Oklahoma Governor Hires Seattle Attorneys in Tribal Casinos Dispute

Oklahoma’s Republican Governor, Kevin Stitt, has hired an out-of-state law firm to handle his legal dispute with three of the state’s tribes over their casino compacts.

Gov. Stitt tapped Seattle-based Perkins Coie to help him battle the tribes’ attempt to continue their casino operations without renegotiating their compacts with the state, which the Governor maintains expired on December 31, 2019.

Gov. Stitt’s general counsel, Mark Burget, signed last month a contract with Perkins Coie for legal services of up to $300,000. The contract signed on behalf of Oklahoma’s top official also authorized fees of up to $750 per hour.

Gov. Stitt spokeswoman Donelle Harder said on Friday that it is a common practice for states to seek outside counsel in “complex disputes or specialized areas” and that Perkins Coie attorneys already have experience with tribal gambling compact disputes as they recently worked on a similar issue in New Mexico.

Oklahoma’s Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations filed this past Tuesday a federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that their 15-year compacts with the state automatically renewed for 15 more years on January 1.

Oklahoma voters approved tribal casinos in 2004. In 2006, the state’s tribes signed 15-year gambling compacts, under which these would renew automatically once their term expired, unless either the tribes or the state requested to renegotiate the agreements within six months of their end.

It Is Business As Usual for Oklahoma’s Tribal Casinos

In July 2019, Gov. Stitt told the state’s federally recognized tribes that he wanted to renegotiate the terms of their agreements and warned that any failure to reach new agreements would mean that casino-style gambling would become illegal in the state as of January 1, 2020.

The state’s tribal casinos currently pay between 4% and 6% on revenue from their Class III slot machines and up to 10% on table game revenue in exchange for casino exclusivity. The state has received around $1.5 billion in exclusivity fees from its more than 100 tribal casinos over the past 15 years.

However, Gov. Stitt said that he wants the gambling venues to pay between 20% and 25% in exclusivity fees. If the tribes bow to these rates, which is highly unlikely, Oklahoma would become one of the most expensive places in the US to conduct casino gambling activities.

Gov. Stitt’s warning that tribal casinos would become illegal from January 1 had no impact on the venues’ operations. They continued to operate as usual without any disruptions. In their lawsuit, the three above-mentioned tribes said that they had met all the necessary requirements to make sure that their compacts with the state can renew automatically for another 15 years from January 1.

In a statement tacked onto their federal lawsuit, the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations also noted that while they preferred negotiation over litigation, “the federal court is now the only reasonable alternative to bring legal certainty to this issue.”

Several tribal casinos have issued statements since the beginning of the year to inform their patrons that their operations will remain uninterrupted, despite the ongoing dispute with the state.

Source: Oklahoma governor hires law firm in tribal gambling battle

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