01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, February 6, 2008

By Katie Mulvaney

Journal Staff Writer

CHARLESTOWN — Sixteen states and a local political advocacy group have joined Rhode Island in fighting a ruling that would place 31 acres in Charlestown in the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s control.

States ranging from Alaska to Massachusetts back Rhode Island’s position in a friend-of-the-court brief written by the Connecticut attorney general’s office. They say the case deserves the U.S. Supreme Court’s review because the decision would give the secretary of interior unlimited power to place state lands in the hands of Indian tribes.

“This issue is profoundly important to all states that face efforts to take land into trust,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a phone interview. “The decision essentially lowers the bar for the secretary of interior to take land into trust.”

A divided 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that the U.S. Department of Interior could hold the land in trust for the Narragansetts, freeing it from state and local taxes and regulations and placing it solely under tribal and federal authority.

The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, a Westerly-based group against the expansion of gambling, also opposes the ruling.

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, argues in a brief filed two weeks ago that the high court should let the decision stand.

The property sits across Kings Factory Road from the tribe’s other 1,800 acres, just north of Route 1. It is the site of a troubled housing project for tribal elders. The Narragansetts bought the 31 acres in 1991. The state and the Town of Charlestown filed suit against the Department of Interior after it had agreed to take the land into trust for the tribe in 1998.

Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas has said the tribe plans to build housing on the land, but reserves the right to pursue economic development there — if needed. Rhode Island officials fear the ruling would clear the way for the tribe to open a casino or other venture, outside state oversight

In October, Governor Carcieri, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and the Town of Charlestown asked the high court to hear their appeal. They argued that the closely watched case deserves consideration because it could affect scores of states and tribes nationwide. At play is whether “a potentially unlimited amount of land” should fall under the jurisdiction of states or tribes.

Like Rhode Island, Connecticut filed a brief last fall asserting that the appeals court misinterpreted the Indian Reorganization Act, passed in 1934 to restore certain rights and lands to Native Americans. The act, they say, only applies to tribes recognized as of 1934. The Narragansetts won federal recognition in 1983.

In addition, they say the ruling misreads the 1978 settlement that gave the Narragansetts 1,800 acres in Charlestown. Lawyers argue that agreement bars the federal government from placing the 31 acres in trust because it settled all Narragansett land claims in Rhode Island.

The decision, they say, broadens the interior secretary’s powers as never before to create competing sovereigns anywhere within a state’s borders, without the state’s consent and without regard for when a tribe was recognized.

Rhode Island welcomed its neighbors’ support.

“With the stroke of a pen, the secretary can unilaterally strip a state of its sovereign jurisdiction,” Attorney General Lynch said in a statement. “This is just plain wrong, is of great concern to Rhode Island, and, obviously, is of great concern across the country, as evidenced by the sixteen states that have joined us.”

The Department of Justice, which is representing the Department of Interior and the tribe, counters that the appeals court found unanimously that the IRA could be interpreted to apply to tribes recognized as of 1934, or when the act was being applied.

They add that if Congress wanted to limit the secretary of interior’s power to take land into trust for the Narragansetts, it would have expressly stated so in the 1978 settlement agreement. Contrary to Rhode Island and Connecticut’s arguments, the Justice Department wrote, the case would not be a good vehicle for clarifying how settlement acts should be construed nationwide because each is written differently.

Further, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in deciding whether the 31 acres should be taken into trust for the Narragansetts, considered potential conflicts with the state and the implications of it being taken off the tax rolls — as required.

kmulvane@projo.com