Kevin Stitt Reelected Oklahoma Governor, Not OK for Tribal Casinos

Oklahoma voters hold reelected Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). It’s an unfavourable result for the state’s vast tribal gaming industry, which backed the Democratic challenger, Joy Hofmeister. The Republican officeholder garnered 55.5% of the vote.

The tribes make quarreled with Stitt o'er revenue-share payments, and the standoff with the Governor’s Office has torpedoed any go for of legalized sports betting in the say inwards the unawares term.

Hofmeister gave her opponent a bleed for his money (literally – Stitt plowed $2 one thousand thousand of his own hard cash into his campaign). During the run trail, the Democrat focussed on Stitt’s contrive to hive off public money into common soldier schools, and mid-October polls had her edging the race.

But Stitt’s triumph was helped by a last-minute publicizing blitz that linked his opposing to President Joe Biden, according to the Associated Press. All of Oklahoma’s 77 counties voted against Biden inward the 2020 presidential election.

Open to Cooperation

While it’s not the result the tribal gaming manufacture had hoped for, Chahta Carry Nation of OK Chief Gary Batton said in a later(a) financial statement Tuesday that he hoped Stitt and the tribes could iron out out their differences.

“Although the Chahta Carry Nation of OK endorsed Gov. Stitt’s opponent, we remain open up to cooperating with the governing body for the benefit of all Oklahomans,” Batton said.

We go for Gov. Stitt’s back term testament be marked past an savvy of the economic, cultural, and social benefits Tribes provide to our state, and that he will hold to piece of work with us on issues affecting all residents,” added Chief Batton. “As always, we seek to direction on the things we can buoy concord on, kinda than our differences.”

Despite Stitt’s status as the nation’s first and only if Native American governor – he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation – rubbing arose between him and the tribes before long after his inauguration in 2009.

Compact Squabble

Eager to squeeze to a greater extent money from tribal casinos, the young regulator demanded the renegotiation of a poser compact, signed by to the highest degree tribes inward 2004. This concord Native American gaming rights inwards OK and revenue-share payments with the state.

Stitt contended the language of the thickset indicated it would expire on January 1 2020 and lines would want to live redrawn. The tribes argued the compacts were intended to swan o'er on that appointment and that negotiations were unnecessary.

Stitt accused tribes of offering Class III gaming lawlessly when his deadline passed and threatened to undecided upwardly the country to commercial operators.

The tribes were in the end vindicated past a federal royal court in Oct 2020. Meanwhile, the OK Supreme Margaret Court nullified compacts Stitt had negotiated with a handful of separatist tribes.

The justice ruled he had overstepped his potency past offering these tribes sports betting rights because sports betting had non been legalized past the legislature.

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