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Page Number: 12.0

8 

YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO v. TEXAS 

Opinion of the Court 

After the Tribe filed a petition for certiorari, this Court
called  for  the  views  of  the  Solicitor  General.   The  United 
States argued that the Fifth Circuit’s understanding of the
Restoration Act took a wrong turn in Ysleta I and urged us 
to correct the error.  See Brief for United States as Amicus 
Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 1.  Ultimately, we agreed to take up
this case to consider that question.  595 U. S. ___ (2021). 

II 
A 
Before us, the parties offer two very different accounts of
the Restoration Act.  The State, in its only argument in sup-
port of regulatory jurisdiction over the Tribe’s gaming ac-
tivities, reads the Act as effectively subjecting the Tribe to
the entire body of Texas gaming laws and regulations, just
as the Fifth Circuit held in Ysleta I.  The Tribe understands 
the Act to bar it from offering only those gaming activities 
the  State  fully  prohibits.    Consistent  with  Cabazon,  the 
Tribe submits, if Texas merely regulates a game like bingo, 
it may offer that game—and it may do so subject only to the
limits found in federal law and its own law, not state law. 

To resolve the parties’ disagreement, we turn to § 107 of 
the  Restoration  Act,  where  Congress  directly  addressed
gaming on the Tribe’s lands and said this: 

“SEC. 107.  GAMING ACTIVITIES. 
(a)  IN GENERAL.—All  gaming  activities  which  are  prohib-
ited by the laws of the State of Texas are hereby prohibited 
on the reservation and on lands of the tribe.  Any violation
of the prohibition provided in this subsection shall be sub-
ject to the same civil and criminal penalties that are pro-
vided by the laws of the State of Texas.  The provisions of
this  subsection  are  enacted  in  accordance  with  the  tribe’s 
request in Tribal Resolution No. T.C.–02–86 which was ap-
proved and certified on March 12, 1986. 

(b) NO STATE REGULATORY JURISDICTION.—Nothing in this