{"id":184625,"date":"2021-09-01T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T21:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=184625"},"modified":"2021-09-01T15:11:15","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T22:11:15","slug":"ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponca Tribe Scores Casino Victory Against Iowa, Nebraska in Federal Appeals Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal appeals court has upheld<\/a> the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska\u2019s legal right to have built its Prairie Flower Casino<\/a> in Carter Lake, Iowa.<\/p>\n

\"Prairie
The Ponca opened its modest Prairie Flower Casino in Carter Lake in 2018 after years of legal battles. (Image: AZCentral)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tribe opened the casino in November 2018, despite facing legal challenges that sought to derail the project for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Eighth Circuit panel of three judges ruled that the Ponca Restoration Act (PRA) of 1990 authorized the tribe to conduct business on the land it purchased in Carter Lake in 1999, and that includes gaming.<\/p>\n

Land Dispute<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Previously, Iowa Assistant Attorney General John Lundquist argued the Carter Lake parcel was not eligible for a casino. That’s because it was not part of the lands restored to the tribe by PRA.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Act only specifically identified land in Knox and Boyd Counties, Nebraska — some 100 miles away — as that which \u201cshall be transferred to the state for the benefit of the Tribe,\u201d Lundquist claimed.<\/p>\n

But the panel wrote\u00a0this did not mean the US Secretary of the Interior \u201clacks authority to restore lands elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress has shown that it knows how to limit a tribe\u2019s ability to conduct gaming on its land when it wishes to do so,\u201d it continued. \u201cThe Ponca Restoration Act, by contrast, contains no language limiting gaming or the \u2018restoration of lands\u2019 for the Tribe.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quirky Geography<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not just the State of Iowa that has been pursuing the Ponca through the courts, but also the State of Nebraska.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because of the peculiar geography of Carter Lake, a two-mile tract of Iowa that lies west of the Missouri River and is surrounded entirely by Nebraska. The anomaly was created by flooding that changed the course of the river around 140 years ago.<\/p>\n

Carter Lake is in Iowa, but to all intents and purposes, it\u2019s in Nebraska. Meanwhile, the City of Council Bluffs is on the other side of the river, but also in Iowa. It joined the case because it wants to protect its existing commercial casinos, Ameristar, Harrah\u2019s, and the Horseshoe, which previously got all the footfall from the other side of the river.<\/p>\n

Collectively, the three casinos pay around $80 million in taxes to the state each year, and an additional $2 million to the city, according to The Des Moines Register.<\/em><\/p>\n

Prairie Flower <\/strong><\/h2>\n

This is not the first time the Ponca have scored a big legal victory in a federal court. In 1879, the tribe\u2019s chief, Standing Bear, successfully argued that Native Americans were \u201cpersons within the meaning of the law,\u201d winning the right of habeus corpus.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Prairie Flower Casino is named for Standing Bear\u2019s daughter, who died during or shortly after the tribe\u2019s forced \u201cremoval\u201d to Oklahoma two years earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal appeals court has upheld the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska\u2019s legal right to have built its Prairie Flower Casino in Carter Lake, Iowa. The tribe opened the casino in November 2018, despite facing legal challenges that sought to derail the project for more than a decade. On Monday, the Eighth Circuit panel of three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":184626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,18456],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPonca Tribe Scores in Appeals Court Vs Iowa, Nebraska in Casino Row<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ponca tribe scores victory for its Prairie Flower casino in Federal Appeals Court against Iowa, Nebraska and Council Bluffs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ponca Tribe Scores in Appeals Court Vs Iowa, Nebraska in Casino Row\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ponca tribe scores victory for its Prairie Flower casino in Federal Appeals Court against Iowa, Nebraska and Council Bluffs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-01T21:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-01T22:11:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/prairie-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/\",\"name\":\"Ponca Tribe Scores in Appeals Court Vs Iowa, Nebraska in Casino Row\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/prairie-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-01T21:12:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-09-01T22:11:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Ponca tribe scores victory for its Prairie Flower casino in Federal Appeals Court against Iowa, Nebraska and Council Bluffs.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ponca-tribe-scores-in-appeals-court-vs-iowa-nebraska-in-casino-row\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/prairie-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/prairie-2.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"The Ponca opened its modest Prairie Flower Casino in Carter Lake in 2018 after years of legal battles. 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