Club One Casino, Inc., dba Club One Casino, et al. v. Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, et al.

A Nevada gambling corporation donated a parcel of private California land to the United States to hold in trust for an Indian tribe for an off-reservation gambling casino to be run by the tribe and the private gambling corporation. Over four million California voters, a 60 percent majority, rejected a casino on this parcel, a parcel which had never been Indian owned or governed. The State of California never consented to relinquishing its jurisdiction over the parcel. Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit held that tribal jurisdiction over the land, required by The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 25 U.S.C. § 2710, was automatically created: “[A]s a matter of law, the federal government confers tribal jurisdiction over lands it acquires in trust for the benefit of tribes” (including by private donation) even absent State jurisdictional consent or cession. The questions presented by this petition relate to fundamental questions of State sovereignty over State lands: 1. Does the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U.S.C. § 5108, by authorizing the Secretary of the Interior “in his discretion” to acquire lands “for the purpose of providing land for Indians,” silently operate, by virtue of a simple transfer of title, to divest States of their inherent and exclusive jurisdiction over such acquired lands and transfer it, without State cession or consent, to a tribe?