Blumenthal Tells Secretary of Interior to Stop Tribal Recognition
By Brian Dolan
WASHINGTON—Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Wednesday asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to investigate whether the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) “illegally” granted the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation federal recognition.
The Schaghticoke’s leader promptly accused Blumenthal of being “reckless in his disregard” for the rights of members of the tribe.
Blumenthal asked Norton to put all tribal recognition proceedings on hold until an investigation of the process is completed.
“It was a spirited and frank discussion involving both the Secretary and her staff,” Blumenthal said in an interview following his meeting with Norton. “She was thoughtful and intent in her listening but didn’t indicate either way what her response will be. I’ve called for an investigation by the [Justice Department], which will hopefully begin sometime soon. I also suggested to her she may want to be ahead of that investigation.”
Blumenthal’s discussion with Norton about the Schaghticoke recognition took place during a meeting in Norton’s office with about a dozen state attorneys general from around the country.
The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation first applied for federal recognition in 1994 and the request was rejected by the BIA two years ago. On January 29, the BIA reversed that December 2002 ruling and granted recognition to the tribe.
Last week, a controversial BIA memo which recommended recognition for the tribe, was publicly released.
That January staff memo, written to Aurene Martin, the former acting assistant secretary for Indian affairs, recommended that the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation receive federal recognition despite its failing to fully meet two of the seven recognition criteria: a continuous political relationship with the state and a complete list of tribal members.
The memo said the BIA could recognize the tribe even though “regulations and existing precedent” did not support federal recognition. The memo also says that recognizing the tribe may establish “a lesser standard which would be cited in some future cases.”
The memo recommends that although the tribe cannot account for its “political influence”from 1820 to 1840 and from 1892 to 1936, continuous state recognition of a reservation and a well-defined community throughout its history should allow for federal recognition.
The BIA memo was released to all interested parties as part of a court-approved agreement to underscore the transparency of the acknowledgement process, Dan DuBray, a BIA spokesman said in a press release last Friday.
“Critics of the decision have now taken a few partial fragments from what are complete sentences within a multi-paged document to paint a negative picture of the entire decision making process…,” DuBray said. “This is one document of at least 11,000 that were considered in this painstaking and necessarily thorough process.”
Blumenthal told Norton in his letter that the BIA staff admits in the memo to ignoring substantial gaps of evidence in favor of recognition of the tribe.
“The BIA’s own internal memorandum demonstrates beyond any doubt that the tribal acknowledgement process is completely lacking in credibility, fatally flawed and in need of immediate and substantial reform,” Blumenthal said in a letter to Norton.
“I am shocked by the BIA’s lack of concern for the rights of the State of Connecticut, its citizens and the interested parties who participated in these proceedings under the apparently mistaken view that their input would be heard and considered fairly,” Blumenthal wrote.
“It is inconceivable that the Attorney General of Connecticut could be so reckless in his disregard for due process and the well-documented rights of citizens of the state who also happen to be Schaghticoke,” Chief Richard Velky said Wednesday in a statement.
“By calling for a moratorium on all tribal recognitions, the AG is dismissing more than 300 years of history and a 25-year process he once described as fair, open and balanced simply because he doesn’t like the outcome,” said the tribal statement.
“The Attorney General’s inflammatory rhetoric and use of words such as ‘infected’ to describe our petition process is degrading to the tribe and embarrassing to the state. There is a comprehensive and meticulous process in place, and the Attorney General should abide by that process rather than fostering hysteria and divisiveness.”
