A controversial bill in Congress, H.R. 3744, the Tribal Recognition Act, would remove the authority from the Department of the Interior to recognize a tribe and reserve it to Congress.
Most tribes have already gone on record against the bill, which critics say would further politicize the action of recognizing tribes and putting land into trust.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources, which oversees Indian affairs, argued against the bill last week. “The importance of federal recognition cannot be overstated and that is why simply leaving an act of Congress as the only path forward for tribal recognition is dangerous and misguided.”
Grijalva has attached an amendment to the bill that would state that any land placed in trust before February 24, 2009 would be “reaffirmed as trust land.”
That’s a backhanded slap against the notorious (in Indian country) U.S. Supreme Court decision Carcieri v. Salazar of 2009 that ruled that tribes that weren’t recognized in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed cannot put land into trust.
Grijalva told Indianz, “Many tribes now face frivolous lawsuits related to the Carcieri decision on land that they have had in trust for years, sometimes decades.”
Grijalva and other allies of Indian country have many times introduced so-called “Carcieri fixes” making it easier for tribes to put land into trust but failed to garner enough support to pass. The recent amendment is the first time such an approach has been supported by the majority.
The struggle has been mainly a Democrat vs. Republican issue, with Democrats largely wanting to provide a Carcieri “fix” and Republicans largely opposing that. This time, though, a Republican, Rob Bishop, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, supported Grijalva’s amendment.
“It’s not a bad amendment,” said Bishop. “I am willing to accept it, even if the Democrats are still not willing to go along and help us pass the underlying bill.”
Democrats, including Grijalva, have called the Tribal Recognition Act a “Republican Shakedown Disguised as Legislation.”
