Nominations

FBA Indian Law Section Members, Nominations are open for the Baca Lifteime Achievement Award

Ann Tweedy

If you’re not a member of the Federal Bar Association’s Indian Law Section, there’s still time to join. Here is the notice from Lawrence Baca, Chair of the Nominations Committee:

Dear Indian Law Section Members:

Please consider nominating someone for the Lawrence R. Baca Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients of the Baca Lifetime Achievement Award include Lawrence Baca, Professor Phil Frickey, John Echohawk, Professor David Getches, Alan Taradash, Professor Carole E. Goldberg and Tom Fredericks.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, February 6, 2015. Please submit nominations to the Chairman of the Nominations and Awards Committee, Lawrence Baca, at lawrence.baca@yahoo.com with a cc to svalerio@fedbar.org . Nominations should specifically address why the nominee meets the criteria for the award outlined below.

Qualifications for Lawrence Baca Lifetime Achievement Award:

1. Nominee must have worked in the field of Indian law for at least twenty years as a practitioner, judge, legislator, leader, scholar or educator;
2. Be of good standing and held in high esteem in his or her professional arena;
3. And have made significant contributions to the field of Indian law through litigation, development of legislation, scholarship or the development of Indian law students or through tribal leadership.

The nomination submission must include:
1. A nominating letter that specifically addresses in narrative form how the nominee meets each of the three Award criteria.
2. A current resume or vitae.
(Reference to a website where the information can be found is not accepted as a substitute for the written narrative.)

The nomination submission may include:
1. 1-3 letters of support for the nomination.
2. Up to 3 articles about the nominee
Do not include articles written by the nominee.

Respectfully,

2015 Nominations and Awards Committee
Lawrence Baca
Chairman

Two Nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court

Kate Fort

From SCOTUSblog, principal deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan and Caitlin Halligan were both nominated by President Obama to fill vacancies in the D.C. Circuit. Halligan was nominated previously, which we covered here. The DC Circuit is generally considered a path to a Supreme Court nomination, as well as handles a fair amount of Indian law cases.

Srinivasan has argued before the Supreme Court more than 20 times. In his job with the SG he represented the federal government in Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt (contract supports case).

As a private attorney with O’Melveny & Myers, he represented the Hawai’ia Congressional Delegation as an amicus in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs. There the Supreme Court overturned the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision that the state couldn’t sell ceded lands before settling Native Hawaiian claims, based on the Apology Resolution passed by Congress. His brief argued for upholding the Hawaii Supreme Court:

Contrary to the contentions of petitioners and the United States, the Apology Resolution is more than “simply an apology” (Pet. Br. 30) “whose sole effect is a moral one” (U.S. Br. 30). Rather, the Resolution by its terms constitutes an official, definitive recognition and acknowledgment by Congress of the United States’ culpability for the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i and of the Native Hawaiians’ unrelinquished claims to their ancestral lands. That acknowledgment differs from other statutes and resolutions that have expressed Congress’ regret for acts that had already been recognized as wrong or unlawful. See U.S. Br. 29-30 (describing resolution apologizing for “slavery and Jim Crow”). The Apology Resolution instead ended a long-running debate over the United States’ actions in Hawai’i over a century ago.3 The Supreme Court of Hawai’i properly relied on those considered findings, and Congress’ express support of the ongoing reconciliation with the Native Hawaiian people, to inform its ruling below.