Keep the Promise Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the serious issue facing my home State of Arizona.

For several years, I have been actively involved in a troubling off-reservation gaming issue in my home State of Arizona involving the Tohono O'odham Nation. The tribe has been attempting to move from their ancestral lands in Tucson into another tribe's former reservation in the Phoenix metropolitan area for the sole purpose of building a Las Vegas-style casino.

Tohono's dismissal of their promise of a voter-approved compact and their dismissal of a promise to build no additional casinos in Phoenix is not something that Congress can ignore when the result will be so harmful to what has been a national model.

Furthermore, Tohono has falsely been claiming a victory in court. This sentiment is factually wrong. The Tohono won nothing based on the merits. Rather, the case was dismissed on the draconian doctrine of sovereign immunity, which we, Congress, have jurisdiction and oversight of, rather than the courts.

I urge immediate adoption of this commonsense legislation that has passed this same body last Congress and has already passed committee by unanimous consent.

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