If you’ve been following Turtle Talk for the past few years, you must have noticed the incredible volume of pleadings that have been filed in tribal, federal, and state courts in the litigation involving the so-called Nooksack 306. We at TT have largely stayed away from commenting on that internal tribal political dispute, preferring instead to serve merely as a space for the parties on both sides to make their pleadings and materials available online. They speak for themselves.

The events at Nooksack are really quite dramatic, and ongoing. The Nooksack tribe has cancelled elections (last election in 2014) and apparently operates today through some form of a holdover council, “disbarred” attorneys for the proposed disenrollees from practice in tribal courts, refused to allow parties from filing pleadings in tribal court, fired (or constructively fired) a tribal judge, been subject to contempt orders from its appellate court, sued the appellate court administrators for breach of contract, tried to create a tribal supreme court to vacate the appellate court orders, and drew a letter from the BIA saying the federal government will not recognize official actions of the holdover council. There’s more but . . . Whew!

Time for a Turtle Talk poll!!!! [results tomorrow . . . .]