On the recordJuly 26, 2010
I rise this evening to talk about a United States Supreme Court decision that could have far-reaching social and economic impacts on the American Indian population. Carcieri v. Salazar, a 6-3 decision by the United States Supreme Court issued on February 24, 2009, held that the Secretary of the Interior exceeded his authority in taking land into trust for an American Indian tribe that was not under Federal jurisdiction or recognized at the time the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934. I speak tonight to the injustice of that result and to the moral imperative that we as Members of the United States Congress have to see that that decision is corrected. For centuries, now, the American Indians who called these lands home long before Europeans have arrived have been pushed to the geographic and societal fringes of this great country. They have suffered disruption, violence, and relocation to make way for continued expansion. The Indian Reorganization Act, ironically, of 1934 sought to actually rectify so many of those mistreatments.
