The Supreme Court denied cert in the Arizona Snowbowl case today, link via SCOTUSblog. Our materials on the case are posted here.
Author: Kate E. Fort
Hardin Prison, Crow Tribe, and Gitmo Detainees
A year ago, the City of Hardin did not want the Crow Tribe to take over the large, empty prison which failed to bring in the promised jobs at the time of its construction. Apparently the city was afraid the Tribe would “annex” the prison and somehow make it part of the reservation.
A year later, and with the prison still empty, the City of Hardin has offered to house the Gitmo detainees in the same prison. Tribal involvement and BIA contracts were too scary, but the Gitmo detainees (and, one has to imagine, accompanying federal contracts) are just fine.
Sotomayor to be Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee
As reported on NPR, the Washington Post, and the NY Times. TurtleTalk’s coverage of her federal Indian Law cases is here:
1. CA2 Judge Sonia Sotomayor
Judge Sotomayor has written the majority opinions in two unexceptional Indian law cases, Catskill Development v. Park Place Entertainment (2008 ) and United States v. White (2001). Catskill Development involved the authority of the National Indian Gaming Commission to review and opine on gaming management contracts, and White involved the federal prosecution of Mohawk Indians for failure to report income to the IRS. Judge Sotomayor has some Indian law exposure, but not on anything controversial.
Judge Sotomayor also voted with the majority in Bassett v. Mashantucket Pequot (2000), a case affirming the sovereign immunity of the tribe.
From the NPR story:
NPR.org, May 26, 2009 · President Obama will nominate federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, NPR has learned. If confirmed, Sotomayor will become the first Hispanic to serve on the high court.
A graduate of Yale Law School, Sotomayor was nominated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton. She previously served as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and in private practice in New York, specializing in intellectual property law, international litigation and commodities export trading.
Obama is expected to announce the nomination Tuesday morning. The president had said publicly he wanted a justice who combined intellect and empathy – the ability to understand the troubles of everyday Americans.
Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican. Her father, a tool-and-die worker, died when she was 9. Raised by her mother, a nurse, Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, then went to Yale Law School, where she served on the law journal.
More National Granholm Coverage
Full article at the Washington Post:
Governor Granholm’s Rise to Politics
A Career That Began With a Reganesque Start
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 20, 2009; 3:43 PM
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is a darling of moderate Democratic politics who would become the first justice in nearly four decades without experience as a judge–and the first since the Great Depression born outside the United States.
Granholm, 50, is in her second term of a governorship that has been defined largely by the persistent economic troubles of her state, the heart of the U.S. automobile industry with unemployment that remains highest in the country.
Since she was elected in 2002, Granholm has focused on trying to lure other employers to Michigan, strengthening education, revising taxes, and ideas such as a “cool cities” initiative to deter talented young residents from moving away.
Her path to political power runs through Hollywood, Harvard Law School and a series of public-sector legal jobs of relatively low visibility until she catapulted to her first elected office as Michigan’s attorney general.
Interview with NNALSA President, a UofM Law Student
From The Buffalo News:
Heritage held fast by legal scholar
News Staff Reporter
LOCKPORT—Joshua Clause, 2001 Niagara Falls High School graduate, has been elected president of the National Native American Law Student Association.
You may have seen Clause in his earlier days, earning money for college as a gas-pump attendant at Randy’s Smoke Shop on the rural Tuscarora Reservation in Lewiston. A Mohawk Indian, he earned his degree from Dartmouth College in 2005.
But Clause, enrolled at Six Nations Reserve, didn’t forget his Indian heritage. He’ll earn his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School next year, and says he’d like to return to the Niagara Frontier: “home—to be close to my family and focus my work supporting my people, the Haudenosaunee.”
The Iroquois Confederacy, or “People of the Longhouse”—Mohawk, Tuscarora, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga— presided over more than one-fifth of this continent’s land mass before Columbus arrived.
Review of African Cherokees in Indian Territory
Angela Hudson reviews Celia E. Naylor’s new book African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizens on H-Net Reviews. The reviewer compares it favorably with Prof. Tiya Miles’ book, The Ties That Bind, which is certainly a strong recommendation:
Dislodging Comfortable Fictions
Debates about the citizenship status of Cherokee freedmen and their descendents have filled newspapers, Web sites, conference rooms, and e-mail inboxes over the past two years and have ranged from the thoughtful to the downright vicious, leaving nearly no aspect of the controversy untouched. But as Celia E. Naylor’s recent book makes clear, there is still a great deal more we can learn about the lives, loves, fates, and desires of people of African descent who lived among the Cherokees from the 1830s through the first decade of the twentieth century. In African Cherokees in Indian Territory, Naylor aims to “lift the veil” that still covers the world of “enslaved and free African-descended people in the 19th-century Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory” (p. 3).
NIGC NOT Making Lists, Checking Twice
Maybe Chairman Hogan read Matthew’s post yesterday . . .
From Indianz.com:
NIGC’s Hogen not drawing up post-1934 tribes list
The National Indian Gaming Commission is not compiling a list of tribes that were recognized after 1934, Chairman Phil Hogen said on Tuesday. Hogen, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, of South Dakota, spoke of the need for such a list in an Indian Country Today story that was published online on Monday. But in a follow-up to Indianz.Com, he said the NIGC isn’t leading the effort.”While I and the NIGC are concerned about the potential fallout of the Carcieri decision, we are not assuming the primary responsibility for determining which tribes may or may not be affected by the decision,” Hogen said. “We are certainly not drawing up any lists to that effect.”
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v. Salazar limits the land-into-trust process to tribes that were “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934. Coming up with a list of affected tribes “might be helpful,” Hogen acknowledged. Citing his response to the decision and his stance on other issues, the National Indian Gaming Association is calling for Hogen, a Bush nominee, to resign.
Michigan Tribal Elders Meeting
From UpNorthLive.com:
Tuesday was the first day of the 13th annual Michigan Indian Elders Association, or MIEA.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 4:50 p.m.
BARAGA — Native American elders from across Michigan are in Baraga this week tackling tribal issues.
Tuesday was the first day of the 13th annual Michigan Indian Elders Association, or MIEA.
A drum and flag ceremony welcomed all 12 recognized tribes in the State of Michigan.
While the association is about how elders can make a difference culturally, socially and politically, they’re also working on bridging the gap between elders and youth.
“One of the cultural aspects of the Native American community is that the elders train and teach our youth,” says Robert Menard, MIEA Chairperson. “So they look up to our elders for guidance and that’s a service we’re providing them.”
The MIEA has given out more than $40,000 in scholarships and incentives to help children in school.
State Bar Exam Indian Law Materials
Tribal Court Order Regarding Attorney’s Fees Unenforceable
The Northern District of Oklahoma found that the Muscogee Tribal court did not have jurisdiction over the firm Crowe & Dunlevy who represented Thlopthlocco Tribal Town in an intratribal dispute. The case began in Muscogee Nation tribal court, but the firm eventually filed suit in federal district court to prevent enforcement of a tribal court order. Tribal sovereign immunity, Ex parte Young, judicial immunity, Rule 19 and Montana exceptions are all discussed in the decision.
Crowe & Dunlevy, P.C. v. Stidham, — F.Supp.2d —-, (N.D.Okla. Apr 24, 2009) (NO. 09-CV-095-TCK-PJC)
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