News

Andrew Cohen on Justice Alito’s Visit to Pine Ridge

Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

Here is the short article in the Atlantic. Here is the Rapid City Journal news article detailing the visit to Pine Ridge, which came at Judge Karen Schreier’s invitation and included a visit to Red Cloud Indian School. Chi-miigwetch to everyone who sent it along.

Mr. Cohen offered three questions he would have asked Justice Alito at Pine Ridge if he could have gone. One on Arvo Mikkanen’s nomination; one on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Jicarilla; and one on Factbound and Splitless. He has previously written on all three issues: The Mikkanen nomination here and here; the Jicarilla case here; and Factbound and Splitless here.

Saginaw Chippewa Disenrollment Effort Begins Anew

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the news article, via Pechanga. And here is an excerpt:

The “D” word has again surfaced on the Isabella Reservation: Disenrollment.

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s Office of Administrative Hearings last week conducted the first hearing in several years into the possibility of removing a current member from the rolls. No decision was reached.

The case involves an 87-year-old elder who lives in Pennsylvania. Anna Bell Atwood. She became a member of the Tribe in 1988 during the Tribe’s open enrollment period, a time when the Tribe reached out to Natives who might qualify to become members.

Since that time, Tribal membership has become extremely valuable. Members qualify for numerous benefits, including per-capita payments of several thousand dollars per month based on income from the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, free health care and other perks.

But a high birth rate has caused membership in the Tribe to grow rapidly. At the same time, the economic downtown has cut into the Tribe’s income.

Tribal attorney Shawn Frank admitted during the hearing that a change in the makeup of the Tribal Council had put the disenrollment issue back into the spotlight.

NYTs on New York’s Thruway Dispute with Seneca Nation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

An excerpt:

Over the last few weeks, this stretch of highway has emerged as the unlikely flash point in escalating disputes between the Seneca Nation of Indians and the State of New York — disputes over sovereignty, and money, that have led the tribe to seek the intervention of President Obama and have twice prompted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to send high-level delegations to western New York in an effort to make peace. The tribe, saying that its leadership was pressured 57 years ago into accepting a one-time payment of $75,000 to allow the Thruway to cross its Cattaraugus reservation, is now dunning the state for more than $80 million — $1 for every vehicle that has crossed the reservation on the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway since 2007. The state, in turn, is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars it says the tribe owes as a share of its cigarette sales and gambling proceeds.

CNN on the North Dakota “Fighting Sioux” Controversy

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here (via one of our Senior Canadian Correspondents). An excerpt:

The kerfuffle at hand dates to 2007, when the North Dakota Board of Higher Education agreed to retire the Fighting Sioux nickname by August 15, 2011, in accordance with the NCAA’s then-2-year-old policy on Native American mascots. If they ultimately chose not to do so, costly NCAA sanctions were promised, including the inability to host any championships and a ban on the use of the school’s logo or nickname at any championship events.

After Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed House Bill 1263 into law this year, the school was left with the dilemma of having to either disobey the government that controls its purse-strings or to flout the rules of the NCAA, the entity that controls the arguably mightier purse-strings of college football.

The nickname controversy appeared to be closer to a resolution Friday when Dalrymple and other state officials traveled to Indianapolis to meet with NCAA officials in a last-ditch effort to resolve the matter.

 

NYTs on Suquamish Tribe Same-Sex Marriage Law

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Ken Harrington Statement on Recall as LTBB Chair

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

News Coverage of Gun Lake Band/USA Intent to File Cert Petition in Patchak

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz.

Here is the link to our post on the D.C. panel opinion.

And to Patricia Millett’s commentary on the decision.

 

Little Traverse Bay Bands Recalls Chairman Ken Harrington

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the coverage from Indianz.

Radio Profile of Seneca Pres. Robert Porter

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Via Pechanga, here it is.

An excerpt:

Porter’s a big guy at 6-foot-4.  He has graying hair.  He’s dressed casually for a president in a striped button-down and khakis.

Porter says Senecas enjoy universal health care, college tuition assistance, subsidized day care, new sports complexes.  For a few years, there was even a program that paid Senecas 1400 dollars a year to lose weight.

In New York State, the Senecas and other native tribes are often portrayed as villains, getting rich off gambling and tobacco addicts.

Porter bristles at that criticism.

Right when we’re starting to recover from a couple hundred years of deprivation, I’ve even had members of Congress, their staff, tell us, y’know, you guys really should be getting into something else.  This is really not something you should be doing, and I just can’t believe the hypocrisy of that.

Porter says some of the largest corporations in the U.S. are in the same industries.  Almost all states raise money with lotteries.

Porter’s sued New York several times to prevent the state from taxing native tobacco sales.  He’s pressing the state to pay millions in rent for two Interstates that cross Seneca land.  Yet somehow, he hasn’t made many enemies.