Harvard Journal on Legislation

Ann Tweedy on Anticommandeering and Indian Affairs Legislation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Ann E. Tweedy has posted “Anticommandeering and Indian Affairs Legislation,” forthcoming in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

The Supreme Court recently applied the narrow and relatively new anticommandeering doctrine for the first time to federal Indian Affairs legislation in Halaand v. Brackeen without explaining why the doctrine should be extended from the Interstate Commerce Clause context to that of the Indian Commerce Clause, as well as to the other congressional powers that form the basis of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). In subsequent cases relating to Indian Affairs legislation, the Court should clarify that only a very narrow version of the anticommandeering doctrine applies in this context because of the virtual absence of state authority in the area and the history of acceptance of federal activities that can be described as commandeering state enforcement activities. Existing literature in this area is limited, with Matthew Fletcher and Randall Khalil having argued, before Brackeen was issued, that ICWA should be interpreted as having been enacted under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, an invitation that the Court ultimately did not take up. This Essay, The Diminished Significance of the Anticommandeering Doctrine in the Context of Indian Affairs Legislation, is important because it explains holes in the Court’s reasoning in Brackeen and because it safeguards Congress’s ability to protect Native Americans and Tribes from longstanding abusive state practices such as the unwarranted removal of Indian children from their homes.

Andrea Carlson

Kirsten Carlson on the Rise of Lobbying by Tribal Interests from 1978 to 2012

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kirsten Matoy Carlson has posted “Lobbying Against the Odds,” forthcoming in the Harvard Journal on Legislation. Here is the abstract:

Conventional narratives maintain that groups that lack political power litigate because they cannot attain their goals politically. Yet lobbying by American Indians has increased over 600 percent since the late 1970s. And they are not alone. Other politically marginalized groups have also intensified their lobbying efforts over the past five decades. This raises an important question that scholars have yet to adequately answer: Why do some groups use legislative strategies to achieve their goals? This Article challenges the prevailing wisdom and demonstrates that groups sometimes lobby even when the odds are stacked against them. It considers the existing sociolegal framework for understanding why groups litigate, and suggests modifications based on insights from interest group studies, to provide a more complete explanation of when and why groups engage in various advocacy strategies. This modified sociolegal approach produces significant insights into how legal and political actors influence and are influenced by the institutions they turn to, but also enables us to see similar—and divergent—patterns across contexts. The Article presents original quantitative data to document the dramatic rise in American Indian lobbying from 1978 to 2012. Then it uses the modified sociolegal approach to explain how the relationships among courts, the political process, and groups facilitated American Indian legislative advocacy. It concludes by discussing the implications of the approach for studies of legal mobilization, interest groups, and federal Indian law.

Recommended!