The post from Secretary Ray LaHood’s blog is here.
Deputy Secretary John Porcari, Secretary LaHood, Prof. Singel, Prof. Fletcher, the ever adorable E & O, Seaway Acting Administrator Craig Middlebrook:
Author: Kate E. Fort
Briefs in Te-Moak Tribe et al v. Interior
Appellants’ Brief
Appellants, the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada (“Te-Moak Tribe”), the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe (“Timbisha Tribe”), the Western Shoshone Defense Project (“WSDP”), and Great Basin Resource Watch (“GBRW”)(collectively, “the Tribes”) challenge the federal Bureau of Land Management (“BLM’s”) approvals of Barrick Cortez Inc.’s (“Barrick”) Cortez Hills Project (“Project”), a large open pit, cyanide-leach gold mine on Mt. Tenabo, a mountain sacred to many Western Shoshone Indians and in particular to the Te- Moak Tribe and Timbisha Tribe and their members. In this appeal, the Tribes challenge the decision of the district court to deny, in whole or in part, the Tribes’ Motions for Summary Judgment (“SJ Motions”), which sought to overturn the BLM’s actions.
The district court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because the action arose under the laws of the United States including: the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §§ 702-706, the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321 et seq., the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 (“FLPMA”), 43 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., and their implementing regulations.
American Indian Law Professors Amicus Brief
Coverage of the case’s previous trip to the 9th Circuit here.
Petition for Cert in Young v. Fitzpatrick
Questions presented:
QUESTIONS PRESENTED FOR REVIEW
1. Whether Police Officers, Employed by the Puyallup Indian Tribe, But Trained, Certified, and Cross-Commissioned by the State of Washington, and Armed, Equipped, and Provisioned by the United States, Are Subject to the Constitution, U.S. Civil Rights Laws, and State Tort Law;
2. Whether the Shelter or Conceal Clause of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, and Additional Sources of Federal and State Law, Preempts Any Claims of Qualified Immunity by Individual Puyallup Tribal Police Officer Defendants in a Suit for Violation of the Constitution, U.S. Civil Rights Laws, and State Tort Law.
WA App Ct Decision (WA Supreme Court Decision denied petition for review)
Previous coverage here.
KBIC, Eagle Rock, and Kennecott Mine in Scientific American
The article is Part 5 in a series called “Pollution, Poverty and People of Color”
“A Michigan Tribe Battles a Global Corporation”:
An abundant resource, this water has nourished a small Native American community for hundreds of years. So 10 years ago, when an international mining company arrived near the shores of Lake Superior to burrow a mile under the Earth and pull metals out of ore, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa had to stand for its rights and its water.
And now, as bulldozers raze the land and the tunnel creeps deeper, the tribe still hasn’t backed down.
“The indigenous view on water is that it is a sacred and spiritual entity,” said Jessica Koski, mining technical assistant for the Keweenaw Bay community. “Water gives us and everything on Earth life.”
The Keweenaw Bay Indians are fighting for their clean water, sacred sites and traditional way of life as Kennecott Eagle Minerals inches towards copper and nickel extraction, scheduled to begin in 2014.
It’s a good longreads article. Our previous coverage, including the multitude of lawsuits the article mentions, is here.
Voters Reject Fighting Sioux Mascot
From NPR:
Voters in Tuesday’s North Dakota primary were being asked whether to uphold or reject the Legislature’s repeal of a state law requiring the school to use the nickname and American Indian head logo.
The vote sends the matter back to the state’s Board of Higher Education, which is expected to retire the moniker and American Indian head logo.
Coverage here, and here (discussing the NFL in the context of this vote).
Review of The Indian Civil Rights Act at Forty
Here.
Together, the fifteen authors have done the essential spadework; they have tracked down scores of tribal constitutions, statutes, and case law that apply to ICRA. To the extent that numbers can convey scholarship, there are about 1,600 footnotes over about 77 pages. The sources include tribal authorities from the Navajo Nation to Bill Moore’s Slough, a settlement in Alaska. So apart from its effective analyses, the book becomes valuable just as a database. This intensive research represents a great deal of time saved for the academic and the practitioner.
All the authors who analyzed available tribal authorities cited the difficulty of generalization. This diversity is a reasonable result of possibly hundreds of different tribal courts. [*288]
LA Kings Win Stanley Cup with the Help of Two Native Players
Two Nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court
From SCOTUSblog, principal deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan and Caitlin Halligan were both nominated by President Obama to fill vacancies in the D.C. Circuit. Halligan was nominated previously, which we covered here. The DC Circuit is generally considered a path to a Supreme Court nomination, as well as handles a fair amount of Indian law cases.
Srinivasan has argued before the Supreme Court more than 20 times. In his job with the SG he represented the federal government in Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt (contract supports case).
As a private attorney with O’Melveny & Myers, he represented the Hawai’ia Congressional Delegation as an amicus in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs. There the Supreme Court overturned the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision that the state couldn’t sell ceded lands before settling Native Hawaiian claims, based on the Apology Resolution passed by Congress. His brief argued for upholding the Hawaii Supreme Court:
Contrary to the contentions of petitioners and the United States, the Apology Resolution is more than “simply an apology” (Pet. Br. 30) “whose sole effect is a moral one” (U.S. Br. 30). Rather, the Resolution by its terms constitutes an official, definitive recognition and acknowledgment by Congress of the United States’ culpability for the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i and of the Native Hawaiians’ unrelinquished claims to their ancestral lands. That acknowledgment differs from other statutes and resolutions that have expressed Congress’ regret for acts that had already been recognized as wrong or unlawful. See U.S. Br. 29-30 (describing resolution apologizing for “slavery and Jim Crow”). The Apology Resolution instead ended a long-running debate over the United States’ actions in Hawai’i over a century ago.3 The Supreme Court of Hawai’i properly relied on those considered findings, and Congress’ express support of the ongoing reconciliation with the Native Hawaiian people, to inform its ruling below.
Agamenv LLC v. Lavedure
North Dakota federal district court refrains from issuing a TRO in a dispute between Turtle Mountain Tribal Council, Tribal Court, and gaming company.
Motion to Withdraw TRO-tribal court
Turtle Talk 
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