The commonwealth of Massachusetts joined the town of Aquinnah and a community group this week in challenging a federal appellate panel’s ruling that gave the green light to a tribal gambling facility on the Vineyard.

In court documents filed late Monday, all three asked for the full, six-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to reconsider the April 10 decision of one of its three-judge panels, which ruled unanimously in favor of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). In the alternative, they asked for the three-judge panel to reconsider its decision.

The state, the town, and the Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association seek to overturn the panel’s ruling that the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), enacted by Congress to regulate Indian gaming throughout the country, superseded the Massachusetts Settlement Act that dealt expressly with the Aquinnah tribe.

Allowing the ruling to stand risks upsetting the carefully negotiated settlement agreement reached in 1983 and adopted by Congress in 1987 that “ended nearly a decade of litigation among these parties and one that has, for over 30 years, governed these parties’ relationships largely free from conflict,” according to the filing by Attorney General Maura Healey’s office.

In a separate filing, the town and community group said the panel’s decision “eviscerates a core principle” of the settlement act: “that the tribe’s lands in the town were to be subject to the commonwealth’s and town’s jurisdiction and laws, including those governing gaming.”

They argued that the decision runs up against the Supreme Court’s “strong presumption” against so-called “implied” repeals of laws, or in the case of IGRA trumping the settlement act where there’s no explicit language aimed at the Aquinnah.

They also said the panel’s decision is in conflict with decisions in other circuits, especially a 1994 ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit involving the Ysleta tribe in Texas which has a restoration act, enacted the same day as the Gay Head settlement act in 1987, that specifically includes language governing gambling on its lands.

In that case, the fifth circuit said the restoration act’s more specific language should govern and not IGRA’s more general provisions, according to the appeal documents.

The first circuit ruling reverses a 2015 decision by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor 4th, who ruled that the tribe did not have a right to operate a gaming operation on its lands at the western edge of the Island.

In a statement emailed to the Gazette Wednesday, tribal chairman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said she had confidence in the outcome.

“The court of appeals issued a well-reasoned and unanimous decision that fully endorsed the United States and tribe’s position that the tribe has exclusive jurisdictional authority over its tribal lands under the Indian gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA),” the statement said. “The petitions filed by the commonwealth, town and taxpayers association are their last-ditch procedural efforts intended to thwart the tribe’s ability to bring economic self-sufficiency to our membership. Nevertheless, the tribe remains confident that the court of appeals will confirm its decision and we look forward to a final resolution of this longstanding dispute.”

The state, town and community group face an uphill climb to gain a rehearing from the panel or an en banc — or full court — hearing at the first circuit, which rarely reviews such decisions.