ROCK HILL — The Legislature adjourned for the year without passing a bill that would let the Catawba Indians open a high-stakes bingo parlor in Santee.

The Catawbas operate a bingo parlor in Rock Hill and want to open a second, more sophisticated operation in Santee. That facility would have higher-stakes bingo, with touch screens and electronic links to other bingo games nationwide.

Now, tribal attorney Jay Bender says the Catawbas will go forward with a federal lawsuit filed against the state last month.

Bender said failure to pass the bill is another chapter in the state’s long history of ignoring the rights of American Indians.

“The state was given a chance, and it failed to respond,” he said. “Since that’s (Santee bingo) been blocked by the governor and Washington and since the state Legislature didn’t act, it seems we’ll have to return to video poker in York County.”

The Catawbas’ lawsuit seeks to affirm the tribe’s right to have video gambling and electronic games on its York County reservation, Bender said.

The federal suit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, but no trial date has been set.

If the Catawbas win the suit, the tribe also will request local law enforcement and authorities be prohibited from enforcing state laws on the sovereign Indian nation, The (Rock Hill) Herald reported.

Video gambling was outlawed in South Carolina in 2000.

State Sen. Wes Hayes, R-Rock Hill, has said he is opposed to video gambling on the reservation and the Santee bingo hall.

State Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, has said the bingo operation would create new jobs for Santee and Orangeburg County.

Eleven years ago, the Catawbas reached an agreement with the state and federal government that ended legal filings from nearly 60,000 landowners in York, Chester and Lancaster counties about compensation for 144,000 acres of American Indian land taken in the Treaty of Nation Ford in 1840.

The 1993 agreement also recognized the Catawbas as a limited sovereign Indian nation and gave them the right to operate two bingo parlors. One of those had to be within the boundaries of the original land claim, so the tribe opened a bingo hall in Rock Hill seven years ago.

Bender says a proposed site for the Catawbas’ video gambling casino, which could include as many as 1,000 machines, is accessible from I-77 and the Rock Hill Galleria.

“I envision Las Vegas-style neon signs pointing the way to the reservation,” Bender said. “The tribe will persevere.”

Bender is a Columbia attorney who specializes in media law and First Amendment issues. Among his clients are The State newspaper and the S.C. Press Association. The State is a member of the press association.