Here are the materials (so far) in Littlefield v. Dept. of the Interior (D. Mass.):
Prior post here.
Here are the materials (so far) in Littlefield v. Dept. of the Interior (D. Mass.):
Prior post here.
Here are the materials in Kiowa Tribe v. Dept. of the Interior (W.D. Okla.):
Prior post here.
Here are the materials in Berry v. United States (Fed. Cl.):
Anna Malinovskaya has posted “Understanding the Native American Tribal ‘Disenrollment Epidemic’: An IV Approach” on SSRN.
Here is the abstract:
Recently, over 80 Native American tribes have banned or disenrolled members of their tribes or denied citizenship to eligible individuals. This phenomenon has received media attention nationwide, and even the term the “disenrollment epidemic” was coined. Many speculate that at least some of it is driven by political struggles over multi-million dollar revenues of tribal casinos, which are sometimes distributed in per capita payments to all tribal members. In this paper, we test whether gaming has been driving disenrollments, and since a tribe’s involvement in gaming might be endogenous, we employ an instrumental variable approach. In particular, we use machine learning to select an optimal subset of instruments for a Native American tribe operating a casino from the set of potential instruments all plausibly meeting the exclusion restriction and associated with the geographical characteristics of reservations, such as their proximity to an MSA, an interstate highway, or a border of a neighboring state with no brick and mortar casinos. We find that a tribe’s involvement in gaming leads to a large and statistically significant increase in the probability of the tribe experiencing a disenrollment episode.
An excerpt:
This paper sought to understand if tribes’ involvement in the gaming industry, particularly wealth from per capita distribution of gaming revenues made possible by this involvement, has been the primary factor driving disenrollments and other types of dismemberment episodes. Both gaming and per capita distributions of gaming revenues are likely to be endogenous. Although we did not find an instrument for per capita distributions, we identified a set of instruments for gaming, and used them to understand, albeit indirectly, whether gaming has been driving disenrollments (the direct approach would be instrumenting for per capita distributions rather than gaming). Although this approach has its limitations
(as discussed in the Empirical Strategy section, it represents, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to identify a causal link between gaming and dismemberment in Indian tribes. Additionally, the consistency of results across our OLS and IV estimates, as well as across several sub-samples, is encouraging.
This research could be strengthened by instrumenting for per capita distribution of gaming revenues directly, though finding an appropriate instrument might be challenging. It could also be strengthened by finding instruments that would pass the Weak Instruments test for the full sample (327 tribes) that is likely to produce less biased IV estimates, or by using a different quasi-experimental empirical approach that would overcome the limitations associated with IVs when the sample is relatively small.
Here is the opinion in Sipp v. Buffalo Thunder Inc.:
Merits Stage
Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas Amicus Brief
Cert Stage
Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo’s Cert Petition
Reply of petitioners Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
Brief amicus curiae of United States in favor of SCOTUS review
Fifth Circuit
Texas v Ysleta del Sur Pueblo 5th Circuit Opinion
Alabama-Coushatta Tribe Amicus Brief
District Court
54 tribe supplemental memo re cause of action
83 Tribe Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint
97 Texas Motion to Dismiss Counterclaims
121 First Amended Counterclaims
146 Texas Motion for Summary Judgment
147 Texas AG Motion for Summary Judgment
153 Tribe Response to Texas AG
Here is the opinion:
Briefs:
Keep in mind as to this case and the related Ninth Circuit case we posted a while ago here, this is about a nonmember sued by a tribe in tribal court for breach of contract, a nonmember who won before the tribal court, and now is suing the tribal judges, tribal employees, and the lawyers for the tribe for racketeering because the nonmember believes there was a conspiracy against him. The only reason this case exists is because of the Lewis v. Clarke decision (preceded by Ninth Circuit cases) that holds individuals who work for tribes sued in their individual capacities are not immune. Even if the nonmember’s claim here has validity (seems very unlikely but who knows?), this case is definitive proof that the Lewis v. Clarke precedent will allow absolutely frivolous contract and other claims to proceed against tribes on the Lewis v. Clarke fiction that tribal employees sued in their individual capacity are somehow not engaged in tribal governmental activity and that the tribes that indemnify their employees are doing so for reasons unrelated to tribal governmental prerogatives. Here, we’re talking tribal judges (including an associate judge who was not assigned the case), a court clerk, and lawyers retained by the tribe to merely serve as counsel for the tribe, among others. They might all win below, as the court here suggests, but they have to make the correct arguments in what appears to be a game of whack-a-mole.
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