TAMA -- For the sixth week the parking lot of the Meskwaki Bingo-Casino-Hotel is lifeless and quiet except for the occasional buffet or hotel guest.

The casino has been a source of revenue for the Meskwaki tribe bringing in gross revenues of reportedly $3 million a week. That stopped May 23 after feuding councils failed to resolve their dispute. Federal agents shut down the casino putting a hold on nearly 1,300 jobs.

Gaming has brought the tribe good fortune fueling a boom in settlement population and housing throughout the last 10 years. Though pulled into the middle of the dispute, tribal members say the casino is a concern but voting rights are at root of the fight.

"It's about the people and their rights," said Tony Waseskuk, a tribal member who supports the council first appointed by the tribal chief.

Alex Walker Jr., the chairman of the ousted council, took that right from the people when he failed to recognize recall petitions sent in last October, Waseskuk said.

After Walker denied the petitions, Waseskuk said the tribe's only avenue was to remove Walker from office in a different way. The tribal chief appointed a new council led by Homer Bear Jr., in March. That council was approved in an election May 22 and continues to occupy the settlement offices.

New recall petitions were submitted to the Walker council last week.

"It's still the contention of my client that the original recall petitions were valid and that elections should have been held," said Thomas Jochum, a spokesman for the appointed council which controls the settlement.

However in attempt to demonstrate to the ousted council led by Alex Walker Jr., the Bear council submitted new recall petitions in which each signature was notarized.

"That would indicate to anybody, unless they had a mind of a minnow that (the petitions) are valid," Jochum said.

Walker had continually said that the former petitions were not valid and said that some signatures may have been forged or obtained fraudulently though he failed to give the names of those people.

"We weren't going to give Walker an opportunity to lie about these ones," Jochum said referring to the notarized signatures.

Walker responded Wednesday that he would start the recall process as soon as the Bear council left the settlement offices.

"We can and will move forward with the process as soon as they end their unlawful occupation of the tribe's offices," Walker said in a prepared statement.

He added that the action would also allow the casino to reopen immediately.

People signing recall petitions requested an election to be held July 16, however Walker's letter said that the tribal council has the sole discretion in deciding election dates.

Waseskuk said the people do not want Walker to return to the offices.

"We don't want Walker to have any type of authority whatsoever," Waseskuk said.

In the release from Walker he said that the council had approved a new ordinance that will create an election board and a process to ensure impartial and equitable elections.

Eric Woolson, a spokesman for the Walker council, said that no more than two council members could be recalled at any one time. One council member, Talbert Davenport, resigned April 30 leaving six members. The constitution requires a quorum of five members to take any action.

A woman answering a phone Wednesday at the Meskwaki Tribal Center said the Bear council was not making any comments to the media at this time.

But this week the Bear council released letters that U.S. congressmen had sent to Gale Norton, the secretary of U.S. Department of Interior.

The letters voiced their support for a new election or for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to simply recognize the May 22 election that confirmed Meskwaki tribal members supported Homer Bear Jr.'s council.

Many of the letters question the Bureau of Indian's failure to recognize that May election, in which a record number of voters approved the Bear council.

Members of Congress, including representatives John Doolittle, R-California, Denny Rehberg, R-Montana, and Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Senators Conrad Burns R-Montana and Byron Dorgan D-North Dakota have all written Gale Norton the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The letters written to Norton said that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has failed to recognize its own precedents.

Doolittle said that he had met with Bear and said in a letter that the Meskwaki have suffered a great injustice.

"Tribal members have done everything possible to resolve this dispute through a variety of means -- a recall petition, the involvement of a tribal chief, a new election, and most recently, mediation -- but at every turn, their efforts have been undermined by the BIA," he wrote.

And ignoring the May 22 election was against the Meskwaki constitution and the agency's own precedent, he wrote, since the Walker group had failed to honor recall petitions.

In a dispute within a Texas tribe the government chose to recognize the new government and the results of a special election.

"It is difficult to understand why a similar conclusion was not reached by the BIA in this case," Doolittle said.