Here.
Elena Kagan Confirmed as Fourth Female Supreme Court Justice
Here.
News
Ms. Magazine Blog Profile of Tribal Law and Order Act!!!!
From Ms. blog (thanks to A.T.!):
As a Native feminist without apology, I’m thrilled that the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 has been passed to protect Native women from violence. I have fellow Native woman warrior and feminist to thank for coining that exact phrase, and in fact, the bill itself: my shero Ms. Sarah Deer.
Sarah and I first met through Facebook, then face-to-face at the Tribal Policy and Law Institute of America in St. Paul, MN. It was Indigenous feminist love at first sight.
A Mvskoke (Creek) from Kansas, Sarah is a Tribal Law Professor at William Mitchell College of Law and served on the advisory committee (while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer) for Amnesty International’s 2007 report “Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Violence“–the fire behind getting the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 passed.
It’s been a whirlwind three years–from the Amnesty report to the bill signing just days ago–but as Sarah says here it’s really been 500+ years in the making. And since women are the life-givers, matriarchs, and center of our communities, we all have a responsibility to keep fighting.
JY: How are you feeling right now?
SD: I’m feeling exhausted and exhilarated. We–the five or six of us women who were connected in making this happen–kept saying to each other outside the White House, “This is so surreal!”
JY: When did it become real for you?
SD: It became very real when Lisa Marie Iyotte–a Lakota woman from the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota who is a rape survivor–spoke [at the bill’s signing] and said unequivocally, “If the Tribal Law and Order Act had existed 16 years ago, my story would have been very different.”
JY: Watching Lisa Marie I couldn’t help but cry myself. I’m always reminded that when I feel emotional or show my feelings publicly, it’s a sign that I’ve survived the attempts to beat the feelings out of me as an Indigenous person.
Troy Eid on the Tribal Law and Order Act
from the Denver Post:
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — After pressing for months, the chief criminal prosecutor for the Navajo Nation, Bernadine Martin, finally persuaded the U.S. Department of Justice to release its internal statistics on felony investigations. It turns out federal agents last year made just 28 arrests in sexual assault cases on an Indian reservation the size of West Virginia.
That’s an arrest rate in sexual assault cases of about 11 per 100,000 people. By comparison, Denver’s arrest rate in the same category in 2008 was 38 per 100,000. In other words, federal agents investigating sexual assaults on the Navajo Nation made less than one arrest for every three by Denver police.
This kind of unfairness prompted the Tribal Law and Order Act, sponsored by retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and signed by President Obama last week.
Despite the good intentions of many fine public servants, the federal government isn’t getting the job done. Violent crimes on Indian reservations are two and a half times the national average, yet tribal lands are served by half the number of police as comparable communities.
2010 Pre-Law Summer Institute Award Winners
Watch out for this group!
The winners of the book awards for 2010 are:
Overall Best Student: Tanner Amdur-Clark (Citizen Potawatomi)
Advocacy: Victoria Hatch (White Earth Ojibwe) and Aubony Burns (Oklahoma Choctaw)
Oralist: Katie Parker (Oklahoma Choctaw) and Lucas LaRose (Northern Cheyenne and Winnebago Tribe)
Indian Law: Matt Murdock (MHA Nation and Standing Rock)
Property: Tim Cornelius (Wisconsin Oneida)
Civil Procedure: Madison Simmons (Chickasaw)
Grand Traverse Band Announces Revenue Sharing Payments
Here is the press release: 2% first half 2010 press release 07-30-10
Michigan tuition waiver limited to federally recognized tribes
From Indianz.com
Arizona Federal Court Grants Injunction against Enforcement of Much of SB1070
Here is the order, and the NYTs article.
Pokagon Band Announces New Casino
A Michiana Indian tribe is ready to try and launch a ‘satellite.’
A satellite casino, that is.
The tribal owners of the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo today voted to expand gaming operations by pursuing a satellite facility near Hartford.
Hartford is in Van Buren County and has its own exit off I-94. Hartford is about five miles north of Coloma, and 45-miles away from New Buffalo.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians has had state permission to pursue the satellite project since October of 2008 when it renegotiated a gaming compact with Michigan.
The Hartford area casino would be much smaller than the Four Winds in New Buffalo.
Heather Kendall Miller Noted for Ninth Circuit Spot
From Law.com:
A lawyer under serious consideration for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would, if picked, become the only American Indian currently in the federal judiciary and the first ever to serve on an appellate court, according to sources familiar with the search process.
Heather Kendall-Miller, a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, is in the running to succeed Judge Andrew Kleinfeld for an Alaska-based seat. But Kendall-Miller has some competition from Alaska Supreme Court Justice Morgan Christen, part of a complicated 9th Circuit puzzle the White House is trying to assemble.
Christopher Cameron, a professor at Southwestern Law School, is the leading California contender for a separate seat that has long been in dispute between California and Idaho, multiple sources said. But the administration is also apparently looking for an Idaho nominee, these sources said, because the turf war is still going strong.
“I have long stated that the seat vacated by Judge Stephen Trott, a Californian who made a personal decision to set up his judicial chambers in Idaho, should reside in California,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in an e-mail.
But Idaho’s two senators — Michael Crapo, who once clerked for former 9th Circuit Judge James Carter, and James Risch — aren’t backing down. In April the two Republicans told White House Counsel Robert Bauer that they still believe the nominee should come from Idaho, according to a Crapo spokeswoman.
Sources familiar with the administration’s stance said the White House decided it would not intervene in the dispute, though Feinstein said she looked forward to “working with the White House” to find a nominee from California.
The White House didn’t have an immediate comment on its plans.
Cameron once clerked for 9th Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson. He’s been on the Southwestern faculty since 1991, specializing in labor and employment law. He did not return a call for comment.
In Alaska, Kendall-Miller has worked on high-profile Native American rights cases, and argued in the U.S. Supreme Court — once facing off against future Chief Justice John Roberts, according to a 1997 profile in Indian Country magazine (Kendall-Miller lost).
She also has a personal connection to President Obama: They were classmates at Harvard Law School in the early 1990s. And she has a compelling life story, having dropped out of high school and marrying at 17, then going on to work on an oil pipeline, getting divorced and putting herself through college and law school as a single mother, Indian Country reported.
Kendall-Miller did not return a call for comment.
American Indian advocacy groups are pushing hard for her, said Richard Guest, a Washington, D.C.-based staff attorney for her organization. Two American Indians have served as district court judges in the past, said Guest, but there aren’t any on the bench now.
“It’s not just that we don’t have anyone on the bench. We don’t have anyone who can act as mentors to young Native lawyers and law students,” Guest said. “That’s what we’re looking for: folks not who would just be great judges, but great mentors.”
Carrie Garrow on the Iroquois Nationals
From the Syracuse Post-Standard, via Indianz:
Carrie Garrow
Earlier this month, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team couldn’t participate in the World Lacrosse Championship because British authorities would not accept the team’s Haudenosaunee passports. In news stories and letters to the editor of The Post-Standard, many have focused on one question: Why do the Iroquois care which passport they use? Carrie Garrow, executive director of The Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship, at Syracuse University’s College of Law, and a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, spoke with staff writer Hart Seely.
One news account described the players’ view of being forced to use U.S. passports as “an attack on their identity.” What do they mean by that?
No one would ask a Canadian to travel under a passport from Switzerland or the United States. We have a right as a nation to have our own citizenship laws. We have a right to travel under our own documents.
We’ve been recognized as nations under treaties with the United States and with Great Britain, and we’re simply asking that they continue to recognize that we are nations, and that we can identify our own citizens.
How far back does this go?
Even before the forming of the U.S. Constitution, there were treaties with Great Britain and the United States. … We predate the forming of the Constitution, which is why we are outside of its scope.
Aren’t there counter-arguments that these laws no longer apply?Under international law, treaties are still upheld. We uphold our end of the treaties and we expect the United States to do the same. I think the U.S. would certainly articulate that they’ve broken some treaties and have a right to do so, but under international law, they are bound to uphold their word.
Turtle Talk 
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