According to the Morning Sun, Judge Ludington approved the agreements between the tribe and the state, county and city. The judge ruled from the bench, so the order isn’t available yet.
Author: Kate E. Fort
More Holiday Reading: Federal Court Grants Big Lagoon Rancheria’s Motion for Summary Judgment
The Maze of the Murkowski/Miller Election and the Role of an ANC PAC.
There is an extensive article out today at the Anchorage Daily News covering how much money the ANC PAC donated to the Murkowski Campaign. The article is surprisingly well balanced, and puts the PAC spending in the context of the the Citizens United decision, which has been blamed for the dramatic increase in political spending this cycle. I can only assume there will be more coverage on this at least until December 2nd, which is the next deadline for filings.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the situation, Senator Lisa Murkowski was the establishment incumbent from the GOP. She suffered a surprise loss in the primary to the Tea Party candidate, Joe Miller. Miller was backed by his own so-called “super PAC” in the primary, where they spent about $600,000. After her loss, Murkowski decided to enter the race as the write-in candidate. Because polling in Alaska is notoriously difficult, and because a write-in campaign by an incumbent is generally unheard of, figuring out who would win the Alaska Senate race became almost impossible. Some hopefuls even thought that Murkowski and Miller would split the vote, leaving the Democratic candidate in the race just enough breathing space to win. Murkowski essentially won in a blowout, though the Miller campaign continues to do what it can, including filing a motion on Friday in federal district court, to change the outcome (complaining, inter alia, that write in ballots misspelling “Murkowski” should not be counted). The federal district court has deferred to the Alaska state courts on the matter. Here is the order.
Prior to election day, Joe Miller filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission about the spending by Alaskans Standing Together, the PAC created by the ANC’s. Miller tried to argue it wasn’t appropriate for the ANC’s to be donating to the Murkowski campaign because of their extensive federal contracts. Joe Miller had come out against all 8(a) contracting for Native Corporations and against other money that goes to rural Alaska. This article concludes with the FEC experts the author spoke with agreeing that nothing will come out of the complaint (though this is probably an easy bet given the FEC’s overall difficulty enforcing its regulations due to time, staffing and statutory constraints).
BBC America to Cover Tribal Law and Order Act
According to a BBC America preview, BBC World News America will cover the Tribal Law and Order Act on its show this evening. The show is on BBC America at 7pm. Unfortunately, the show doesn’t seem to put much video up on the internet.
BIA Issues Proposed Finding on Tolowa Nation Petition
From the press release:
WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs George T. Skibine has issued a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Tolowa Nation (TN), Petitioner #85, located in Fort Dick, Calif., as an Indian tribe under the regulations governing the federal acknowledgment process at 25 CFR Part 83. The evidence in the record is insufficient to demonstrate that Petitioner #85 meets the criterion 83.7(b), one of the seven mandatory criteria of the regulations for a determination that the petitioning group is an Indian tribe. In accordance with the regulations, the failure to meet all seven criteria requires a determination that the petitioning group is not an Indian tribe within the meaning of federal law. Therefore, the Interior Department proposes to decline to acknowledge Petitioner #85 as an Indian tribe.
The Proposed Finding and Federal Register notice will be posted here.
Marginally Changed Turtle Talk
There are some minor changes to Turtle Talk–here’s a quick overview:
The search function is now at the top of the sidebar on the right, along with the top posts (these are the most visited posts in the past 24-48 hours). Under that we’ve moved to a two column sidebar to try to reduce clutter. If you are looking for the RSS feed for posts or comments, that is now down at the very bottom of the page under “Meta.” To the left of “Meta” is a thumbnail picture of the art we use here at Turtle Talk. That thumbnail now takes you to a page with all of the information about the art and artists who worked with us at the Indigenous Law and Policy Center.
Finally, we’ve rearranged the pages at the top of Turtle Talk slightly. Instead of “Resources” we now have “ILPC Research Areas.” Under that tab we’ve put a link to our Occasional Paper Series along with all of the links that had been there (including a full list of all the Supreme Court Indian Law cases we can find since Williams v. Lee). The new artwork page is under “Indigenous Law Program” along with all of our events we put on here at MSU College of Law.
I think we’re set now on our end with the changes. Thanks for your patience today.
Under Construction
WordPress.com is discontinuing the theme we use here at TurtleTalk. This means that we are forced to shift the way TurtleTalk looks a little bit. However, please ignore temporary weird changes to our layout today as I figure out how to adapt to the new theme–I’m not technical enough to figure out how to do the changes in the background before uploading it to the internet. If anything changes permanently, I’ll do a second post explaining where everything is.
In other words, if anyone saw the very strange/disturbing red background that was up for 30 seconds, I promise it will never happen again.
Press Release: Asst. Sec. Echo Hawk Issues Gaming, Land into Trust Determinations
From a DOI Press Release:
Federal Court Update
Here is our federal court update document, which will probably also make its way to our Occasional Papers page at the end of the Supreme Court term. I’ve been asked for it a couple of times this morning, since I just finished giving the federal court update at the D.C. Federal Bar meeting.
The “-2” in the title indicates it is our second version–I anticipate we’ll be updating it through this Supreme Court term. We’ll change the title as we change the document. Version 1 is available at the Fed Bar website.
Robert Porter Elected President of Seneca Nation
From the Buffalo News
Robert Odawi Porter Elected Seneca President
By Dan Herbeck
Updated: November 3, 2010, 7:47 AM
The Seneca Nation’s new president-elect is an attorney and law professor who graduated from Harvard Law School.
And Robert Odawi Porter, 47, said he hopes to use his legal skills to help the Senecas deal with a wide range of problems and challenges over the next two years.
Porter defeated Maurice A. John Sr. on Tuesday, getting 1,671 votes to John’s 500, the Indian nation reported.
During the election campaign, John repeatedly criticized Porter for being a lawyer. John claimed that a man who has a license from New York State to practice law could not aggressively lead the tribe in its fight with the state over cigarette taxes and other issues.
Porter disagreed, stating that his law experience should help him to be a better fighter for the Senecas.
“I can assure you that the threats that we now face are real and that they are not going to end any time soon,” Porter said. “If we do not have strong leadership in the coming years, it is possible that many of the hard fought gains that we have achieved for our people could be eroded or even lost.”
Porter said he hopes to spend much of his two-year term helping state officials and others to understand what an important role the Senecas play in the Western New York economy. He said the nation created about 5,000 new jobs in the past several years and is one of the region’s biggest employers.
In a 7,000-member Indian Nation that allows candidates and political parties to pay people for their votes, Porter was endorsed by the Seneca Party, which has dominated Seneca elections since the 1980s.
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