Ariz. Governor Barred From Gambling Pacts

A federal judge on Tuesday barred Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull from approving any future gambling compacts with the state’s Indian tribes, enforcing a ruling he made last month that Hull lacked authority to make such compacts.

U.S. District Judge Robert C. Broomfield also set a June 1 deadline for the state to notify those tribes with compacts that the agreements permitting gambling on their reservations will not be renewed. However, his ruling does not invalidate existing gambling compacts.

The judge issued his order after considering rival drafts submitted last month by the state and several race tracks.

The tracks sued the state, Hull and Atty. Gen. Janet Napolitano last year to block new compacts, which the tracks contend would present them with expanded competition from illegal reservation casinos.

Both sides in the lawsuit agreed the judge should bar Hull from entering new compacts to replace ones that start expiring in late 2003.

The tracks asked Broomfield to require Hull to declare that the current compacts will not be renewed and tie her hands on making changes to them in the meantime.

Though the tracks didn’t ask Broomfield to order that gambling be stopped while the current compacts are still running, they said it is clear that they are illegal and can’t be renewed.

Hull’s proposed order said it would be premature and unnecessary to order her to immediately declare that the compacts will not be renewed. Continued negotiations with the tribes could produce the basis for a new law that could be passed by the Legislature or the state’s voters, her lawyers argued.

Hull has said she always presumed the current compacts were legal and that she could enter new ones under authority granted her predecessor, fellow Republican Fife Symington, by the Legislature in the early 1990s.