Here:
States Amicus in Support of Petition
Town of Lenox Amicus in Support of Petition
Town of Verona Amicus in Support of Petition
The petition in Madison County v. Oneida Indian Nation is here. Lower court materials here.
Analysis that now appears to be mere wishful thinking on whether the Court will grant review is here.
Here: Fort Peck Cert Petition.
Questions presented:
Under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act of 1996 (NAHASDA), Congress directed the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to establish a formula to allocate annual block grants to Indian Tribes for affordable housing activities. Congress directed that the formula be based on factors which reflect housing need, including three explicit factors. The first factor is the number of dwelling units owned or operated by the Tribes under the 1937 Housing Act at the time the regulations became effective. 25 U.S.C. § 4152 (b) (1). The Secretary promulgated a regulation, 24 C.F.R. § 1000.318, that removes some of these dwelling units from the formula. After the regulation was invalidated by the district court as violative of the statute, Congress amended the statute to incorporate, with significant exceptions, part of the regulation into the statute. The questions presented are:
(1) When Congress mandates a definitive number of units to be considered as a factor in an annual funding formula, may the Secretary lawfully impose a regulation that fails to include all of the units in the formula?
(2) The Tenth Circuit declined to address the effect of the 2008 amendment on the regulation’s validity. Does the amendment of the statute following the district court’s decision support the district court’s ruling that the regulation was invalid prior to the amendment?
(3) Does the Tenth Circuit’s decision that the Secretary may exclude dwelling units from the formula conflict with the decisions of other circuits holding that statutory factors which Congress mandates for consideration by an Agency must be considered in full?
Lower court materials here.
Here: Sandia Cert Opp.
Petition and other materials here.
Original opinion here.
Court of Federal Claims opinion in Jicarilla Apache Nation v. United States, denying the U.S.’s motion to stay here.
United States petition for rehearing here.
Navajo Nation and Pueblo of Laguna Amicus opposing rehearing here.
United States petition to extend filing deadline for a writ of certiorari here.
Here: Madison County cert petition.
Questions presented:
The questions presented in this case are:
1. whether tribal sovereign immunity from suit, to the extent it should continue to be recognized, bars taxing authorities from foreclosing to collect lawfully imposed property taxes.
2. whether the ancient Oneida reservation in New York was disestablished or diminished.
Lower court materials here.
Here is the petition in Suquamish Tribe v. Upper Skagit Tribe: Suquamish Cert Petition.
Here is the question presented:
Whether a court implementing an unambiguous court order is bound to apply that order according to its plain terms, or whether the court should instead determine whether the judge who initially issued the order “intended something other than its apparent meaning,” as the Ninth Circuit held in this case.
Lower court materials here.
Here: Schaghticoke Cert Opp
According to Bill McAllister, Spokesman for Cobell Plaintiffs.
Available here, on Mr. Hoffman’s website. here:
UPDATE: Incidentally, Hoffman’s attorney apparently is the same Paul Livingston who challenged the Santa Fe Indian Market all those years ago in Livingston v. Ewing, known to (according to an anonymous source) “rant[] in local right wingnut rags about abolishing Indian law.”
Lower court materials here. Local TV coverage here, via Pechanga.
Questions presented:
1. Whether the doctrine of tribal immunity properly bars claims that an Indian Casino cheated a non-Indian gambler by refusing to pay a slot machine jackpot?
2. Whether the “property damage” under the waiver of immunity in Section 8 of the Tribal Gaming Compact applies only to physical damage to property?
As you might suspect, I give this petition very little chance. I would doubt any response is necessary. There’s no split in authority and the case isn’t important on a national level. As for question 1, I am always suspicious of claims that Indian casinos have cheated gamblers because casinos LOVE IT when there’s a jackpot — it means that everyone and their brother is going to show up at that casino to replicate the magic. And question 2 is just patently frivolous.
My guess is no, but there’s a possibility that the Court will hold the case for a period of time to allow for Congress to decide on the settlement. Not sure what the precedent is for that, however, without the government asking for a hold.
The real question, in my mind, is whether the Cobell plaintiffs should want the Supreme Court to hear this case at all. Recall the Sherrill case, where the Court adopted an unprecedented form of laches coupled with other equitable defenses that effectively nullified the ability of the Oneida Indian Nation to restore its reservation land base through simple repurchase of the land. The lower courts in Cobell did something similar, adopting a theory of impossibility (yet another equitable defense) to reject the Cobell plaintiffs argument that the government must account for all funds.
Luckily, I think, the government opposes the cert petition. And when the federal government opposes a tribal cert petition, they’re almost always denied. In fact, the last time the Supreme Court granted a cert petition brought by tribal interests against the United States (where the government did not consent to the grant) was 1971 (Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States; interestingly a somewhat similar case….).
So if the Court either grants or denies, how does that affect the Congressional approval of the settlement?
Here is the coverage from Indianz, and the briefs from SCOTUSblog’s Petitions to Watch:
Turtle Talk 
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