 settlement and related state law.

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.