Opinion ID: 1104877
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: How Other Courts Have Answered the Question

Text: Although Florida has not addressed a governor's authority to bind a state to an IGRA compact, other states have. We examine but a few. In State ex rel. Stephan v. Finney, 251 Kan. 559, 836 P.2d 1169, 1182 (1992), the governor executed the compact. In deciding his authority to do so, the Kansas Supreme Court examined the the nature of the obligations undertaken by the executed IGRA compact. The court noted that many of the compact's provisions were clearly legislative in nature, such as creating a state agency and assigning new duties to extant state agencies, and concluded that many provisions would operate as the enactment of new laws and the amendment of existing laws. Id. at 1185. The court therefore held that, although the governor had authority to negotiate the compact, the Governor ha[d] no power to bind the State to the terms thereof. Id. The New York Court of Appeals has arrived at the same conclusion. After examining IGRA's list of several permissible areas of negotiation for a tribal-state compact, see 25 U.S.C. § 1071(d)(3)(C), the court concluded that these issues necessarily make fundamental policy choices that epitomize `legislative power.' Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, Inc. v. Pataki, 100 N.Y.2d 801, 766 N.Y.S.2d 654, 798 N.E.2d 1047, 1060 (2003). [5] Further, like the Kansas Supreme Court, the court found that the compact's designation of an agency to oversee the gaming and the authority of the agency to promulgate rules usurped the Legislature's power. 766 N.Y.S.2d at 668, 798 N.E.2d at 1061. The court held that the governor lack[ed] the power unilaterally to negotiate and execute tribal gaming compacts under IGRA. Id. Applying the test of whether the Governor's action disrupts the proper balance between the executive and legislative branches, the New Mexico Supreme Court similarly found a gaming compact unduly disruptive of the legislature's powers. State ex rel. Clark v. Johnson, 120 N.M. 562, 904 P.2d 11, 23 (1995). The court found that the compact granted extended gaming rights, authorized gaming in contravention of legislative policy, and assigned the roles of the state and the tribe with respect to gaming regulation and civil and criminal jurisdiction. Id. at 23-24. Stating that [r]esidual governmental authority should rest with the legislative branch rather than the executive branch, id. at 24, the court held that the Governor lacked authority under the state Constitution to bind the State by unilaterally entering into the compacts and revenue-sharing agreements in question. Id. at 25; see also Panzer v. Doyle, 271 Wis.2d 295, 680 N.W.2d 666, 698, 700 (2004) (where a state statute authorized the governor to execute a gaming compact, holding that the governor exceeded his power by permitting the tribes to engage in certain games prohibited by state law and to waive state sovereign immunity). Federal courts, too, have concluded that a state's governor did not have the authority to bind the state to a gaming compact. In Pueblo of Santa Ana v. Kelly, 104 F.3d 1546, 1548 (10th Cir.1997), the circuit court held that the Secretary's approval of a compact could not cure an ultra vires act by the state's governor, and the question of whether a state has validly bound itself to a compact must be decided under state law. Id. at 1557. Noting the New Mexico Supreme Court's thorough and careful analysis of state law in Clark, the Tenth Circuit accepted it as determinative on the question of whether its governor had authority to bind the state to the compacts. Id. at 1559. In all these cases, to determine which branch had the authority to bind the state to the compact, courts analyzed the nature and effect of the IGRA compact at issue and compared it to the powers the state constitution delegated to the respective branches. The courts found the compacts within the legislative power because they created or assigned new duties to agencies, conflicted with state law, changed state law, or restricted the legislature's power. Finally, recognizing that state legislative power is limited only by the state and federal constitutions, several courts have ascribed to the legislature, rather than the executive, any residual power on which the state constitutions were silent. See Clark, 904 P.2d at 25; Pataki, 766 N.Y.S.2d at 668 n. 11, 798 N.E.2d at 1061 n. 11. We now review our own state constitution in the context of IGRA's provisions and the Compact signed in this case.