The State of Alaska has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging recent federal decisions that redefine jurisdiction over what are known as Native allotments in the state.
At the heart of the dispute is a decision by federal officials to grant the Native Village of Eklutna, based in Anchorage, jurisdiction over an individually owned Native allotment, known as the Ondola Allotment, which paved the way for gaming operations on the land.
The legal battle comes just as the Native Village of Eklutna has hurriedly opened a gambling operation near Peters Creek in Anchorage. The tribe contractors, operating under the supervision of a Las Vegas gambling developer, worked through the night to set up the Chin’an Gaming Hall, which consists of two trailers pushed together in a muddy construction site. The tribe moved swiftly to establish operations, fearing potential delays from the Trump Administration. However, the casino is already facing lawsuits from neighboring residents who object to its impact on the community.
Aaron Leggett, president of the Eklutna Native Village, called the casino opening a “historic milestone” for tribal self-determination. “Chin’an means ‘thank you’ in Dena’ina/Athabascan,” Leggett said. He assured that “safety and respect for our neighbors and customers are our top priorities,” despite opposition from local residents in what was once a quiet neighborhood.
While the casino is currently operating with strict capacity limits, it is expected to expand in the coming weeks. Leggett has emphasized that revenue from the gaming hall will help support housing, healthcare, employment, job training, scholarships, and cultural programs for the tribe. He also projects the casino will generate $67 million in economic activity for the municipality.
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor emphasized that the State’s lawsuit is not about gaming but rather about jurisdictional authority.
“We are asking the court to reaffirm what it has already said—the State maintains primary jurisdiction over Alaska Native Allotments,” Taylor stated.
The State argues the decision contradicts longstanding legal interpretations and a recent federal court ruling that upheld the State of Alaska’s primary jurisdiction over such lands.
The lawsuit, which names officials from the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Indian Gaming Commission as defendants, contests a shift in legal interpretation that could significantly alter regulatory and public safety frameworks in Alaska.
The lawsuit cites the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which resolved aboriginal land claims by establishing a system where Alaska tribes, except for Metlakatla, would not have territorial jurisdiction over land. According to the State, ANCSA intended for Alaska Native lands, whether owned by individuals or Native Corporations, to remain under State jurisdiction.
For decades, the Department of the Interior maintained that federally recognized tribes in Alaska did not have territorial jurisdiction over Native Allotments.
However, in February 2024, the DOI’s Solicitor issued a new legal opinion reversing this stance. This opinion served as the basis for the NIGC and Bureau of Indian Affairs to rule that the Ondola Allotment, a six-acre parcel in Chugiak leased to the Native Village of Eklutna, fell under tribal jurisdiction and was eligible for gaming.
The reversal by the Biden Administration agencies has raised numerous legal and regulatory concerns. The State’s complaint highlights uncertainties regarding law enforcement authority, hunting and fishing regulations, and state control over alcohol, marijuana, and environmental laws on these lands. The shift in jurisdictional authority could also impact property taxation and other State regulatory powers.
Meanwhile, the casino’s rapid haphazard opening exacerbated tensions between the tribe, the State, and local residents. While the Municipality of Anchorage has an interim agreement with the tribe to offset public safety costs, the casino is not subject to state or local taxes, raising further concerns about its economic impact.
The dispute follows a 2021 ruling by the District Court in the District of Columbia, which concluded that the Native Village of Eklutna did not have territorial jurisdiction over the Ondola Allotment. By contradicting this ruling, the State argues, federal agencies have overstepped their authority and disrupted long-established legal interpretations.
In its lawsuit, the State of Alaska contends that the DOI, NIGC, and BIA acted outside their authority and improperly altered the jurisdictional landscape without congressional approval. The lawsuit seeks to vacate the federal decisions and restore the legal status quo, reaffirming the State’s jurisdiction over Native allotments.
Nothing like a casino to enrich the public sector unions. Prostitutes, organized crime, poverty, and drugs will ensure a steady supply of customers to the prisons, the legal system, homelessness, and the APD.
Plus all the accidents on the highway from drunk patrons.
We taxpayers will get stuck with the cost in money and lives.
These is a class ll casino. Old ladies smoking cigarettes playing electronic bingo. Lock em up.
Good news putting a proper stop to this destructive endeavor.
Eliminate gambling altogether, and DOI, NIGC, and BIA, if possible. The DOGE needs to look hard at these sinful and/or wasteful institutions.
Woohoo! Shut it down!!!
If this stands, which it shouldn’t, it’s going to open up Alaska communities to a huge tax dodge. Every Native Allotment held in trust will be a potential new tax free site for any type of business that wants to build there….
The State is on the right track. It’s one law for everyone, not a law for you and another for me .
They want a casino, fine change the State law.
It would be my hope that any of the casino money would be used as stated. I am not sure why they would need medical care since all Natives receive medicare since Indian Health was turned over.
My experience, as someone raised in Las Vegas, that gaming is not something good for families particularly.
As the grand daughter of a gambler/bookie I can testify to that. Much damage done to our family as many nefarious habits seem to follow suit with the lifestyle. I am not a fan of gambling and want it to remain illegal in our state. Sovereignty should not be above the law.
You are correct; We native Alaskans have amazing health care. To state otherwise is just a flat out lie.
Sure, if you are a public sector union member or earn over 400k per year. It is wonderfully designed for unnecessary surgeries and poisonous pharmaceuticals.
That’s hilarious coming from someone who’s never stepped foot inside ANMC.
PS, I receive excellent health care from ANMC.
I even had surgery 5 years ago that did not bankrupt me.
And I make under 50k
Judy, I believe the use of the casino earnings is entirely besides the point. If this stands Alaska will become a patchwork of “tribal jurisdictions” with their own rules, reg and boundaries, that can shift as tribes acquire or disposed of property. There would be no certainty anymore for developers, resource extraction etc. The gaming issue is the perfect example. The state has very strict rules regarding gambling, but the Eklutna tribe feels entitled to ignore the state rules and do as they please, while contributing little if anything to the community.
I appreciate how the election of King Trump has ushered in a wave of such financial confidence that people are going to line up to happily lose their money to the newly build casino. Business is booming!
MAGA
You can thank your Alaska Native leaders—where the hardest decision of the day is whether to collect a stipend or a per diem first. Forget hard work or community service—why bother when you can rule from a steam bath or having a beer in Vegas on government money while basking in the glow of sovereignty?
Some have mastered the ancient art of the double life, spawning kids they don’t acknowledge & vanishing from their home communities only to reappear in city offices and board meetings around election time.
Family? Culture? Small details! There now an Alaskan casino to go to just one plane ride from their village!
Selfish, self serving Alaskan native leaders are nailing the coffin nails in with this move.
And Alaska’s Speaker of the House believed this was all being kept quiet.
How long until we see the race card played in this?
When the casino gets larger, and more money flows back to LaFrance and friends. That’s your trump card!
As a local resident, I don’t want a casino anywhere within 1000 miles of our neighborhood. We don’t need more exploitation of poor people with fantasies of gaining quick wealth, the addicted, or other vulnerable people. Gambling has long been recognized as damaging to individuals, families, and society in general. Find another way to make money, as other tribes have done.
Oops. The NVE’s attorney(s) forgot about the previous SIX cases that have set a legal precedence.
Cart? Meet the horse. Good thing they only used portables and did not start real construction.
This will be gone in 5….4…3…2…
The Forest Resources and Practices Act, of 1991, was written and enacted (by unanimous vote of the Alaska Legislature because of alarm – mostly at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game – over Native corporation timber harvests. It established rigid no harvest steam buffers, road building standards, permitting requirements (carefully called anything but permits) etc. on Native corporation land. There are many more and more stringent restrictions on state and municipal land timber harvests. The state attempted to enforce the same standards on Native allotments and the feds back down the state. Much more recently federal law was enacted and signed into law that allows Native corporations to put their land into a BIA trust, and that effectively removes state forest practices jurisdiction. However all the good timber on ANCSA land has been clear cut so this won’t be much of an issue until about 2150.
I hope that the state Supreme Court slaps down the Eklutna natives on this casino, and slaps them down hard, making them remove everything that they have put in place so far, and remediate the land back to its condition as of last year.
Most of you in Anchorage probably do not know, and could not possibly know, just what bad neighbors the Eklutna natives, and Eklutna Corp., are to those of us in Eagle River, Birchwood and Chugiak. It is frankly a travesty that this small handful of people is allowed to have such a disproportionate and heavy-handed influence and impact on this area. Their recent proposal to tear down the Eklutna Lake dam, destroying the invaluable hydroelectric power plant associated with it, not to mention imperiling the municipality’s entire drinking water supply, just to potentially allow a few dozen additional salmon to spawn in Eklutna Creek to their sole benefit is just another manifestation of their arrogance and short-sighted selfishness.
The Eklutna natives, in fact, are not just bad neighbors, they are nightmare neighbors, who seem determined to do anything and everything possible to make the lives of those of us in Eagle River, Chugiak and Birchwood as miserable as possible.
Tribes have the IRS status of a 501(c)(3). Just as all ‘mainstream’ non-profits throughout the United States, including Churches.
The State of Alaska accepts with open arms the benefits of the VPSO federally-funded and BIA COPS program to supplement areas of this state that have gone without law enforcement.
The State whether they are aware or not, have accepted the U.S. Census Bureau creation of jurisdiction throughout Alaska to supplement and support the States inability or unwillingness to meet the dire law enforcement unmet need throughout all of Alaska.
There is no grounds for the State of Alaska’s Complaint.
The State does not get to pick and choose what sovereign rights of Tribes are valid.
The State is duplicitous with this lawsuit by trying to define which Tribal rights are valid because the State perceives which Tribal rights are beneficial to the State.
That is not how sovereignty works.
And for the record, Tribal sovereignty does not mean Tribes are foreign sovereigns.
To set the record straight, state and U.S. Government sovereignty is more on point of foreign sovereignty than Tribal.
The state is simply asking the federal government to follow the multiple Acts of Congress wherein the laws governing jurisdiction were enacted.
Like it or not Acts of Congress carry with them the rule of law. BIA, IGC, DOI, and any of the other various acronyms do not outrank the United States Congress or Congressional Acts.
Have you read the previous 5 decisions regarding this matter that the State of Alaska has cited, Trudy Sobocienski?
As the owner of a consulting firm, Alaska Native Enterprise Developers, you clearly did your homework and sifted through these decisions… right?
Somehow I feel you did not.
Good luck.
Trudy; do you ever get tired of being proven wrong?
Ordinarily Id say if Eklutna wants to destroy itself, let it.
But what I’m really curious about is how a village with less than 100 residents gained such incredible power over the Muni.
Something stinks here.
I will tell you how a small group of less than 100 people gained such incredible power over the Muni, TMA: self-loathing guilty white radical leftism.
Should installed in one of those wooded areas off of the park strip where the hobos are living high off the grid . Be a great homeless area . It would be like a bee hive of illicit activity . Free camp sites , cheap smokes , lots ole pop and whiskey . Great place to meet another degenerate who defies all civil laws . What a joke . Courts will smash this one pretty hard . Should have been done four years ago when the rats where controlling the WhiteHouse . Another missed opportunity folks .
Hey, Trudy:
In 2021, federal Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled against Eklutna in a lawsuit it brought against the U.S. Department of Interior for not allowing Eklutna to use the Ondola Allotment (the real property where the Eklutna casino sits) for gambling.
“Judge Friedrich reasoned that Interior had properly applied its internal legal guidance that was, at that time, a 1993 legal opinion by then-Interior Solicitor Thomas Sansonetti.”
OOPS. Whomever paid you for your services needs their money back.
UPDATE: Lawsuit filed in Washington DC.
Life is a highway-Amazon got big enough to finance quicker development for off and on ramps on Interstate Highways because the fact is private-public agreements are brokered with private money- government authorization.
Government at its best reduces red tape.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the baseline measurement of influence.
It is seriously a SouthPark cartoon episode happening right in the uptight, upright neighbors backyard who are throwing a fit for being concerned about their quality of life.
As vigilant homesteaders-they could embrace the value of their property as they witness the zoning changes right before their lemonade, ice tea, walking the grey hound bus that is barreling their way.
Progress baby.
Progress cuts both ways.
Embrace the suck.
Amazon.com offers positive benefits for everyone; jobs are created. The state and municipality will get some tax revenues.
None of that applies to the Casino.
Seriously, don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?
Thomas, it is entertaining to me how cliche’ you are by appointing yourself as an arbitrator with a proclamation that I am wrong – and ‘doubling-down’ with a patronizing rhetorical question – asking if I am tired of being wrong.
To that I simply say, Chin’ a Gaming Hall is open for business.
‘https://maps.app.goo.gl/s5A4qsNuH5xb5rPk9?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy
I prove you wrong with FACTS – mixed in with snarky, but honest comments.
I find it sad that you totally ignore my facts.. which makes you incredibly wrong.
You could apologize and admit you have been proven wrong. That’s where the healing can begin
But something tells me you lack empathy and humility.