The short version
Federal law lets a tribe run slot machines only under a compact with its state. Arizona’s governor at first refused to negotiate, and on May 12, 1992 federal agents raided five tribal casinos. A year of standoff, mediation and a new state law later, sixteen tribes had compacts. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, whose land lies along Scottsdale’s eastern edge, was not among them, and when it asked for the same compact in 1995, Governor Fife Symington refused to sign any more.
The Community went around him. It sponsored a ballot measure requiring the state to offer the standard compact, and voters passed it in 1996 by nearly two to one. When the governor still insisted on a say over where its casinos went, the Arizona Supreme Court ordered him in 1997 to sign. The compact was signed in August 1998, and Casino Arizona opened that year on the Community’s side of the Pima Road corridor.
The first compacts
At first light on May 12, 1992 federal agents raided the Fort McDowell casino and four others, and the Yavapai blocked the vans carrying 349 machines. “After they loaded the trucks, our people blocked the entrance. It was a rather scary situation,” Fort McDowell’s president, Clinton Pattea, recalled; the standoff lasted about three weeks (see May 12, 1992). Symington signed Fort McDowell’s compact on November 25, 1992. A mediator, Frank X. Gordon, worked through the rest, the Legislature passed a law that Symington signed on March 5, 1993, and on June 24, 1993 the state signed a standard compact with a group of tribes. By April 1994 sixteen of Arizona’s twenty-one tribes had one.
Salt River asks, and the governor refuses
In May 1995 the Community announced plans for two casinos and formally asked for the standard compact. Symington, citing federal court decisions, said he would negotiate no new compacts or renew the old ones when they expired. “Native Americans have a monopoly right now,” he told High Country News. “They have 10 years to profit from that monopoly. Then it comes to an end.” He called gaming “a wealth transfer from our economy to theirs.” Location mattered to him: he would accept casinos only along State Route 87, near Fort McDowell’s, “and not on Salt River tribal land near Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa,” the Associated Press reported. The Community sued in federal court, arguing that the state was denying it equal protection.
Proposition 201
Then the Community took the question to the voters. Its initiative said simply: “The state refuses to enter into the standard form of compact with any of the five Arizona tribes that do not have a compact. In the interests of fairness and sound administration the same standard compact should be available to any of those five tribes who request it.” On November 5, 1996 voters passed it, 858,903 to 484,544. Symington first suggested he could refuse because it had passed by a majority of votes cast rather than of registered voters, then proclaimed it law on December 6.
The court
Three days later the Community’s president, Ivan Makil, tendered the standard compact. The governor answered with his own, which added that casino locations “shall be approved by the Arizona Department of Gaming.” His gaming director explained the concern in 1997: “Location has gotten a lot of attention, and the Governor wants to weigh in on where they place the casino.” The Community’s spokeswoman answered that “location was never an issue, and shouldn’t be now.”
On October 7, 1997, a month after Symington resigned and Jane Dee Hull succeeded him, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled unanimously for the Community. A governor, Justice Stanley Feldman wrote, “if unsuccessful in any negotiations and if requested by a tribe, must sign the standard form of compact.” And he added: “the people may have made the wrong policy decision. If so, it is not our job to choose a different policy but only to recognize and apply the law the people passed.”
One more challenge came from the neighbors. Two residents who lived in northeast Phoenix, about two miles from the Scottsdale city limits, sued to stop any compact allowing slot machines, claiming casinos would change the character of their community and bring “urban crowding, traffic and stresses.” A trial judge agreed; on July 16, 1998 the Supreme Court reversed, holding that they lacked standing.
The compact
On August 18, 1998 Governor Hull and the Community signed a compact allowing up to three casinos on Community land, at least a mile and a half apart, with no state veto over where. The Interior Department approved it on September 10, in a letter addressed to Makil. Casino Arizona had already opened in a temporary hall, on June 19, 1998 by the Arizona Republic’s later account, or in August by the Community’s; a second opened at Indian Bend Road in March 1999. Their successors, including Talking Stick Resort, now anchor the Community’s side of the Pima Freeway across from Scottsdale.
Scottsdale’s own voice is missing from the record. No council resolution or mayoral statement on a casino across Pima Road has been found, though the governor invoked the city’s name in refusing one. The 1990s politics chapter sets the fight beside the decade’s other battles over the Pima Road corridor, and Casino Arizona and Talking Stick carry the story forward.