Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16811/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16811-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 950
Nature of Suit: Constitutionality of State Statutes
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

CITY OF GLENDALE,

Defendant,

and

STATE OF ARIZONA,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11-16811

D.C. No. 

2:11-cv-00279-

DGC

TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

 v.

STATE OF ARIZONA,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 11-16833

D.C. No. 

2:11-cv-00279-

DGC

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

David G. Campbell, District Judge, Presiding

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2 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

Argued and Submitted February 12, 2013

Submission Vacated June 21, 2013

Resubmitted October 30, 2015

San Francisco, California 

Filed November 6, 2015

Before: DOROTHY W. NELSON, STEPHEN

REINHARDT, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit

Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY*

Indian Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment

in an action challenging the constitutionality of H.B. 2534, an

Arizona law that allows a city or town within populous

counties to annex certain surrounding, unincorporated lands.

The Tohono O’odham Nation purchased unincorporated

land in Maricopa County, Arizona. The Nation alleged that

H.B. 2534 was enacted in order to block the federal

government from taking the land it purchased into trust on

behalf of the Nation, a process that would render the land part

of the Nation’s reservation pursuant to the Gila Bend Indian

Reservation Lands Replacement Act. H.B. 2534 was enacted

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 3

after the Nation announced its intention to build a casino on

“Parcel 2” of the land, and after the Secretary of the Interior

decided to take Parcel 2 into trust.

The panel affirmed the district court’s holding that H.B.

2534 is preempted by the Gila Bend Indian Reservation

Lands Replacement Act because it stands as an obstacle to the

accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and

objectives of the Act ̄namely, to enable the Secretaryto take

Parcel 2 into trust and thereby incorporate the land into tribal

land. The panel concluded that under H.B. 2534, the City of

Glendale, Arizona, purportedly had the authority ̄at the

point when the Nation filed a trust application ̄to

preemptivelyannex unincorporated land and effectivelyblock

the trust application.

The panel thus affirmed the legality of the Secretary’s

taking of Parcel 2 into trust pursuant to the Act. It did not

reach the Nation’s other challenges to H.B. 2534.

COUNSEL

Danielle Spinelli (argued), Seth P. Waxman, and Sonya

Lebsack, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP,

Washington, D.C.; Jonathan L. Jantzen and Laura Berglan,

Tohono O’odham Nation Office of the Attorney General,

Sells, Arizona, for Plaintiff-Appellee / Cross-Appellant.

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4 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

Evan F. Hiller (argued) and Michael Tryon, Arizona Office

of the Attorney General, Phoenix, Arizona, for DefendantAppellant State of Arizona / Cross-Appellee.

Audrey E. Moog (argued), Hogan Lovells US,

LLP, Washington, D.C., for Defendant City of Glendale.

OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

This appeal involves a dispute concerning 135 acres of

unincorporated land within Maricopa County, Arizona that

was purchased by Plaintiff, the Tohono O’odham Nation (the

Nation). The Nation filed suit against the City of Glendale

and the State of Arizona (collectively, Defendants),

challenging the constitutionality of H.B. 2534, a law passed

by the Arizona legislature that allows a city or town within

populous counties to annex certain surrounding,

unincorporated lands. 

The Nation alleges that H.B. 2534 was enacted to block

the federal government from taking the 135 acres it purchased

into trust on behalf of the Nation—a process that would

render the land part of the Nation’s reservation pursuant to

the Gila Bend Indian Reservation Lands Replacement Act,

Pub. L. No. 99-503, 100 Stat. 1798 (1986) (the Act). The

Nation asserts that H.B. 2534 is preempted by the Act,

violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the

U.S. and Arizona Constitutions, and violates the Arizona

Constitution’s prohibition against special legislation. The

parties filed cross summary judgment motions. The district

court ruled in favor of the Nation as to the federal preemption

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 5

claim, and ruled in favor of Defendants as to the remaining

claims. We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Tribal Land

The Tohono O’odham Nation, formerly known as the

Papago Tribe, is a federally recognized Indian tribe with over

28,000 members. The tribe is descended from Native

Americans who resided for centuries along the banks of the

Gila River in Arizona. In 1882, by executive order, President

Chester A. Arthur set aside for the Nation a 22,400-acre Gila

Bend Reservation in southwestern Arizona. The size of the

reservation was later reduced to 10,297 acres by executive

order of President William Howard Taft. In 1960, in order to

provide flood protection to non-tribal areas, the federal

government completed construction of the Painted Rock

Dam, located on the Gila River approximately ten miles from

the Gila Bend Reservation. In subsequent decades, flooding

from the dam caused major damage to the reservation,

destroying farm land and rendering the reservation land

economically unviable. The Nation was left with “a

reservation which for all practical purposes [could not] be

used to provide any kind of sustaining economy.” The

Nation sought a legislative remedy, rather than engaging in

lengthy litigation, and petitioned Congress for a new

reservation on lands that would be suitable for agriculture. 

II. Gila Bend IndianReservation Lands Replacement Act

In 1982, pursuant to section 308 of the Southern Arizona

Water Rights Settlement Act, Pub. L. No. 97-293, 96 Stat.

1261 (1982), Congress recognized its trust responsibility to

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6 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

find a different land base for the Nation. Section 308

authorized the Secretary of the Interior (the Secretary) to

conduct a study of the reservation, and to find lands suitable

for a tribal reservation. The ensuing study concluded that the

reservation land had little economic value and was unsuitable

for agriculture or grazing. Another study found that there

were no public lands within a 100-mile radius of the

reservation thatwere suitable as potential exchange properties

for the reservation. 

In 1986, Congress passed the Act to facilitate the

replacement of the reservation lands, and to promote the

economic self-sufficiency of the Nation. Pub. L. No. 99-503,

§ 2. The Act (1) authorized the Nation to assign 9,880 acres

of tribal land within the Gila Bend Indian Reservation to the

federal government in exchange for $30,000,000; (2)

authorized the Nation to purchase up to 9,880 acres of private

land, which would, at the request of the Nation, be held in

trust for the tribe, and thereby be incorporated into tribal land;

and (3) released the Nation’s claims against the United States

for past injuries to land and water rights. Pub. L. No. 99-503,

§§ 4(a), 6(c)-(d), 9(a). The Act requires that purchased

private land be held in trust and not be “outside the counties

of Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima, Arizona, or within the

corporate limits of any city or town.” Id. § 6(d). In 1987, the

Nation assigned its rights in the reservation lands and

relinquished its claims against the United States. 

III. Acquisition of Land and Trust Application 

In August 2003, the Nation purchased 135 acres of

unincorporated land within Maricopa County, Arizona (the

Replacement Lands) for $13.8 million. The Replacement

Lands are wholly located in an unincorporated “county

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 7

island,” surrounded on all sides by land incorporated within

the City of Glendale (the City), and include, among other

properties, a 54-acre portion known as Parcel 2. 

On January 28, 2009, the Nation filed an application with

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, requesting that the Replacement

Lands be taken into trust pursuant to the Act. At the same

time, the Nation publicly revealed its plan to build a casino on

Parcel 2 of the Replacement Lands pursuant to the authority

of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 25 U.S.C. §§ 2701-

2721 (IGRA). Pursuant to the IGRA, gaming activities may

only take place on land that is part of an Indian reservation. 

Thus, having at least some portion of the Replacement Land

held in trust—which transforms the land into tribal land—is

a precondition to the Nation’s conducting gaming operations

on that portion of the land. On March 12, 2010, as a result of

an ongoing state-court action, the Nation modified its

application to request that only Parcel 2 of the Replacement

Lands be taken into trust, and that the Department of the

Interior hold in abeyance the rest of the Nation’s application

for the transfer of the Replacement Lands. 

On July 23, 2010, the Secretary determined that Parcel 2

satisfied all the legal requirements of the Act, and that taking

Parcel 2 into trust was mandatory. The Secretary adopted the

position that, under Arizona law, the Replacement Lands are

not part of the City because they are not within the City’s

“corporate limits.” He expressly concluded that Parcel 2 is

not “within the corporate limits of any city or town” based on

the plain and jurisdictional meaning of “corporate limits”

under the Act. The Secretary also agreed that the trust

application concerning the remaining portions of the

Replacement Lands would be held in abeyance, pending a

new request by the Nation. The Secretary published notice of

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8 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

his decision on August 26, 2010. 75 Fed. Reg. 52,550. He

was then permitted to take Parcel 2 into trust 30 days after

publication of notice of his decision. See 25 C.F.R.

§ 151.12(b).

IV. Opposition and Litigation

The Nation’s trust application and subsequent plans to

build a gaming casino on Parcel 2 have been vigorously

opposed by Defendants, the Gila River Indian Community,

and others.

Shortly after the Secretary’s July 2010 decision, the City,

the Gila River Indian Community, and others filed lawsuits

against the Department of the Interior in the District of

Arizona, challenging the Parcel 2 decision as a violation of

the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution. 

The Nation subsequently intervened as a defendant, and the

State of Arizona and various state legislators intervened as

plaintiffs. The lawsuits were consolidated into one

proceeding, denominated Gila River Indian Community v.

United States, No. 10-cv-1993. In March 2011, the district

court in Gila River Indian Community upheld the Secretary’s

decision and rejected statutory and constitutional challenges

brought by the City, the State of Arizona, and others. The

plaintiffs in that case appealed. The district court enjoined

the United States from taking Parcel 2 into trust and enjoined

the City from annexing Parcel 2 during the pendency of the

appeal. 

In an opinion issued on July 9, 2013, we affirmed the

district court’s decision in part and reversed in part. See Gila

River Indian Community v. United States, 729 F.3d 1139 (9th

Cir. 2013). We concluded that the phrase “within the

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 9

corporate limits” under section 6(d) of the Act was

ambiguous, and we instructed that the matter be remanded to

the Secretary to reconsider the phrase in light of the

ambiguity we identified. Id. at 1147. Once our mandate

issued, and the district court remanded Gila River Indian

Community v. United States to the Secretary “consistent with

the Ninth Circuit’s opinion and mandate,” it terminated the

case, thereby dissolving its injunction.

On June 21, 2013, we vacated submission of the present

appeal pending the Secretary’s determination on remand. In

response to our remand, on July 3, 2014, the Secretary

reaffirmed that the phrase “within the corporate limits” has a

jurisdictional rather than geographical meaning and was

meant to describe “lands that have actually been incorporated

by a municipality.” Applying this definition, the Secretary

determined that Parcel 2 was not “within the corporate limits”

of the City and that “the legal requirements under the Act for

acquiring Parcel 2 in trust have been satisfied.” Consistent

with the Secretary’s ruling, the United States took Parcel 2

into trust for the Nation on July 7, 2014.

V. H.B. 2534

On February 1, 2011, while the district court proceedings

in Gila River Indian Community were pending, the governor

of Arizona signed H.B. 2534 into law. The bill was scheduled

to take effect on July 20, 2011. A lead sponsor of H.B. 2534

stated that the bill was made necessary by a “power grab by

the federal government,” and that the legislature was

“fighting an overreaching, intrusive Federal Government.” 

The bill, codified at A.R.S. § 9-471.04, provides as follows:

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10 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

A. Notwithstanding any other provision of

this article:

1. A city or town located in a county with a

population of more than three hundred fifty

thousand persons may annex any territory

within an area that is surrounded by the city or

town or that is bordered by the city or town on

at least three sides if the landowner has

submitted a request to the federal government

to take ownership of the territory or hold the

territory in trust.

2. The annexation of territory pursuant to this

section is valid if approved by a majority vote

of the governing body of the city or town. The

annexation becomes immediately operative if

it is approved by at least two-thirds of the

governing body of the city or town.

B. For the purposes of this section, “submitted

a request to the federal government” means

the landowner has made an application to the

federal government as required by a specific

federal statute or regulation.

A.R.S. § 9-471.04.

VI. Procedural History

Shortly after passage of H.B. 2534, the Nation filed suit

against Defendants. In the operative complaint, the Nation

alleged that H.B. 2534 was specifically intended to frustrate

the operation of the Act by permitting the City to annex the

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 11

Nation’s land and bring it within the City’s “corporate

limits,” thereby rendering that land ineligible to be taken into

trust under the Act. The Nation alleges that H.B. 2534 is

preempted by federal law, and is unconstitutional. In total,

the Nation asserts six claims against Defendants: federal

preemption (Count I); violation of the Due Process Clause

under the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions (Counts II, V);

violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the U.S. and

Arizona Constitutions (Counts III, VI); and violation of the

Arizona Constitution’s prohibition on special legislation

(Count IV).

The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment,

which the district court granted in part and denied in part. 

Specifically, the district court ruled that H.B. 2534 directly

conflicts with Congress’ intent that the Nation’s land be taken

into trust pursuant to the Act, and is therefore preempted by

the Act. The district court also determined that H.B. 2534 is

preempted because it would cause the Nation to lose

important voting and hearing opportunities that would

otherwise be available under Arizona’s general annexation

law, A.R.S. § 9-471, thereby impermissibly burdening a

federal right. The district court denied the Nation’s due

process claims because the Nation did not meet its burden of

showing that H.B. 2534 is clearly arbitrary and unreasonable

and unconnected to a legitimate state interest. It also denied

the Nation’s equal protection claims finding that H.B. 2534

survives the “very lenient” rational-basis inquiry. Finally, the

district court held that the Nation has not shown beyond a

reasonable doubt that H.B. 2534 constitutes special

legislation. 

On June 30, 2011, the district court entered judgment in

favor of the Nation on its preemption claim, declaring that

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12 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

H.B. 2534, as applied in this case, is preempted by the Act,

and in favor of Defendants on the remaining claims. The

parties timely filed cross appeals, which were consolidated.

The judgment of the district court was not stayed pending this

appeal.

STANDARD OF REVIEW AND JURISDICTION 

“We review a district court’s legal determinations,

including constitutional rulings, de novo.” Berger v. City of

Seattle, 569 F.3d 1029, 1035 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc). A

district court’s grant or denial of summary judgment is also

reviewed de novo. Wright v. Incline Vill. Gen. Improvement

Dist., 665 F.3d 1128, 1133 (9th Cir. 2011). 

The district court may grant summary judgment on “each

claim or defense – or the part of each claim or defense – on

which summary judgment is sought.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). 

Summary judgment is proper where the pleadings, the

discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits

show that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact

and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” 

Id.; see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322

(1986).

ANALYSIS

Defendants challenge the district court’s ruling that the

Act preempts H.B. 2534. Congress’ power to preempt state

law derives from the Supremacy Clause, which provides that

the “Constitution, and the Laws of the United States . . . and

all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the

Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of

the Land; . . . any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 13

State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U.S. Const. art. VI,

cl. 2; see also Kurns v. R.R. Friction Products Corp., 132 S.

Ct. 1261, 1265 (2012) (“Pre-emption of state law . . . occurs

through the direct operation of the Supremacy Clause.”

(quotation marks omitted)); Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign Trade

Council, 530 U.S. 363, 372 (2000) (“A fundamental principle

of the Constitution is that Congress has the power to preempt

state law.”). 

There are three types of preemption: express, field, and

conflict preemption. Kurns, 132 S. Ct. at 1265–66. Conflict

preemption consists of impossibility and obstacle preemption. 

Crosby, 530 U.S. at 372–73. In this case, the Nation asserts

obstacle preemption. Obstacle preemption arises when a

challenged state law “stands as an obstacle to the

accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and

objectives of Congress.” Crosby, 530 U.S. at 373 (quoting

Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67 (1941)).

A. Presumption Against Preemption

In conducting a preemption analysis, courts are guided by

two bedrock principles: (1) the purpose of Congress, which

is the “ultimate touchstone in every pre-emption case,” and

(2) “the assumption that the historic police powers of the

States were not to be superseded by the [f]ederal [a]ct unless

that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Wyeth

v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 565 (2009) (quotation marks

omitted).1

1 The Supreme Court in United States v. Locke, 529 U.S. 89 (2000),

held that the presumption against preemption “is not triggered when the

State regulates in an area where there has been a history of significant

federal presence.” Id. at 108. In UFO Chuting of Hawaii, Inc. v. Smith,

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14 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

Following Wyeth, the district court concluded that the

presumption against preemption applies and, as a result, the

Act preempts H.B. 2534 only if preemption was “the clear

and manifest purpose of Congress.” Wyeth, 555 U.S. at 565

(quotation marks omitted). Although legislation related to

Indian tribes is the exclusive province of Congress, H.B. 2534

implicates a city’s authority to extend its corporate limits

through annexation—an area of law historically subject to

state regulation. See, e.g., Hussey v. City of Portland, 64 F.3d

1260, 1263 (9th Cir. 1995) (citing Hunter v. City of

Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 178–79 (1907)). 

B. The Act Preempts H.B. 2534 

Despite the presumption against preemption, the district

court properly concluded that H.B. 2534 is preempted by the

Act. “What is a sufficient obstacle is a matter of judgment,

to be informed by examining the federal statute as a whole

and identifying its purpose and intended effects . . . .” 

Crosby, 530 U.S. at 373. As required by Crosby then, we

proceed to examine the “purpose and intended effects” of the

Act. The Act was passed in recognition of the federal

government’s trust responsibility to the Nation and to

compensate it for the destruction of tribal land by flooding. 

The Act recognized that “[t]he lack of an appropriate land

base severely retards the economic self-sufficiency of the

O’odham people of the Gila Bend Indian Reservation,

contributes to their high unemployment and acute health

problems, and result in chronic high costs for Federal services

and transfer payments.” Pub. L. No. 99-503, § 2(3). As

508 F.3d 1189 (9th Cir. 2007), we distinguished Locke by limiting its

holding to cases of field preemption, where “Congress leaves no room for

state regulation.” Id. at 1194–95.

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 15

eponymously expressed by the “Gila Bend Indian

Reservation Lands Replacement Act,” the Act was meant to

“facilitate replacement of reservation lands with lands

suitable for sustained economic use which is not principally

farming and do not require Federal outlays for construction,

and promote the economic self-sufficiency of the O’odham

Indian people.” Id. § 2(4). 

Under the Act, replacement land is to be obtained by

enabling the Nation to purchase private land that, under

certain conditions, the Secretary is to hold in trust for the

Nation. Pub. L. No. 99-503, § 6(c)-(d). The Act describes

the mechanism and requirements by which the federal

government is to take purchased land into trust and thereby

incorporate the land into tribal land:

The Secretary, at the request of the Tribe,

shall hold in trust for the benefit of the Tribe

any land which the Tribe acquires pursuant to

subsection (c) which meets the requirements

of this subsection. Any land which the

Secretary holds in trust shall be deemed to be

a Federal Indian Reservation for all purposes. 

Land does not meet the requirements of this

subsection if it is outside the counties of

Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima, Arizona, or within

the corporate limits of any city or town. Land

meets the requirements of this subsection only

if it constitutes not more than three separate

areas consisting of contiguous tracts, at least

one of which areas shall be contiguous to San

Lucy Village. The Secretary may waive the

requirements set forth in the preceding

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16 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

sentence if he determines that additional areas

are appropriate.

Id. § 6(d). Parsing this provision, several conditions must be

satisfied before purchased land can be taken into trust by the

Secretary. First, the phrase “at the request of the Tribe”

indicates that the Nation must request that the Secretary take

purchased land into trust. Second, the section imposes two

limitations: (a) the purchased land cannot be “outside the

counties of Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima” in Arizona, and (b)

the purchased land cannot be “within the corporate limits of

any city or town.” Third, the purchased land must

“constitute[] not more than three separate areas consisting of

contiguous tracts, at least one of which areas shall be

contiguous to San Lucy Village.” Once these requirements

are satisfied, the provision commands that the Secretary

“shall” take the land into trust, and any such land “shall” be

deemed to be tribal land. Thus, the Secretary’s taking of

eligible land is mandatory, not permissive. 

Here, it is undisputed that the Nation purchased the 54

acres of land constituting Parcel 2 and, on January 28, 2009,

filed a trust application with the Secretary. It is also

undisputed that the Secretary issued a decision on July 23,

2010, concluding that Parcel 2 was not “within the corporate

limits of any city or town,” and that, having satisfied all the

legal requirements under the Gila Bend Act, acquisition of the

land into trust was mandatory. Following our remand in Gila

River Indian Community, 729 F.3d 1139 (9th Cir. 2013), the

Secretary has since reconsidered and reconfirmed the

jurisdictional interpretation of the phrase “within the

corporate limits.” But for the stay imposed by the district

court in Gila River Indian Community pending appeal of that

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 17

case, Parcel 2 could have been taken into trust after

September 25, 2010. 

H.B. 2534 was passed two years after the Secretary’s

decision was handed down. H.B. 2534 clearly stands as an

obstacle to the implementation of the Act because, “under the

circumstances of [this] particular case,” the effect of the state

law is to thwart “the accomplishment and execution of the

full purposes and objectives” of the Act—namely, to enable

the Secretary to take Parcel 2 (and the remainder of the

Replacement Lands) into trust and thereby incorporate the

land into tribal land. Crosby, 530 U.S. at 373 (quotation

marks omitted). Specifically, H.B. 2534 provides that “[a]

city or town located in a county with a population of more

than three hundred fifty thousand persons may annex any

territory within an area that is surrounded by the city or town

or that is bordered by the city or town on at least three sides

if the landowner has submitted a request to the federal

government to take ownership of the territory or hold the

territory in trust.” A.R.S. § 9-471.04. This provision applies

to the Replacement Lands because they are located within

Maricopa County, which exceeds the population threshold of

350,000 people,2and are fully “surrounded” by lands

incorporated by the City. Moreover, H.B. 2534 authorizes

the annexation of adjacent lands—i.e., the placing of land

within [the City’s] corporate limits—upon the landowner’s

[the Nation’s] request that the land be taken into trust. This

language in H.B. 2534 was triggered when the Nation

requested that the Secretary take land purchased by the

2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the estimated population of

Maricopa County in 2011 was over 3 million. See U.S. Census Bureau,

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04/04013.html(last visitedOct. 16,

2015). 

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18 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

Nation [Parcel 2] into trust. Pub. L. No. 99-503, § 6(d). H.B.

2534 further specifies that “‘submitted a request to the federal

government’ means the landowner has made an application

to the federal government as required by a specific federal

statute or regulation.” The Act is such a “specific federal

statute.” Accordingly, at the very moment the Nation files an

application with the Secretary to take any of the Replacement

Lands into trust, the City is permitted, pursuant to H.B. 2534,

to annex the same land by either a majority vote of the

governing body or by two-thirds vote of the governing body,

in which case the annexation “becomes immediately

operative.” A.R.S § 9-471.04, § A.2. 

It is abundantly clear that H.B. 2534 applies to the

Nation’s trust application to the Secretary, filed in January

2009, and would, if not preempted, enable the City to

effectively veto any portion of that application not already

brought to fruition. This is so because once the land is

annexed, it would no longer be outside “the corporate limits”

and therefore would be ineligible to be taken into trust. In

this case, the Secretary has already determined that Parcel 2

fulfills the statutory requirements of the Act and must be

taken into trust, and took Parcel 2 into trust once the district

court’s injunction in Gila River Indian Community was

dissolved. The trust application for the remainder of the

Replacement Lands has been held in abeyance, but if the

Nation renews its application, the Secretary has an obligation

to take it into trust, since it also satisfies the requirements

under Section 6(d) of the Act. Unless preempted, H.B. 2534

would permit the City to bar the taking of any of the

remaining Replacement Lands into trust by the federal

government, thereby blocking the Nation’s effort to find

replacement land, all in direct contravention of the express

purpose of the Act.

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TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA 19

Defendants challenge the district court’s preemption

analysis primarily on the ground that the district court

erroneously read a temporal freezing provision into Section

6(d) of the Act. The district court interpreted the phrase “at

the request of the Tribe” to mean that “when the Nation asks

[the agency] to take land into trust that is not at that time

within the corporate limits of any city or town, [the agency]

has a mandatoryobligation to take the land into trust provided

the other requirements . . . are satisfied” (emphasis added). 

Section 6(d) does not specify a precise time at which the

Secretary assesses whether the purchased land is or is not

within corporate limits. The point in time could be at the

time of purchase, at the time the trust application is filed, or

anytime after the application is filed but before a decision by

the Secretary is issued. 

However, we need not decide this issue, since it does not

affect our preemption analysis. Under H.B. 2534, the City

purportedly has the authority—at the point when the Nation

files a trust application—to preemptively annex

unincorporated land and effectively block the trust

application. This directly bars the Nation’s effort to

incorporate purchased land into tribal land, regardless of the

moment in time at which the Secretary decides whether the

land is within corporate limits. Under the circumstances of

this case, H.B. 2534 stands as a clear and manifest obstacle to

the purpose of the Act because it was enacted after the

Nation’s trust application was filed, and it uses that

application itself to thwart the taking of purchased land into

trust. Accordingly, we hold that H.B. 2534 is preempted by

the Act. 

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20 TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION V. STATE OF ARIZONA

CONCLUSION

We affirm the decision of the district court. Because we

hold that H.B. 2534 is invalid based on federal preemption,

we need not reach the remaining challenges to H.B. 2534.

The legality of the Secretary’s taking of Parcel 2 into trust

pursuant to the Act is affirmed, and the Nation is free to

petition the Secretary to have the remainder of the

Replacement Lands taken into trust, pursuant to the Act. 

AFFIRMED.

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