Fort Sill Apache tribe asks court to compel NM governor to sign compact

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An Oklahoma-based American Indian tribe requested New Mexico's highest court on Friday to force Gov. Susana Martinez to sign a gambling compact with them.



The Fort Sill Apache Tribe filed its argument in the state Supreme Court, saying Martinez has ignored requests by its chairman to sign on to existing compacts. According to tribe officials, a new gambling compact being considered in the state Legislature prevents Fort Sill Apaches from being included. The compact includes language that excludes tribes from building casinos on land that wasn't held in federal trust status before 1988.



The tribe wants to operate a casino on land in southern New Mexico that was put into trust in 2002.



While a section of the compact says tribes not signed on can negotiate their own compacts in the future, the Fort Sill tribe said New Mexico doesn't have a history of individually negotiating compacts, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported (http://bit.ly/1wydqBi).



"As the Governor's Office has repeatedly said, Fort Sill will have the ability to negotiate a compact with the State after it receives permission from the federal government to game in New Mexico," Martinez spokesman Mike Lonergan said in an email Friday. "The tribe simply does not have any eligible lands in New Mexico."



This is the second time the governor and the tribe have become entangled in state Supreme Court. The court ruled last April that Martinez had to recognize the Fort Sill Apache as a New Mexico tribe. The federal government designated the 30-acre parcel in southern New Mexico as the tribe's reservation in 2011, but the Apache governmental offices are in Oklahoma. The tribe currently operates a casino in Lawton, Oklahoma.



New Mexico lawmakers are facing a hard deadline as agreements that allow a handful of American Indian tribes to operate casinos approach their expiration dates.



Martinez's office has spent the past three years working with tribes to craft a new gambling compact that supporters say would bring stability to New Mexico's gambling industry, protect jobs and increase revenues to the state.



The Legislature's compact committee has been taking public testimony Saturday on the proposal.