Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-493_jgko.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

10 

YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO v. TEXAS 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Texas gaming regulations as surrogate federal law on tribal 
land.”  Ante,  at  17.    Texas,  the  Court  suggests,  should  be
happy to have gotten what had never been in question from 
the beginning—a ban on games fully barred by the State.
That was its “half a loaf.”  Ibid. 

In making this claim, the Court relies on cherry-picked
excerpts  from  the  resolution’s  preamble.  But  the  text  of 
§107(a) of the Restoration Act rules out the Court’s analy-
sis.  Section 107(a) expressly states that the provision was 
“enacted  in  accordance  with  the  tribe’s  request  in  Tribal 
Resolution No. T.C.–02–86.”  101 Stat. 668–669 (emphasis 
added).  As  noted,  the  resolution  contains  only  one  single 
“request[ ]”—that Congress ban on tribal lands “all gaming,
gambling, lottery, or bingo, as defined by the laws and ad-
ministrative regulations of the State of Texas.”  App. to Pet.
for Cert. 123 (emphasis added).  The resolution’s preamble 
makes up no part of this “request,” so the Court’s reliance
on it is misplaced.  “Or to put the point differently, operative 
provisions  should  be  given  effect  as  operative  provisions, 
and prologues as prologues.”  District of Columbia v. Heller, 
554 U. S. 570, 578, n. 3 (2008).3 

In  sum,  §107(a)  of  the  Restoration  Act  is  best  read  to
mean that all of Texas’s gaming laws apply on the Tribe’s 
reservation. 

B 
The Court  rejects this  straightforward interpretation of 

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3 The Court accuses the dissent of “reshap[ing] the tribal resolution to 
its liking” by focusing on the Tribe’s request in the resolution.  Ante, at 
18, n. 4.  The reason we focus on the “request” in the tribal resolution is
because that is precisely what Congress directed us to do.  See 101 Stat. 
668–669.  Of course, as this opinion elsewhere makes clear, the resolu-
tion’s preamble is emphatic in expressing the Tribe’s intent to prohibit 
all gaming activities and its willingness to compromise on the application 
of state gaming law in order to secure federal trust status.  See supra, at 
3.