Opinion ID: 848685
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Supplanting legislative action

Text: The second Chadha/Blank factor requires that we consider whether the Governor's action in negotiating the compacts and the Legislature's resolution vote on the compacts supplanted legislative action. In Blank, supra at 114, 611 N.W.2d 530, we further elaborated on this point, as did the United States Supreme Court in Chadha, by considering whether [t]he only way the House could have [properly] obtained the same result would have been by enacting legislation. Thus, we must consider how, in the absence of the challenged compacts, the Legislature could alternatively have achieved the same result, i.e., how the Legislature could alternatively have made gambling on Indian land lawful. If no IGRA tribal-state compact exists, general state laws pertaining to the regulation or prohibition of gambling apply on any particular Indian land as they apply elsewhere in the state. 18 USC 1166. Therefore, in the absence of a compact, if the Legislature wanted to make gambling on Indian land lawful, the only way it could do that would be by either changing the gambling laws that are generally applicable within the state or by changing the reach of the MGCRA. Changing those laws would, it cannot seriously be disputed, require legislation. Thus, it becomes clear that the compacts effectively supplanted legislative action and, therefore, they themselves constitute legislation. [43]