Norma Torres: “There are laws on the books that stand in the way of true tribal self-determination and self-governance. One of those…”

“There are laws on the books that stand in the way of true tribal self-determination and self-governance. One of those laws is Public Law 80-846, known commonly as the 1948 Act. The 1948 Act targeted only one tribe, the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, also known as the Meskwaki Nation, and gave the State of Iowa criminal jurisdiction over their tribal lands. In 1948, the Nation did not have a formal mechanism for law enforcement and was not in a financial position to create one. This was used as the rationale for the stripping of these jurisdictional rights. But this has not been the case for many years. The Tribe has a full- time police department as well as a fully functioning court system. The continued existence of the 1948 Act has resulted in an unfair system of crimes committed on Meskwaki land, whereby a Native-American defendant must face the possibility of two prosecutions, State and Tribal, but a non-Native defendant faces only State prosecution. That is why I join my colleagues in supporting H.R. 1074. By passing this bill and repealing the 1948 Act, we will remove the inequity it has created, and bring the Meskwaki Nation in line with how criminal jurisdiction issues are addressed on other Native lands. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the adoption of H.R. 1074, and I reserve the balance of my time.”