Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1240, the Winnebago Land Transfer Act of 2023, would replace approximately 1,600 acres of land into trust for the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska is one of the federally recognized Tribes of the Ho-Chunk people. Their reservation encompasses 117,000 acres of land located in Thurston and Dixon Counties in Nebraska and Woodbury County in Iowa. The treaties of 1865 and 1874 between the Tribe and the U.S. Government established the land that is now known as the Winnebago Tribe's reservation. In 1970, the Army Corps of Engineers condemned tracts of land on the eastern boundary of the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska and Iowa through eminent domain for the use of the Snyder-Winnebago Oxbow Lake Recreation Complex project. The Tribe challenged this taking in Federal Court. In Nebraska, the District Court ruled in favor of the Tribe, and the parcels in the State were returned. That was not the case in Iowa. A failure to properly preserve a right of appeal meant that the Eighth Circuit Court could not return the land to the Tribe through a court order, even though they won their case. The land would have to be returned to the Tribe through an act of Congress. H.R. 1240 would right the wrong that occurred in 1970 by returning the land and placing it into trust.…”