George H.W. Bush: “the Mississippi Sioux Indian Judgment Fund Act June 16, 1992 To the Senate of the United States: I am returning herewith…”

“the Mississippi Sioux Indian Judgment Fund Act June 16, 1992 To the Senate of the United States: I am returning herewith without my approval S. 2342. This bill would waive the 6-year statute of limitations, allowing three Sioux Indian tribes--the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, the Devils Lake Sioux Tribe, and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Council of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation--to bring an otherwise time-barred challenge to the 1972 Mississippi Sioux Indian Judgment Fund Act. The 1972 Act apportioned to each of the three Tribes, and to a then- undetermined class of Sioux Indians who are not members of those Tribes, a percentage share of the proceeds from a 1967 judgment against the United States. The judgment rested on a finding that the United States had not paid adequate compensation to the Tribes in the 1860's for lands ceded to the United States. The nonmember Indians are persons who are not now eligible for membership in any of the three Tribes, but who can trace their lineal ancestry to someone who was once a tribal member. The Tribes were active participants in the administrative and legislative process leading to the 1972 Act, and they endorsed the Act and its distribution of the judgment. Nonetheless, in 1987, 15 years after enactment and 9 years after the statute of limitations had run, the Tribes sued the United States, challenging the Act's distribution to the nonmembers. The U.S.…”