Client:

Town of North Stonington, Connecticut

Issue:

For over 12 years, Perkins Coie has represented numerous parties in Connecticut to oppose the acknowledgment of new Indian tribes under federal law.  These new tribes’ ultimate goal is to open new casinos. 

Perkins Coie successfully represented the Connecticut clients in defeating three well-funded tribal petitioners in 2004 and 2005.  In June 2013, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn issued new draft tribal acknowledgment regulations that would greatly relax the standards for federal status and position the groups previously denied in Connecticut to achieve positive findings.  The draft became a proposed rule. 

As a result, Perkins Coie was retained to represent multiple parties—local governments, businesses, private landowners, schools and nonprofit citizens groups—to oppose the regulatory proposal and preserve the previous negative determinations. 

In the North Stonington case, two groups of people were seeking acknowledgement of Indian status by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in order to develop large-scale casinos on their lands, and North Stonington wanted to stop that development because it would have detrimental impacts.

Challenge:

These groups were backed by very wealthy investors seeking to open large-scale casinos and by a faction of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation. 

Solution:

Perkins Coie assembled a group of experts in Indian history, genealogy and sociology to prove that the petitioners did not qualify for Indian status under federal law.  We even reversed a preliminary finding by the BIA in favor of the petitioners by means of appeal to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.