Native American Legal Update : Native American Law : Foster Pepper Law Firm : Northwest, Seattle, Spokane, Portland Lawyer & Attorney

Foster Pepper PLLC and KeyBank are Co-Sponsors of the huge Native American Economic Development Conference to be held at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas September 16-18, 2009.  The far-ranging seminar will cover topics of immense importance to Tribal economies, including:

• Tribal Leaders Roundtable: The Impact of President Obama’s Administration
• Economic Development Bonds and the Federal Stimulus Package: Effects on Tribal Financing
• Tribal Enterprises Facing Bankruptcy
• CEO Roundtable: Private Enterprise Boards vs. Tribal Governments
• CFO Roundtable- External Diversification vs. Internal Reinvestment: Weighing Risk Management Issues
• Economic Development Roundtable: Stimulating Revenue Growth
• Effective Master Planning
• Design and Construction Roundtable: Climbing out of a Recession
• Strategic Marketing in a New Economic Era
• Using Sports and Entertainment to Maximize Casino Traffic
• Planning for Retirement in Indian Country
  

The conference presenters possess unparalleled expertise in Tribal economic development issues, and include:

• William "Mike" Lettig, Executive Vice President & National Executive, KeyBank
• Mellor Willie, Executive Director, National American Indian Housing Council
• Elaine Fink, Chairperson, Northfork Rancheria of Mono Indians
• Henry Cagey, Chairman, Lummi Nation
• Bob Garcia, Chairman, The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians
• Robert Martin, Chairman, Morongo Band of Mission Indians
• Georgia Noble, Chairperson, Sac & Fox National Business Enterprise Board
• Mel Sheldon, Chairman, Tulalip Tribes of Washington
• Glenn Hall, CEO, Bishop Paiute Tribe
• Robert Mele, CFO, Seneca Construction Management Corporation
• Robert Winter, CEO, Navajo National Gaming Enterprises
• Chris Kelley, CFO, Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians
• Eletta Tiam, CFO, Nisqually Tribe
• Michael Marchand, President, Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Economic Development Corporation
• Virgil Moorhead, Chairman, Big Lagoon Rancheria
• Morris Reid, Chairman, Picayune Rancheria of Chuckchansi Indians
• Ivan Posey, Chairman, Shoshone Tribe of the Winder River Reservation
• Theresa Two Bulls, President, Ogalala Sioux Tribe of The Pine Ridge Reservation
• Cedric Black Eagle, Chairman, Crow Nation
• Louis J. Manuel Jr., Chairman, Ak-Chin Indian Community
• Michael Broderick, Director of Marketing, Lake of the Torches Resort Casino
• Mary Galbraith, Director of Strategic Marketing, Cherokee National Entertainment
• Michael L. Bearhart, Director of Gaming, St. Croix Casino & Hotel
• Scott Eldredge, General Manager, Santa Ana Start Casino

Additional conference information and registration information can be accessed through Pier Conference Group.

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The National Indian Gaming Association has asked the Obama administration to replace the chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission immediately, and stop the current commission from publishing proposed revisions to gaming regulations until the new official is in place. In a letter to the President, NIGA asserts the Commission violates government-to-government consultation rules and is revising gaming machine regulations that would impose huge and unnecessary compliance costs on Tribal gaming operations, and “overreaching” because they exceed the NIGC’s statutory authority.

NIGA is a nonprofit organization representing Tribal nations and businesses engaged in gaming enterprises, and acts as an educational, legislative and public policy resource for tribes, policymakers, and the public on gaming issues and Tribal community development. NIGA has asked Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to immediately replace NIGC Chairman Philip Hogen, who “is holding out for almost five years past his original term,” and appoint a new commissioner to fill a seat that has been vacant for years. The Chairman’s position is a Presidential appointment approved by the Senate.

Barbara Kyser-Collier, Quapaw Tribal Gaming Agency director, has written to Obama seeking “urgent action” in appointing a new NIGC chairman. “It is beyond understanding that a federal agency established to protect tribal gaming as a source of revenue for tribal governmental services and functions, in fact, would persist in efforts to disseminate regulations that will inflict financial damage to Native American tribes,” Kyser-Collier said.

The proposed new gaming rules would also extend NIGC’s authority beyond its statutory limits, Kyser-Collier wrote. For example, NIGC has inserted into the proposed regulations a new technical standard that would require a jackpot payout be validated by the backroom accounting system. This would require a type of technology that is usually patented in a manufacturer’s gaming system, requiring the gaming operation either to have that particular manufacturer’s system or to pay the manufacturer a royalty fee to use its proprietary technology. “The NIGC characterizes these potential regulations as ‘internal control standards,’ when in fact they constitute product standards. A most important danger is that such rules could favor certain manufacturers and drive tribal costs higher,” Kyser-Collier said.
 

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The Indian Law Resource Center has released its annual report highlighting work undertaken to defend the rights of Native American nations and other indigenous peoples in the Americas.  Attorneys and Board Members from the ILRC played a central role in the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and are working to educate and encourage Native communities to use the Declaration to strengthen their rights of self-determination, protect their human rights, and control their own land and natural resources.

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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that police officers for Native American tribes do not have the same authority to stop and question non-Indians traveling on state roads within the reservation as they do tribal members.

While it is permissible to set up roadblocks on state roads, it can only be to the extent that the stop is limited to determine if the person is an Indian or not. However, the court did clarify that if there are "obvious violations,'' like driving drunk, tribal police officers may detain the person.

Also, because tribal officers act under the authority of state law, they are subject to U.S. constitutional constraints on search and seizure and cannot claim immunity under the principle of tribal sovereignty.

This ruling came out of a recent case where a non-Indian motorist, Terrence Bressi, was stopped by tribal officers at a 2002 Tohono O'odham roadblock on State Route 86, and he alleged that the actions of the officers violated his civil rights.
 

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The U. S. Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") Secretary announced that HUD is awarding more than $32 million in stimulus funds to tribal and native organizations in Alaska, Oregon and Washington state.

Accroding to reports, approximately seven tribal organizations in Washington state will receive nearly $17 million in stimulus funds. Five Alaska Native organizations will receive $13 million, and almost $3 million will go to one tribe in Oregon. The money is to improve housing and stimulate community development.

Nationwide, HUD is awarding 61 grants, totaling $132 million to Native American and Native Alaska communities.

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The Blackfeet Nation has entered into a ground-breaking agreement with neighboring Glacier County for fully reciprocal cross-deputization, a law enforcement pact that both parties called unprecedented. "This is truly a historic document," Tribal Attorney Sandra Watts told the Blackfeet Business Council. "It goes beyond anything else in the nation. In the past, there have been one-way agreements, but nothing that's truly reciprocal."

The agreement formalizes a working agreement that's been in effect for the past month, but it's also limited to the next 60 days as a trial period. "When their deputies come onto our reservation, they become officers of the Tribe and they can enforce both the tribal and state laws," Watts told the council. "And when our Tribal police officers are off the reservation in Glacier County, they can enforce state laws."

Previously, county deputies had been issued commission cards from the Tribe allowing them to enforce state law on non-Indians living on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, but those cards were revoked last year. That left deputies unable to arrest non-Natives living on the reservations who committed crimes or who had warrants against them in state courts. The major difference is that race is a factor on the reservation — Native Americans are issued warrants for Tribal Court, while non-Natives are issued warrants for magistrate court or district court . Off the reservations, all warrants are for magistrate or district court.
 

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Eloise Cobell (Photo by Karen Kuehn)

A class-action suit regarding mismanagement of lands affecting 500,000 Native Americans recently got a boost, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled in the Cobell litigation that the federal government must provide an accounting for land royalties owed to individual plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was filed 13 years ago and claims compensation for Native Americans for land-related royalties from the profits of oil, gas, grazing, and timber – commodities that were taken from Tribal lands that the government has managed in trust for Tribal members since the 19th Century. In 2008, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that an accurate accounting by the Department of Interior was impossible, and awarded the group of plaintiffs $455 million, a fraction of the $47 billion+ being claimed in the lawsuit.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit disagreed with this result, and found that the lower court erred in eliminating the government accounting. Chief Judge David B. Sentelle said the decision essentially allowed the Interior Department "to throw up its hands and stop the accounting." "Without an accounting, it is impossible to know who is owed what," Sentelle wrote. "The best any trust beneficiary could hope for would be a government check in an arbitrary amount."

The D.C. Circuit panel acknowledged that the task is complicated and the Interior Department should focus on the "low-hanging fruit", dealing with clear cases where compensation is owed. "We must not allow the theoretically perfect to render impossible the achievable good," Sentelle wrote.
 

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