Shinnecock Indian Nation

News Coverage on Shinnecock Response to Opposition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

From Newsday mobile:

Incensed by two last-minute attempts to block their federal recognition, leaders of the Shinnecock Indian Nation called on the entire 1,200-person membership to attend a court hearing in Central Islip Wednesday as they fight to put their long-awaited status back on track.

On the day the nation was to celebrate its first day as a federally recognized tribe, one leader said a sense of sadness had been replaced by one of resolve. “We’ll continue to fight,” said senior trustee Lance Gumbs.

Chairman Randy King said he called on the entire tribal membership to attend the court hearing Wednesday “to celebrate our heritage.”

Also Tuesday, two Shinnecock members created a Facebook page to announce the formation of the New York Coalition for Shinnecock Gaming, which is calling for a boycott of Connecticut casinos they say are seeking to block the Southampton tribe’s federally recognized status.

Tela Loretta Troge, who is attending American Indian Law Center’s Pre Law Summer Institute, said she created the page with another tribal member, Kelly Dennis, out of “frustration” at “not being able to get Bureau of Indian Affairs scholarships for school next month” because of the Connecticut group’s filing.

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It’s Begun: Interior Sued for Recognizing Shinnecock Indian Nation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Newsday article here. The plaintiff is the Connecticut Coalition for Gaming Jobs, partially profiled here.

More details to follow….

NYTs on Shinnecock Recognition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

There’s no irony or attitude at the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum, just the whaling artifacts, the carved elk on the front door, the portraits and memorabilia of a people whose history on Long Island goes back thousands of years.

Still, only a deity with a perverse sense of humor could have written the story of the Shinnecocks, which entered a new era on Tuesday when a 32-year legal effort culminated in the formal federal recognition of the tribe.

You could start with the locale: how the bays and beaches the Shinnecocks and their ancestors fished and nurtured for millennia morphed into not just the Hamptons, but some of the richest and snootiest precincts there. That left the Shinnecocks strangers in their own land, a largely poor tribe of 1,200 with an 800-acre reservation tucked amid the lime-green slacks, the $36 lobster roll (Silver’s on Main Street) and the perma-tan, perma-thin habitués of this playground of the seriously rich.

Then there’s been the long legal dance and periodic skirmishes over the tribe’s nuclear option: its threat to build a casino on the reservation that could have turned the standard East End gridlock into a graveyard of permanently immobilized Lexuses, Range Rovers and BMWs.

And now, with the economy still in the tank and development hard to come by, the outsiders at the banquet are the ones holding all the chips. The courting and wooing for what could be one of New York State’s biggest economic projects in many years have been going on quietly for some time.

But the action begins in earnest next month, when, 30 days after the designation, the tribe can start taking official steps to build what could be New York’s answer to Connecticut’s mega-casinos.

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Shinnecock Indian Nation Recognized

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

DOI press release here: PRSHINRECOGNITION.

From the NYTs:

ALBANY — The Obama administration approved the Shinnecock Indians on Long Island for federal recognition on Tuesday, culminating a court battle lasting three decades and paving the way for the tribe to build a casino in New York City or its suburbs.

While there is still a 30-day comment period before the matter is fully settled, the support of the administration all but assures the 1,292-member tribe’s recognition. The announcement, made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Tuesday morning, will almost certainly change the way of life for the relatively impoverished tribe, whose members live on 800 acres in Southampton, N.Y., in the midst of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most famous celebrities.

It will also touch off negotiations between the tribe and the state over casino gambling. With federal recognition, the tribe can build a Class II casino on its land that could have thousands of video slot machines but no table games.

But state and local officials have long been worried about the traffic implications of building a casino in the Hamptons, and the tribe would prefer to negotiate with the state and federal government to build a more lucrative Class III casino on land elsewhere that would be allowed to have table games. The state would share in the revenue of any deal.

The tribe had no immediate comment.

In December, after an initial ruling in favor of the tribe, Randy King, chairman of the Shinnecock trustees, said, “This recognition comes after years of anguish and frustration for many members of our Nation, living and deceased.”

NYTs Editorial on the Shinnecock Recognition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Pathetic. Rank hypocrisy, at the very least.

From the NYTs:

More than 200 years late — 31 if you count from the tribe’s petition — the federal government has acknowledged that the Shinnecocks of Southampton, Long Island, are an Indian tribe. Settling that question raises new ones. The Shinnecocks will almost certainly try to build a casino — they have been lobbying as hard for one as they have for recognition — but how big, and where?

The “where” is an especially interesting question. Casinos are usually built on reservation land. The Shinnecocks live on the East End of Long Island, a national depository of wealth, privilege and privacy. When the tribe jumped the gun a few years back and bulldozed part of its property for a bingo hall, the not-in-my-backyard opposition erupting from the dunes and privet hedges was ferocious. And that was just a skirmish.

That is probably why the Shinnecocks are exploring other sites in Suffolk County, at two New York racetracks and in the Catskills. But building an off-reservation casino is itself fraught with uncertainty and regulatory hurdles. The tribe could end up spending many years and lots of money chasing something that is a guaranteed winner only for lobbyists and consultants.

Casinos are also a magnet for tainted money and a handmaiden to addiction, crime and other social ills. That is why we would urge the tribe to spend its energy on finding other ways to leverage its valuable real estate.

A casino is, after all, only a means to an end — to economic vitality, greater respect, a better future for the tribe’s 1,000 members. The Shinnecocks are now in a much better position to pursue that dream. Lack of federal status did more than hamper the tribe’s quest for gambling riches. It also denied it access to federal programs for housing, health care and education.

The Shinnecocks have a long, proud history of self- governance, and advantages that poorer, more remote tribes can only dream of: geography, bargaining power and the support of state officials including Gov. David Paterson, who endorsed their quest for recognition. The good news on recognition would be even better if the tribe could foresee a future apart from slots and dice.

Kevin Maillard on the Shinnecock Recognition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Faculty Lounge:

28oysters-600The Shinnecock Indian Nation ended its 30 year battle for federal recognition yesterday, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs approving the Long Island tribe’s petition.   The small tribe of 1,066 people is located in Southampton, in the midst of wealthy beach communities.

This comes as a great victory for the Shinnecocks, who are one of the very few tribes who have emerged successful from the recognition process.  Currently, there are 564 federally recognized tribes, and only 8 percent of these tribes have ever been individually recognized since 1960.  Poor tribes with limited resources have trouble hiring lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants to guide them successfully through the process.  The Shinnecocks paid at least $1.74 million since 2005 in their recognition effort.

The process is incredibly rigorous, with recognition standards often tautologically excluding groups whose conception of “tribe” differs from the federal governments. Many tribes, often Northeastern ones, do not fulfill requirements of “significant rates of marriage within the group” and relative isolation from nontribal members.  Tribes historically situated near urban areas and those who have incorporated others as family have not been approved, most notably the Mashpee of Cape Cod.

Recognition criteria, as stated in 25 CFR 83.7, can be found here.

(Picture: Shinnecock oyster farming taken by Gordon Grant for the NYT.)

BIA Proposes to Extend Federal Recognition to the Shinnecock Indian Nation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Nation’s counsel:

The Department of Interior today issued a positive Proposed Finding to extend federal acknowledgment to the Shinnecock Indian Nation.  Under the federal consent decree governing the processing of the Nation’s petition, DOI must issue a final determination at some point between May 19 and November 13, 2010.  (Given the consent decree terms, the date will likely be in the middle of this range.)
Congratulations should be extended to the Shinnecock Nation’s members and leaders, and the Nation’s team, all of whom have worked long and hard to get the federal bureaucracy to acknowledge what the Nation has always known (and what a federal court determined in 2005).
Of note, upon federal acknowledgment becoming effective, the Nation will be eligible to game under IGRA.  The Nation’s Southampton, NY reservation, over which the State has continuously disclaimed jurisdiction, immediately will meet IGRA’s definition of Indian lands eligible for gaming.
DOI’s press release and the Proposed Finding should be available on the BIA’s website.

Federal Court Grants Stay in Shinnecock Smokeshop Case Pending BAP Decision

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the most recent opinion in Gristede’s Foods v. Poospatuck (Unkechauge) Nation — DCT Order Granting Stay until August 2010

Federal Court Dismisses Shinnecock Counterclaims in Smokeshop Suit

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the most recent opinion in Gristede’s Foods v. Poospatuck (Unkechauge) Nation (E.D. N.Y.) — DCT Order Dismissing Shinnecock Counterclaims

An excerpt:

the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the Shinnecock defendants’ counterclaims is granted. The Shinnecock defendants are granted leave to amend their counterclaims for abuse of process and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage within ten days of entry of this order.

Shinnecock Member Asks Supreme Court to Overturn Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the cert petition in Smith v. Shulman, a tax case — Smith v Shulman Cert Petition

Questions presented:

I. Whether a “rebate” to a reservation Indian is income?

II. Whether a District Court is barred by statute from exercising subject matter jurisdiction, when an Indian treaty provides a free trade right and a procedural dispute resolution right?

III. Whether this Court should overturn The Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (1831)insofar as the case provides the legal underpinning of United States’ jurisdiction over Indian reservations, where this Court interpreted the Commerce Clause language of “with” to mean “over” and found Indian tribes to be “domestic dependent nations” rather than “foreign nations,” an error in Constitutional interpretation and a historical wrong against Native Americans?