A long-running fight over a proposed off-reservation casino in the Central Valley reached a decisive point this month after the California Supreme Court declined to review a lower court ruling that blocks the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians’ project without a valid state approval.
The decision leaves in place a 2025 ruling by California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal that the project cannot proceed without a valid gubernatorial concurrence — a requirement under federal gaming law for casinos on newly acquired trust land.
That concurrence, issued in 2012 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, was effectively nullified when California voters rejected Proposition 48 in 2014. The referendum overturned the Legislature’s ratification of the tribe’s gaming compact and, according to the appellate court, also extinguished the Governor’s concurrence tied to the project.
