Category Archives: carcieri
House Passes Clean Carcieri Fix
Carcieri Fix Legislation Scheduled for House Floor May 8, 2019
Bethany C. Sullivan & Jennifer L. Turner on Carcieri
I agree Enough is Enough …good article
Bethany C. Sullivan and Jennifer L. Turner have published “Enough Is Enough: Ten Years of Carcieri v. Salazar” in the Public Land & Resources Law Review. Here is the abstract:
Ten years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued its watershed decision in Carcieri v. Salazar, landing a gut punch to Indian country. Through that decision, the Supreme Court upended decades of Department of the Interior regulations, policy, and practice related to the eligibility of all federally recognized tribes for the restoration of tribal homelands through the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. The Court held that tribes must demonstrate that they were “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934 to qualify for land into trust under the first definition of “Indian” in the IRA. Carcieri has impacted all tribes by upending the land-into-trust process and requiring tribes (and Interior) to spend scant resources to establish statutory authority for trust land acquisitions, a burdensome task that had previously been straight forward…
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Land-in-Trust challenge against Ione Band stopped in Ninth Circuit; U.S. Supreme Court Carcieri Ruling Distinguished.
On Oct. 6, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Eastern District of California’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Department of Interior (DOI). In 2005, the County of Amador challenged the 2012 Record of Decision placing land into trust and approving casino development for the Ione Band of Miwok Indians. Specifically, the challenge focused on the determination that the Tribe was under federal jurisdiction, per the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), and was a restored tribe receiving restored lands under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).
The Ninth Circuit, interpreting Carcieri v. Salazar, 555 U.S. 379 (2009), decided that a tribe must have interacted with the federal government prior to 1934 and must be officially recognized at the time of the trust application submission. Land purchase negotiations over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries involved Congress and the Department in Ione Band affairs.
The appellate court understood this to mean that the Tribe had been under federal jurisdiction and that the intent of the IRA allowed recognition to occur at any point as long as federal jurisdiction was established in 1934 or earlier. The Ninth Circuit examined the legislative history of the IRA, in addition to contemporaneous administrative findings, and found that Congress intended the Act to apply to tribes recognized after 1934.
DOI’s interpretation of “under federal jurisdiction” separated the meaning of “recognized” from the phrase. The Department considered federal jurisdiction to mean an action or series of actions that establishes or reflects Federal obligations, authority, and duties for or to a tribe. The Court accepted this interpretation, affirmed the district court, and also ruled that the IGRA “restored tribe” exception was met.
In a related case, No Casino in Plymouth v. Zinke, the appellate circuit remanded to the Eastern District of California with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and organizational standing. The plaintiffs had not submitted specific facts showing that its members would have individual standing and its evidence was not allowed for a motion of summary judgment. Read case
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