Markwayne Mullin: “I appreciate my colleague from Utah in his fine arguments. Obviously, you can tell he is a great attorney. What…”

“I appreciate my colleague from Utah in his fine arguments. Obviously, you can tell he is a great attorney. What frustrates me is that I am literally down the hall. My colleague could have, at any time, picked up the phone and called me. The Senator could have simply talked to me. He could have even called me back today when I called him on the phone, and we could have discussed this. At any given time, we could have had this discussion not here on the floor, but we could have actually taken the time and walked through this. I do understand his concerns, but his argument is that, since the statute of limitations has been looked at, we should not deal with any Indian issues--which I live in and always have lived in Indian Country, which I know my colleague from Utah has not and may not always understand the complexity which we live with consistently. But, under the Senator's argument, the court should never look at anything inside the treaty because it has been done; it is over with. So why should we even look at it? Yet the court always looks into it, and that is why we have the court. We also have the separation of powers. We are the legislative branch, and the Senator is quoting the judicial branch. In this case, the only people who can solve this issue is Congress. The court can't. This is unique. Only Congress can do this--no one else. And there is a dispute because my colleague is from Utah.…”