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SEPTEMBER 27, 2000

In a ruling against the state of Connecticut on Monday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the notion that the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation could attempt to turn all of southeastern Connecticut into Indian Country.

However distasteful the idea may be to local leaders, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and author Jeff Benedict, the threat of a Pequot empire cannot prevent the tribe, or any other federally recognized tribe, from purchasing land and asking the Department of Interior to take it into trust for them, ruled he court.

"Other federally recognized Indian tribes are not saddled with a geographical limit to the land that can be taken into trust by the Secretary," said the court.

"We see no reason to fashion a rule that limits the Tribe from seeking authorization, after administrative proceedings, to have land placed into trust with the Secretary simply because the Mashantucket Pequots now have the purchasing power to make substantial real estate acquisitions," continued the court.

In ruling against the state, the court upheld the reasoning behind the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. The act allows the Interior to take land into trust for the benefit of tribes.

The ruling also relied on precedents established in Eastern land claims cases. Unlike the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, which specifically prohibited the Interior from taking land into trust outside reservation boundaries for three Maine tribes, Congress placed no such limitation in the 1983 Mashantucket Pequot Settlement Act, the court said.

Finally, the court upheld the canons of contruction. Usually applied in treaty rights cases, one of the canons states that ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of a tribe.

In this case, the state believed the tribe could not annex land because the settlement act defined its borders once and for all. But the court ruled that this section only applies to land bought with a $900,000 settlement fund outside the reservation boundaries.

The debate here centered over 165 acres, but the tribe is also considering adding some 1,200 acres known as the Lake of Isles to its real estate portfolio. Should the Interior agree to take this land into trust for the tribe, the Pequot reservation could grow to over 4,000 acres.

The only action which could prevent the Interior from doing so is legislative. Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) introduced a bill which would have done so, but it failed to gain much support.

Get the Ruling:
Connecticut v. Babbitt (Second Circuit Court of Appeals. No. 99-6042. September 2000)

Related Stories:
Court rules against anti-Pequot towns (Tribal Law 9/26)
Towns optimistic about Pequot suit (Tribal Law 06/15)

Relevant Links:
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals - www.law.pace.edu/lawlib/legal/us-legal/judiciary/second-circuit.html