Court Opinion

ID: 9430853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:44.566786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:21.741670
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice O’Connor and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.
Unless and until Congress exempts Indian-managed gambling from state law and subjects it to federal supervision, I believe that a State may enforce its laws prohibiting high-stakes gambling on Indian reservations within its borders. Congress has not pre-empted California’s prohibition against high-stakes bingo games and the Secretary of the Interior plainly has no authority to do so. While gambling provides needed employment and income for Indian tribes, these benefits do not, in my opinion, justify tribal operation of currently unlawful commercial activities. Accepting the majority’s reasoning would require exemptions for cockfighting, tattoo parlors, nude dancing, houses of prostitution, and other illegal but profitable enterprises. As the law now stands, I believe tribal entrepreneurs, like others who might derive profits from catering to non-Indian customers, must obey applicable state laws.
In my opinion the plain language of Pub. L. 280, 67 Stat. 588, as amended, 18 U. S. C. § 1162, 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), authorizes California to enforce its prohibition against commercial gambling on Indian reservations. The State prohibits bingo games that are not operated by members of designated charitable organizations or which offer prizes in excess of $250 per game. Cal. Penal Code Ann. §326.5 (West Supp. 1987). In §2 of Pub. L. 280, Con*223gress expressly provided that the criminal laws of the State of California “shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State.” 18 U. S. C. § 1162(a). Moreover, it provided in § 4(a) that the civil laws of California “that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State.” 28 U. S. C. § 1360(a) (1982 ed., Supp. III).
It is true that in Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976), we held that Pub. L. 280 did not confer civil jurisdiction on a State to impose a personal property tax on a mobile home that was owned by a reservation Indian and located within the reservation. Moreover, the reasoning of that decision recognizes the importance of preserving the traditional aspects of tribal sovereignty over the relationships among reservation Indians. Our more recent cases have made it clear, however, that commercial transactions between Indians and non-Indians — even when conducted on a reservation — do not enjoy any blanket immunity from state regulation. In Rice v. Rehner, 463 U. S. 713 (1983), respondent, a federally licensed Indian trader, was a tribal member operating a general store on an Indian reservation. We held that the State could require Rehner to obtain a state license to sell liquor for off-premises consumption. The Court attempts to distinguish Rice v. Rehner as resting on the absence of a sovereign tribal interest in the regulation of liquor traffic to the exclusion of the States. But as a necessary step on our way to deciding that the State could regulate all tribal liquor sales in Indian country, we recognized the State’s authority over transactions, whether they be liquor sales or gambling, between Indians and non-Indians: “If there is any interest in tribal sovereignty implicated by imposition *224of California’s alcoholic beverage regulation, it exists only insofar as the State attempts to regulate Rehner’s sale of liquor to other members of the Pala Tribe on the Pala Reservation.” Id., at 721. Similarly, in Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134 (1980), we held that a State could impose its sales and cigarette taxes on non-Indian customers of smokeshops on Indian reservations.
Today the Court seems prepared to acknowledge that an Indian tribe’s commercial transactions with non-Indians may violate “the State’s public policy.” Ante, at 209. The Court reasons, however, that the operation of high-stakes bingo games does not run afoul of California’s public policy because the State permits some forms of gambling and, specifically, some forms of bingo. I find this approach to “public policy” curious, to say the least. The State’s policy concerning gambling is to authorize certain specific gambling activities that comply with carefully defined regulation and that provide revenues either for the State itself or for certain charitable purposes, and to prohibit all unregulated commercial lotteries that are operated for private profit.1 To argue that the tribal bingo games comply with the public policy of California because the State permits some other gambling is tantamount to arguing that driving over 60 miles an hour is con*225sistent with public policy because the State allows driving at speeds of up to 55 miles an hour.
In my view, Congress has permitted the State to apply its prohibitions against commercial gambling to Indian tribes. Even if Congress had not done so, however, the State has the authority to assert jurisdiction over appellees’ gambling activities. We recognized this authority in Washington v. Confederated Tribes, supra; the Court’s attempt to distinguish the reasoning of our decision in that case is unpersuasive. In Washington v. Confederated Tribes, the Tribes contended that the State had no power to tax on-reservation sales of cigarettes to non-Indians. The argument that we rejected there has a familiar ring:
“The Tribes contend that their involvement in the operation and taxation of cigarette marketing on the reservation ousts the State from any power to exact its sales and cigarette taxes from nonmembers purchasing cigarettes at tribal smokeshops. The primary argument is economic. It is asserted that smokeshop cigarette sales generate substantial revenues for the Tribes which they expend for essential governmental services, including programs to combat severe poverty and underdevelopment at the reservations. Most cigarette purchasers are outsiders attracted onto the reservations by the bargain prices the smokeshops charge by virtue of their claimed exemption from state taxation. If the State is permitted to impose its taxes, the Tribes will no longer enjoy any competitive advantage vis-a-vis businesses in surrounding areas.” Id., at 154.
“What the smokeshops offer these customers, and what is not available elsewhere, is solely an exemption from state taxation.” Id., at 155.
In Confederated Tribes, the tribal smokeshops offered their customers the same products, services, and facilities that other tobacconists offered to their customers. Al*226though the smokeshops were more modest than the bingo palaces involved in this case, presumably they were equally the product of tribal labor and tribal capital. What made them successful, however, was the value of the exemption that was offered to non-Indians “who would normally do their business elsewhere.” Id., at 155.
Similarly, it is painfully obvious that the value of the Tribe’s asserted exemption from California’s gambling laws is the primary attraction to customers who would normally do their gambling elsewhere. The Cabazon Band of Mission Indians has no tradition or special expertise in the operation of large bingo parlors. See Declaration of William J. Wallace, ¶2, App. 153, 171. Indeed, the entire membership of the Cabazon Tribe — it has only 25 enrolled members — is barely adequate to operate a bingo game that is patronized by hundreds of non-Indians nightly. How this small and formerly impoverished Band of Indians could have attracted the investment capital for its enterprise without benefit of the claimed exemption is certainly a mystery to me.
I am entirely unpersuaded by the Court’s view that the State of California has no legitimate interest in requiring ap-pellees’ gambling business to comply with the same standards that the operators of other bingo games must observe. The State’s interest is both economic and protective. Presumably the State has determined that its interest in generating revenues for the public fisc and for certain charities outweighs the benefits from a total prohibition against publicly sponsored games of chance. Whatever revenues the Tribes receive from their unregulated bingo games drain funds from the state-approved recipients of lottery revenues — just as the tax-free cigarette sales in the Confederated Tribes case diminished the receipts that the tax collector would otherwise have received.
Moreover, I am unwilling to dismiss as readily as the Court does the State’s concern that these unregulated high-stakes bingo games may attract organized criminal infiltration. *227Brief for Appellants 25-26, 29; Reply Brief for Appellants 12. Comprehensive regulation of the commercial gambling ventures that a State elects to license is obviously justified as a prophylactic measure even if there is presently no criminal activity associated with casino gambling in the State. Indeed, California regulates charitable bingo, horseracing, and its own lottery. The State of California requires that charitable bingo games may only be operated and staffed by members of designated charitable organizations, and that proceeds from the games may only be used for charitable purposes. Cal. Penal Code Ann. §326.5 (West Supp. 1987). These requirements for staffing and for dispersal of profits provide bulwarks against criminal activity; neither safeguard exists for bingo games on Indian reservations.2 In my judgment, unless Congress authorizes and regulates these commercial gambling ventures catering to non-Indians, the State has a legitimate law enforcement interest in proscribing them.
Appellants and the Secretary of the Interior may well be correct, in the abstract, that gambling facilities are a sensible way to generate revenues that are badly needed by reservation Indians. But the decision to adopt, to reject, or to define the precise contours of such a course of action, and thereby to set aside the substantial public policy concerns of a sovereign State, should be made by the Congress of the United States. It should not be made by this Court, by the temporary occupant of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, or by non-Indian entrepreneurs who are experts in gambling management but not necessarily dedicated to serving the future well-being of Indian tribes.
I respectfully dissent.

 The Court holds that Pub. L. 280 does not authorize California to enforce its prohibition against commercial gambling within the Cabazon and Morongo Reservations. Ante, at 212. The Court reaches this conclusion by determining that § 4(a) of Pub. L. 280, 28 U. S. C. § 1360(a), withholds from the States general civil regulatory authority over Indian tribes, and that the State’s rules concerning gambling are regulatory rather than prohibitory. In its opinion, the Court dismisses the State’s argument that high-stakes, unregulated bingo is prohibited with the contention that an otherwise regulatory law does not become a prohibition simply because it “is enforceable by criminal as well as civil means.” Ante, at 211. Aside from the questionable merit of this proposition, it does not even address the meaning of §2(a) of Pub. L. 280, 18 U. S. C. 1162(a) (1982 ed., Supp. Ill), a provision which is sufficient to control the disposition of this case. See supra, at 222.

 The Cabazon Band’s bingo room was operated under a management agreement with an outside firm until 1986; the Morongo Band operates its bingo room under a similar management agreement. App. to Brief for Appellees, C-l to C-3; Morongo Band of Mission Indians Tribal Bingo Enterprise Management Agreement, ¶ 4B, App. 97-98.