Holder steps into MGM-state casino fray
Former U.S. attorney general backing resort in legal battle
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who returned to a Washington, D.C., law firm after leaving the Obama administration in April, has joined the casino debate in Connecticut on behalf of MGM Resorts International, one of the firm’s clients.
Holder, in a letter Monday to state Attorney General George Jepsen, says the Connecticut law that authorized the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes to seek casino proposals is unconstitutional and violates “Connecticut’s legal commitment to fair competition in state contracting.”
Holder urges Jepsen to encourage legislative leaders to find a way to “promote economic growth, to seek to ameliorate the historical
inequities visited upon Native Americans, and to create new jobs for residents … without depriving others of the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.”
The letter, released by a public relations firm representing MGM, was written on the letterhead of Covington and Burling, the firm Holder rejoined after serving for six years as U.S. attorney general. Holder had been a partner at Covington from 2001 to 2009.
Jepsen’s office responded to the letter Friday, a day after moving for dismissal of an amended complaint that MGM filed in a federal lawsuit seeking to have the casino law declared invalid.
“While we have great respect for Mr. Holder and his many accomplishments, we disagree with the legal conclusions he asserts on behalf of his client, MGM,” Jaclyn Falkowski, a spokeswoman for the office, said in a statement. “We will not comment further on his letter, but will instead respond in court to the claims asserted by him and MGM’s other lawyers.”
The state rejects MGM’s claim that the law authorizes only the tribes, through “an exclusive, no-bid process” to pursue a third Connecticut casino to compete against the $800 million resort casino MGM is building in Springfield, Mass., a few miles from Connecticut’s northern border.
“Even after amending its Complaint, MGM has not met its burden to establish standing based on the existence of Special Act 15-7 (the law),” Assistant Attorney General Robert Deichert writes in the motion to dismiss. “SA 15-7 does not injure MGM at all. It imposes specific obligations on the Tribes — not MGM — and leaves MGM free to pursue whatever plans it may have to develop a Connecticut casino.”
Development of any casino — tribal or otherwise — would require the legislature’s adoption of a law allowing it.
MGM has said it has investigated developing a Connecticut casino and that “having casinos both in Springfield and Connecticut would be commercially attractive.”
It has acknowledged that the license the state of Massachusetts granted for the Springfield casino would prohibit MGM from building one within 50 miles of that facility.
The tribes have issued a request for casino proposals and expect to receive responses by a Nov. 6 deadline.