Interior officials approved the Class III gaming compact between Catawba and North Carolina in March.Ĭatawba Chief Bill Harris said in a statement after the Senate passed the NDAA bill on Dec. Clyburn was the sponsor of the Catawba Lands Act bill in the House.Ĭatawba leaders plan to build the Two Kings Casino Resort, a $273 million development, on the land taken into trust. Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, after the White House announced Biden’s signing. “This is the first step towards rectifying the wrongs perpetrated against the Catawba Indian Nation and addressing the historical inequities they face,” tweeted US Rep. Not surprisingly, Catawba leaders and their supporters celebrated the NDAA’s enactment. New Law Addresses “Historical Inequities” Sneed, in a 2019 letter to US Senators, called the Catawba action “reservation shopping” after the South Carolina-based tribe could not get officials in that state to enter into a Class III gaming compact. “It is very disappointing that the right to a redress of grievances can be taken away by an Act of Congress.”ĮBCI challenged the Interior’s decision to take the land in Kings Mountain, NC – located about 30 miles west of Charlotte – into trust, claiming that land had a historical connection to the Cherokees. The action taken by the Congress kills our ‘day in court,’” Sneed said in an email. The act recognizes 17 acres of North Carolina land the Department of the Interior took into trust for the South Carolina-based Catawba Nation.Īccording to a Congressional Budget Office analysis from May, the Catawba act imposes “an intergovernmental mandate as defined by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation, by restricting their existing right of action to pursue a case against DOI under the Administrative Procedures Act.”ĮBCI Principal Chief Richard Sneed confirmed that to. The Senate then added it to the appropriations bill. However, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by Biden included the Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act. That case is currently in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The action was filed after the Catawba Indian Nation was given the go-ahead to build a casino in North Carolina. A bill signed into law on Monday by President Joe Biden ends the legal challenge the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) filed against the federal government.

Catawba indian casino pechanga