U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

reuters.com

1,489 pointsthreatofrain1,225 comments

I found the conclusion compelling. I haven't yet had enough time this morning to read the dissent thoughtfully.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf

"The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.

The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma is Reversed."

I do applaud that thinking; I hope it sets a precedent that can be used more widely. I hope they apply it more widely to things they don't necessarily ideologically agree with. Civil society needs more honesty and dedication to keeping your word, even when that is painful. That might lead to people thinking more carefully about where they stand and what they say as well.

Amen. This isn't a nonsequitor, I swear: why can't freedom of religion be used to legalize drugs? And, why can't Indian reservations, especially, sell what they please?

They do seem to apply it selectively. Scalia was like "It maybe a good idea but it's against the consitution. If the people want it, elect congress to make an amendment/pass a new law".

Now it's like "Well, it's not strictly in the constitution, but we like the idea, so if we squint a bit we can probably make a tenous case for it."

>I hope they apply it more widely to things they don't necessarily ideologically agree with.

You mean like Roe v Wade? Under this ruling, if precedent doesn't matter, only correcting past injustices, Roe v Wade should be overturned immediately.

> Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law

And yet "adverse possession" allows my neighbor to keep a slice of my yard, because he build the fence shortly before I bought the house (while it was unoccupied!) and I assumed it was proper after I moved in, and now that I've had a survey done and realized his fence is 5' off target, it's too late because he officially owns it!

I understand the difference, but I feel like it would be more proper to say "Unlawful acts performed long ago, are hardly ever enough to amend the law."

What you're referencing is probably a "prescriptive easement" and is legal (depending on your jurisdiction).

If your jurisdiction does not have "adverse possession" or "prescriptive easement" laws, you can probably tear that fence down or do whatever else you want with it. (IANAL and please just talk to your neighbors first!)

None of this is related, either legally or in spirit, with the sentence you cited. The cited statement refers to an unlawful act, over time, attempting to override the law. In most (all in the US?) jurisdictions a law regarding prescriptive easements or adverse possession probably makes your neighbor's actions legal. The entire point of this ruling is that congress never passed a similar law to make this sort of action legal.

Several lawyers picked up on that on Twitter. It's definitely not a correct statement about every kind of "law." But it's right about statutes, sometimes called "positive law."

English history gave us a very confusing legal structure, where there are statutes, (common) law, and equity -- all variously called "the law."

Adverse possession generally doesn’t apply to land owned by a sovereign. You cannot claim adverse possession against the United States, or against the state of Oklahoma, not even after squatting for many years. The Creek nations could be considered sovereign in this case, since they were party to a treaty with the United States.

That's odd. My neighbor built his house on the side of his property and inadvertently built it 5 feet over onto the neighbor's property. The way they worked it out was that my neighbor had to buy that portion of his neighbor's property. The alternative was to move (ie, destroy) the building.

> it's too late because he officially owns it!

On what basis does he "officially own" it? Presumably there is a plat on file with your deed of title to your house and its lot that gives the boundaries of your lot, and another plat on file with your neighbor's deed of title to his house and its lot that shows the boundaries of his lot. Presumably both of those plats say the fence is on your property.

It’s unclear, but it sounds like you’re saying that Texas law expressly allows this. Isn’t this the opposite of what happened in Oklahoma, i.e. there never was a law that reduced the government’s treaty obligations, so the law as written still stands?

In other words, in both cases the laws, as written, were followed.

The dissent says that the 'reservation' was disestablished over time with the effect of many laws. So those 'unlawful' acts were, in fact not unlawful.

The whole thing is an interesting read.

Maybe it's different with a "nation". If a Frech national comes and builds some fences in Maine that stay for 10 years, can he claim they've moved the border of France?

A little absurd, yes, but I'm not sure adverse possession applies so cleanly to state boundaries as people seem to be implying in a few HN threads...

That one is a puzzler, and I encountered it with a neighborhood issue recently. Why are there some rights that are required to be periodically exercised in order not to be withdrawn? Didn't make sense to me.

Wow. That is just so damn amazing!

Also, TFA notes:

> In a joint statement, the state, the Creek Nation and the other four of what is known as the “Five Tribes” of Oklahoma said they were making “substantial progress” toward an agreement on shared jurisdiction that they would present to the federal government. The other tribes are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole.

So I wonder whether more of Oklahoma could be affected.

And what about other states? I vaguely recall that the Mohawk have claimed a large chunk of New York.

> the Mohawk have claimed a large chunk of New York

Anyone can claim anything they want.

What is relevant here, and why this case was decided the way it was, is that the federal government and the tribe entered into a legally binding, clear contract.

Lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for a large piece of what is now Oklahoma, in perpetuity.

And Congress never explicitly reneged on that contract. Ergo, it still stands.

Should the Mohawk produce a similarly ironclad agreement regarding New York, they would then have a claim.

I don’t recall the exact percentage, but historians found that something like 1/3 of the US mainland territory was never officially ceded from previous treaties (and something close to that likely ceded due to fraud, but that’s obviously more likely to resonate with moral argument than stand up in a court of law in the current legal system).

My city (Seattle) is undisputedly Duwamish territory. The way that’s been dealt with is to deny the Duwamish nation federal recognition of existing at all, so legally they have no claim as a nonexistent nation.

It would be interesting if the long-term outcome will be the revival of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Sequoyah.

> And what about other states? I vaguely recall that the Mohawk have claimed a large chunk of New York.

https://www.srmt-nsn.gov/resolve-the-boundary

>"Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law."

Based on this logic, I'm sure that the USA will be paying for all that tea they dumped in the harbor any day now...

"Benjamin Franklin stated that the destroyed tea must be paid for, all ninety thousand pounds[citation needed] (which, at two shillings per pound, came to £9,000, or £1.15 million [2014, approx. $1.7 million US]).[76] Robert Murray, a New York merchant, went to Lord North with three other merchants and offered to pay for the losses, but the offer was turned down.[77]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party#Reaction

They are safe on a technicality there as they never try to claim continuity with old laws and new laws. Even if dumping the shipments of foreign merchants is illegal under both sets of laws or indeed copied verbatim it is breaking of the old set of law and not the new law as it wasn't "born" yet.

The Treaty of Paris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)) ending the Revolutionary War, and Jay Treaty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Treaty) together settled all such outstanding debts.

I love reading court judgements, they often make the hairs on the back of the hairs on my neck stand on end.

Such powerful writing by those we've vested great authority.

You can also listen to the oral arguments here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2019/18-95...

Wait, so congress can throw away promises at its whims that was supposed to last until perpetuity? And SC will be fine with that as long as promise was thrown away explicitly?

SCOTUS does not rule on your second question. The first is a well-known flaw in American government, which Gorsuch quashed with his opinion. Effectively, it reads: Congress, this is your problem, not ours.

That's exactly what courts are for: Application of laws created by the legislative.

And yes, the SC should be fine with whatever congress does as long as laws are obeyed in the legislative process itself.

That’s what it means for a legislature to be sovereign — you kind of need the ability for future people to reverse past decisions to have a functioning democracy

What Gorsuch's opinion does directly imply is that the "promise" to the Creek can be revoked by Congress at any time, i.e. it's hardly a "promise" at all.

Literally nothing in the legal system is permanent for perpetuity. Even the constitution can be amended in any way. All laws, treaties, etc. can be undone with enough effort.

Well, yes, but that's just a fact of legislation. There are no "promises"; there are just laws that are easy or hard to change. If we were to amend the constitution to set aside land for native peoples, then that's probably the closest we can get to a promise, as that's probably the hardest kind of law to change -- but it's still not a promise, because it can be changed.

Sure, Congressional legislation could take away that land. That would be a lousy thing for them to do. Unfortunately since I doubt Native American groups are a big enough voting bloc, the only thing that would stop Congress from doing that would be enough negative public opinion from people who are not Native American. Hopefully there are enough people of that sort.

The court is highlighting that congress needs to be consistent. Make a willing refusal to original promise, otherwise keep said promise. The courts job is not to decide on the promise but to identify the congress as responsible for consistency with promises made.

I’m curious if you can give an example of a promise that cannot ever be revoked?

>To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.

Interesting logic. Now do Roe v Wade. Are they going to overturn that too because it allows the injustice of the murder of millions of unborn Americans? Probably not. Funny how Stare Decisis goes out the window when it's an issue the justices care about, yet conveniently reapply it when present day utility outweighs historical injustice.

You're using the same word -- Justice -- to mean two things.

The court means justice as a violation of the law.

You mean it as a violation of your opinion of what is right and wrong.

Whether your like it or not, Roe v Wade, and Doe v Bolton are the settled court cases, and legal justice is what flows from that. Calling what is legal "unjust" because you disagree with it further reinforces the need for this decision.

Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it.

This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications.

The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK—this is what the press means when it calls this territory "Indian reservations." They did not decide things like: Do the tribes get the taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives have to abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-trust? And so on.

Further narrowing the ruling, my understanding is that this only applies when all persons involved in the crime (e.g., the victim) are also tribal citizens.

But, this ruling does open the door to a lot of those types of questions. It is possible we see several cases related to the sovereignty of these nations over the next few years, possibly greatly expanding the scope of the jurisdiction of the tribal governments.

"The Court has only decided that the federal government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK"

The issue at hand was state government prosecutorial jurisdication, not federal. From the article:

Under U.S. law, tribe members who commit crimes on tribal land cannot be prosecuted in state courts and instead are subject to federal prosecution, which sometimes can be beneficial to defendants.

Yes, that was the question at hand but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have implications for lots of other things that the courts will have to clarify now.

Yeah I was wondering what exactly was meant by "reservation".. in my experience you can't, as an outsider (non-native), just go, and live on the reservation. So unless it's unlike any reservations in my state then there must have been something I was missing.

Back in the day, enrolled members of some tribes could sell land to non-members. I think most tribes prevent that now. Land sold to non-members became Fee property that can be owned by non-members or sold to non-members.

Depending on the reservation, you will find plenty of non-members that own property within the reservation.

> The Court has only decided that the federal government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens

Did I misunderstand what the case was about? I thought the case was that the state government has no jurisdiction and only the federal government has jurisdiction.

Or maybe I'm confused because that's what the previous (4-4 deadlock) case was about and this one is actually bigger.

Ruling found that state government does not have prosecutorial jurisdiction, the federal government does and could still choose to prosecute the individual at the root of this case in federal court.

Do you know if this means that the land on which buildings are built could be taxed by the tribes?

I live in the desert in CA and here most buildings built on Indian reservations pay a yearly leasing fee.

It would be such a huge power shift for the tribal nations. It's one of those things that could ripple through the system or hit some stone wall I'm unaware of. Really interested to know what will happen.

They do not. I address this in my answer:

> They did not decide things like: Do the tribes get the taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives have to abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-trust? And so on.

Thanks. You helped me understand better.

They're wrong - it's state, not federal.

Does the nature of the crime in this case have any implications on the ongoing precedent?

It's bizarre that the headline could have read: Rape-related SC Decision Returns Land to Native American Tribe.

I don't think so. The rape case really just acts as a vessel to provide standing to litigate the larger question of the reservation.

Without the rape case they wouldn't have had a reason to challenge the questions about the res but now that the Supreme Court has resolved the larger question it's applicable across the board.

It could have just as easily been a case about shoplifting or murder or anything else. In fact, last term there was a case similar to this that was about a murder, where the defendant was sentenced to death by the state and they argued that the state didn't have jurisdiction. Gorsuch heard the appeal in the circuit court so recused himself from the SCOTUS case and the belief it was deadlocked 4-4, so they took this case and made the ruling with a full nine Justices.

Unfortunately there's really no "return" of land. These headlines are siezing on the above technicality mentioned, which simply formalizes Tribal jurisdiction.

The big news is precisely that formal recognition of Tribal (and, notably, treaty-conferred) authority.

There's a difference in that now major crimes between tribe members have to be tried in federal rather than state court. Minor ones would be tried by tribal courts, which already exist.

> This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality

That is literally all of the SCOTUS rulings. It's petty listening to bright minds discuss minute details. The fact that technicalities have far reaching effects is a sign that the system is broken.

I don't see that this some sign of systemic dysfunction. Given the significant amount of time and effort that is expended before a legal dispute is considered by SCOTUS, it stands to reason that the arguments would be sufficiently nuanced at that stage.

If the highest court of the land doesn't sweat the details, why would lower courts or any other aspect of our legal system be reasonably expected to do so? In any reasonably complex system (legal or otherwise), it should make sense that the technicalities do matter, and that the supreme decision making body in that system should consider those carefully due to the outsized influence it holds.

I think this a result of survivorship bias by design, not that anything is broken. If a case had little effect, it wouldn't be worth the court's time. If a case were easy to resolve, a lower court would have done so. So that only leaves important yet difficult and complex cases.

> The fact that technicalities have far reaching effects is a sign that the system is broken.

I find that an utterly hilarious thing to say in a forum with a large number of highly technical people, and another large number of people who understand complex, nontechnical systems.

Putting aside the question of what makes a "tecnicality," the fact that technicalities are able to be put forth and argued until a decisionmaker makes a ruling, rather than having a party decide unilaterally how to resolve the technicality, presumably at the peril of their opponent, means the system is working well.

>That is literally all of the SCOTUS rulings.

Korematsu v. United States? Brown v. Board of Education? Loving v. Virginia? Obergefell v. Hodges? Roe v. Wade? Dozens of others?

I have to assume you mean this batch of rulings, otherwise I can’t comprehend this idea.

I almost think they “like” to word things in this way so they can side step the larger ramifications of their decisions to certain people.

It feels frustrating to those outside the law. But that’s always been true of the law, as far as I’ve read.

Also remember that our legal system is a direct inheritance of the English legal system we separated from in the 1700s. There’s actually more history to our laws than to our country. So to some extent the years of buildup contributing to confusion stem back pretty far into the past. We would have a lot of work ahead of us to reinvent the quirkiness out of the system.

We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma that we didn't think we would ever want. We made them walk there in the "Trail of Tears", and lots of them died along the way. Then we decided to screw them out of the land in Oklahoma after all, but didn't go though the process properly because we didn't think it mattered.

It's insulting to hear people talk about them as not having "initiative" or being somehow responsible for being poor. When they resisted being screwed, we sent in the US Army to kill them, then kept them under control.

Reconciling this after all these years is going to be tough, but acknowledging it is a first step. Giving them back the land is disruptive, but giving them a few billion dollars is pretty easy. It would be interesting to see a VC fund focused on Native Americans building businesses. Or some real educational funding in Oklahoma. It would be a lot better than what the Republicans are doing to the state. All they want to is protect the rich and the oil industry.

As an Okie and a tribal member, the situation is far more complex than what the news/wikipedia can describe. But I think that's mentioned here a lot- the news never does anything justice. The Indians do get billions handed out all the time -ihs.gov.

One of the fundamental issues I see in Oklahoma is the lack of rule of law. I'm not thrilled we're releasing child molesters (that's who filed the suit), but I suppose starting somewhere is good.

As for VC funding, I'd love to see more of that. I do computer vision/nlp for a living, and I've had to leave the state due to lack of work. It's cheap, there are smart people, but they all leave after school.

The suit doesn't claim he shouldn't be tried for his crimes. It claims he should be tried by a federal court, not a state court. Nobody is "releasing" any criminals here.

Don't forget about sterilizing the women and forcing the children into boarding schools in an attempt to erase their culture.

I find your use of "we" interesting because you clearly identify as part of the group that committed those acts hundreds of years ago. How long should a child be responsible for the crimes of their fathers? As an example, assume your father killed someone and stole $1000 dollars from them. You never knew about this didn't choose for him to do this but now someone is coming after you saying you must pay them $1000. You find out it's all true, your father did murder and steal $1000 and you indirectly and unknowingly benefited from that. Should you legally be forced to pay back that $1000 dollars? But the person is dead, should you have to pay that dead person's son $1000? Should you and any siblings have to divide that sum up and pay back the $1000 collectively? Let's say you have already spent every dime you have on meals out. Should you go to jail because you can't pay back the $1000 your father stole? I think these agreements which weren't honored are equal to theft but how long down the line must you pay for the crime of being born in that situation and pay others that were born into the opposite side of the theft. Even with as close a relation as a father, I find it hard to believe that a child should be responsible for their parents wrong doing. But now assume that not only were you not related to that person who stole $1000, you simply don't have the heritage that the murdered man has. Now assume that hundreds of years have passed and now someone is still asking to collect that $1000 from you. I find it very difficult to find the moral obligation to pay back that money when the people who were the actual victims are long dead, the people who committed the theft are long dead, and there is no connection between your actions and the theft. Voluntary payments I would be all for but using tax money which is essentially taken by force, as if you don't pay taxes you will go to jail, that kind of thing seems very wrong. I would not blame a child for their father's sins.

This analogy falls apart rather quickly when you recognize that the north american indigenous population still suffers greatly under legal systems built on the treaties that weren't even honored while the descendants of those who perpetrated great crimes against them collectively constitute the greatest mass of wealth in the history of the world while also pretending to have done nothing wrong.

Re-do your analogy but now it's that your dad killed someone and stole the deed to his land, found oil on it, and is now one of the richest people in the world and the person he killed's kid is now on the street begging for cash and tell me again how little you owe that kid who's father's land gave you your trust fund and your college education.

This is a false analogy because unlike money (representation of value), land is not consumed and disappear.

A better analogy would be: your grandparent barged in to a persons house at gun point, demanded him to hand over his house. The owner obviously resist, and your grandpa tells the original owner that he will be given his house back in a couple of years(legally signed) to ease the resistance. This paper was also signed "with the current owner of the house", in mind(in case grandpa dies).

Now the original owner lives on the street, his grandchilden the same. Each generation have always asked "when would you live up to your promise?" to the descendant of your grandpa (current owner of the house) each year.

Now you can of course discuss if you should give additional compensation for their suffering, but the original contract still stands, and you've always been obliged to follow it. It's not about blame.

disclaimer: I'm in general in agreement with you that I don't think a child should be blamed for their ancestors sins.

I am quite surprised to see this default-to-no-action comment here on HN. Sometimes, a problem isn't your fault, but you are still compelled to fix it. If people have this attitude, then "we" (as a species) are absolutely screwed vis-a-vis climate change. In a generation, nobody is going to be around who did all the polluting, and hopefully everyone doesn't just sit around saying "Well I didn't do it!"

>How long should a child be responsible for the crimes of their fathers?

This is a fundamentally flawed analogy. Our government - the same government that has existed since these treaties were signed - is still around.

> I find it very difficult to find the moral obligation to pay back that money when the people who were the actual victims are long dead

The question of a "moral obligation" is entirely irrelevant and unrelated to our government's legal obligation to uphold the treaty that our government signed.

By “we” he means the United States Government. Unlike the father in your example, the USG is still around and still responsible for its actions. As such, I see no moral issue with requiring it to make restitution. If we don’t want to raise additional taxes to do so we can always make some small cuts to military spending or some other bloated program to pay for it.

> We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma

Interesting sentiment. As someone who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I think you should go there and tell the people who live there your thoughts.

People were displaced from most of the land area of the United States, not just from the east coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

It's certainly something to think about when so much today revolves around giving the government even more power and control, all the way down to what we can say.

The Cherokees made up a large portion of the "Trail of Tears". The saddest part is they were largely fully "assimilated" into the "American" culture at the time. Most were fully "Christianized", spoke English, they translated many church hymns into their native language, built towns, and lived in houses. All like the "white man". Then they were asked to give up their guns and property and start marching.

An excellent book in that regard and for anyone looking to learn more is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

Who is this 'we' you reference? Many people came to the US long after the Trail of Tears. Are they responsible for crimes committed on Native Americans before they or their ancestors/families arrived in a recognized (at the time of arrival) Sovereign Country.

Would be interested in your justification for holding citizens of today's US responsible for an event that happened more than 100 years ago, before they lived or breathed.

We should give Manhattan back too.

> We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma that we didn't think we would ever want. We made them walk there in the "Trail of Tears", and lots of them died along the way. Then we decided to screw them out of the land in Oklahoma after all, but didn't go though the process properly because we didn't think it mattered.

Tangential: to me (an European) it seems quite insulting to put all the (or just the five "civilized" ones?) native northern american tribes/nations in the same basket by capitalizing "Native Americans".

From the actual opinion: "Oklahoma replies that its situation is different because the affected population here is large and many of its residents will be surprised to find out they have been living in Indian country this whole time. But we imagine some members of the 1832 Creek Tribe would be just as surprised to find them there."

Damn, nice shade, Gorsuch!

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf

Gorsuch is a joy to read because he mixes in history with some interesting side comments.

I spend a lot of time in the summers reading SCOTUS opinions, and I have to flatly disagree with this. Gorsuch peppers in these comments and they distinctly detract from the legal reasoning in the Opinion. It’s cute, but superfluous and further turns justices into “rockstars” to be cheered, which is bad.

Originalism is degenerate legal philosophy. Textualism is all that is valid. We will look back at some of those ridiculous uncited rulings that speak about “how the writers felt given the time” as foolishness.

Gorsuch is definitely my favorite Justice. His opinions are always fun to read. You know when the words "Trail of Tears" appear in the first sentence of a decision that things aren't going to turn out well for the government...

Haha, yeah I love how he upheld that states can use lethal injection even if they can't get the right ingredients, what a baller.

The entire city of Tulsa is there - literally millions of non-native Americans live in this area.

Congress will have no choice but to make a law breaking the promise and repatriating the land out of Native American hands.

> Congress will have no choice but to make a law breaking the promise and repatriating the land out of Native American hands.

Oklahoma seems to have only five US Representatives (and two senators of course). It would be ridiculous if seven Congress members can hold a nation hostage.

I don't understand the full implications of this ruling but I don't see how I can support breaking more promises because of political gamesmanship over five representatives out of four hundred and thirty five.

From what I read in this thread, all crimes will still be prosecuted, but by a federal court of law. I don't see a problem.

I think that's the intent of the ruling, actually. Part of the conclusion says "If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so."

There's quite a variety of ways that the Five Tribes and the State of Oklahoma / the federal government can resolve this, two of the extremes being "Congress formalizes its reneging on its treaties with the Five Tribes, thus fucking over Native Americans yet again, but in writing this time" and "Tulsa experiences karmic retribution in the form of Trail of Tears 2: Electric Boogaloo".

Hopefully neither happens, and instead we get something that at least tries to work to the interests of both parties, e.g. "non-tribal residents are allowed to stay but are subject to tribal law (and pay "state" taxes to applicable tribal authorities instead of Oklahoma)" or "Oklahoma and/or Congress pays the Five Tribes a fair price for lands already occupied by population centers (e.g. Tulsa) and releases the rest to respective tribal authorities" or somesuch. Or perhaps something even crazier, like "the Five Tribes make another attempt at founding the State of Sequoyah" (with Tulsa being a decent-enough candidate for becoming a state capital).

Realistically, though, knowing this country's tendencies toward addressing hard-to-solve issues, the most likely outcome is "nothing changes and Schrödinger's Indian Reservations continue to simultaneously exist and not exist".

The ruling is about whether or not the state can enforce state law on Native Americans on this land. It doesn't change whether or how Oklahoma law applies non-native Americans.

What are the consequences to people in Tulsa who aren't tribe members? Landowners who aren't tribe members? Can the tribe expel them and confiscate the land?

Or they won’t?

> The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city.

McGirt v Oklahoma (9 July 2020) pdf:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf

Very interesting. Is this the first time a major city has fallen within a reservation?

Don't know if you'd qualify it as a "major" city, but over 10% of Palm Springs CA is on an Indian reservation. For interesting historical reasons, though, the reservation is basically shaped like a checkerboard, where every other 640-acre square is reservation land. This obviously has huge implications on real estate - none of the reservation land is sold, just leased, and there were some recent cases where the tribe made the tenants leave after their (like 50 year or so) lease was up.

Google "palm springs indian reservation map" and it will show you the checkerboard.

And, either way, what are the implications to non-tribe citizens and non-tribe governments?

Large parts of the City of Tacoma and surrounding cities fall inside the Pyuallup Indian Reservation in Washington state. In fact, out of >40,000 people on the reservation, only 2500 are members of the tribe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyallup_people

Parts of Tulsa already overlapped with reservations, I believe.

This seems like an invitation for Congress to pass a law taking the land back officially.

...though probably not until after the election.

It means "if you want to go back on your promise and steal their land, you'll have to do it explicitly".

Being part Sami I think it's fascinating to read about the system of reservations in the USA. I'm not sure about minority rule, but I'm clearly in favour of saving the unique cultures and ethnicities from dying out.

After many years of persecution in Northeren Europe—including forced assimilation often called "Norwegianization" or "Swedification," and near extinction in Russia—we've finally gotten some recognition as a nation of our own, at least in the Nordics. We have our own parliament (Sámediggi) and flag, for instance, and enjoy semi-autonomous leadership in "our" historical regions (called Sápmi) in close cooperation with the governments of Finland, Norway and Sweden. As such it acts more like a subset of the respective governments of the Nordics.

Now, both the finnic and germanic populations are also indigenous to the Nordics together with the finno-ugric Samis, so in that sense it's a bit different from the native population of the USA, where the other nations are almost all of immigrant descent. On the other hand, just like the Native Americans, Samis are in the clear minority in Northeren Europe, with only about 100.000 members, some of whom can't even speak their own language due to the assimilation policies (like me, although I do know a few words). Thus our culture and unique way of life is indeed in danger of extinction. For that reason alone I think it's important to at least recognize the ethnicity, and perhaps save it from the "tooth of time" as it were. Perhaps especially since most Samis today enjoy a modern lifestyle, and only very few live the traditional nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herding. If I'm not mistaken, the same is true for the Native Americans. In any case I'm happy we can finally enjoy peace and democracy with one another.

All the best, from Norway! <3

Note that most of these tribes were moved form somewhere out east in the 1800s (or north, tribes came from all over there was not a common culture) . Most of their culture could not be kept because the climate is different (desert, or just enough rain to technically not be desert). Much of old the way of life is not possible. Nobody alive lived in their in their own home to remember it. They are making the best they can.

I was fascinated with the history of the Sami when I visited Karasjok in the dead of winter, and spoke to a few who still tried to keep a somewhat traditional lifestyle. It did feel like it was a fight against time to keep those nomadic herding ways alive, and a really interesting philosophical debate about what really defines the Sami other than blood and (partly forgotten or purged) shared history if most are living lives indistinguishable from Norwegians and Swedes in their community.

Reservations were not created out of generosity, quite the opposite.

> The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court.

Not changed by this ruling, but it strikes me as really odd that you can sentence someone to prison for that long, or that you would bother. Why not just say life in prison? If your state is 103 years old, saying anything about the next 1000 years seems ... lacking in credibility.

It is perverse, but there is a method to the madness. Some sentencing mitigations or parole decisions are based upon length of sentence. Someone who is given a 20 year sentence may be eligible for parole when, for example, 1/4 of the sentence has been served. By setting the sentence to a ridiculous length it is effectively denying any possibility for parole without directly stating that the sentence is to served without any chance for parole.

So let's say fraud has a standard tarriff of ten years. And we agree that committing two frauds is twice as bad, so we add them together. Still makes sense. And someone defrauded a LOT of people. Say sixteen THOUSAND.

That's how you sentence someone for 141,078 years... (They served eight.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentenc...

All these legalistic reponses, and yet none really touches the sheer absurdity of sentencing someone to 1,000 years. Doesn't the lifespan of a human being figure in at any point? Talking this way is dehumanizing.

Pretty sure it is just the sum of all the sentences they received.

Application of law is mostly derived from first principles. So you start with two things that are believed by most legal experts:

- Sentencing to life without parole is considered inhumane - Criminal sentences should be proportional to the crime - Sentences are supermodular

Let's say there is a minimum sentence of two months for some insignificant crimes, start increasing the length for more serious ones. Most serious crimes usually involve several different crimes that are committed while committing the "main" component of the crime. So it starts adding up, and it starts adding up fast due to the supermodularity.

So even though the end result is seemingly absurd, trying to make it non-absurd would violate some of the most agreed-upon principles and here we are.

It factors into parole release and other calculations

life in prison is usually reserved for capital crimes. But when someone acts so heinously, then they just tack on year after year.

However, AFAIK, rape or even murder aren't federal crimes, unless the crime crossed state/tribal boundaries.

I had the pleasure of driving through and visiting Oklahoma a decade or so ago. Some people don't like the rural states, but it felt so serene out there. We stopped at a shaved ice place off of some random exit and just sat there on the hood staring out at the plains. There's not much out there but it felt so peaceful. It felt like home.

This has been my experience as well. I live in a city now, but I love the times I have spent traveling through or to rural areas. They have a bad reputation that is based on false notions of urban superiority and stereotypes that feel as baseless and unhinged as claims of other types of superiority (e.g. racial).

The reality is when you visit these rural places, talk to the people there, take part in their culture, take in the land...there is a lot these areas and those lifestyles have to offer. I was also surprised to find the people so charming, warm, and welcoming - and it dispelled my fears of expecting discrimination, which in retrospect I've only experienced in bigger American cities. It does feel comforting, raw, grounded, and yes like home.

I had a different feeling. It wasn't empty in the sense that the desert is, which is very pleasant and beautiful, but scarred with industrialized agriculture, and silos stretching out into the infinite surrounding. The fact that there was absolutely nothing at all as far as the eye can see, no mountain or woods, just field upon industrial field with no farm house or town in sight, felt extremely isolating and uncomfortable. A feeling of having no bearings, no difference in any direction; no idea where to run.

The small towns felt disturbing. Tulsa felt disturbing. The lack of minorities out in public was painfully glaring. It was all so very patriotic and dystopian. The unsettling overbearing flatness on the featureless terrain dominated my perspective of the area. Not for me, and I couldn't leave soon enough.

Rural areas are almost uniformly beautiful and serene. It's the beliefs of the people in them that can be hostile.

Interesting implication that Tulsa is now inside of a reservation. Growing up I thought reservations were located on tiny parcels of land but in some western states that is not the case. In Arizona about 25% of the state is tribal land, with neighboring state New Mexico having about 10% of its land as reservations.

The story is quite stunning. So a child molester convicted in 1997 and in prison for 20 years wants to get out of jail. So he seems to have hired some extra ordinary attorney who simply couldn’t find any way to get him out. And one day he finally hits upon this idea of land supposed to be tribal land 100s of years ago! The brilliant idea, indeed. And now half of the state will suddenly become tribal land because of this one guy trying to get out and this one lawyer who dug this out.

We need to end the reservation system. No good will come of this system in the long term. We can end it either by making the reservations explicitly new nations (either fully independent or with protectorate status, like Micronesia or Palau), or they need to be integrated fully into the United States.

In the long run, separate countries in one system does not really work (and yes, the states and feds are overlapping jurisdictions), but Indians have a much more special status under the law. Race based preferences never end well, even if they seem nice to begin with.

Why? Because it is scary that you can actually have governments make laws that Americans may become subject to when those governments have very few duties under American law to respect American rights. Of course, we do not expect other countries to follow American law, but reservations are not set up as other countries. Moreover, the law is strange in that a tribal member in a part of Oklahoma is now due special criminal treatment due to their ancestry, rather than be subject to the laws of Oklahoma.

That is not okay. Either a border needs to be set up, or the tribal governments need to be cast aside or at least become subject to the same kinds of restrictions the states are. Yes, this will require a constitutional amendment, but frankly, special treatment of Native Americans is a relic of a bygone era, much like slavery.

Who should decide to have a border or the other option that you are proposing? I guess if you want to be fair, you need to let the Native American nations to decide, and what if they decide to create multiple nations in the middle of the not-any-more-united States?

So does this effectively create two different rules of law over the same land...?

Like how does this work?

It probably will come down to further court cases, but likely, yeah half of Oklahoma will be subject to Oklahoma state law, and half will be subject to tribal law. That's no different than a state being neighbor to a different state with looser/different laws.

Probably they'll work out a compromise like: tribal government pays Oklahoma fees to have them run infrastructure as they have been, and the State forwards tax money to the tribal governments. That seems like the most logical short term solution, essentially status quo.

But the main change will be that tribal lands may now have more power to change local laws (such as ignoring laws against selling alcohol on sundays, etc).

It's been that way, this isn't much of a change for the tribes. Effectively, the tribes have a different system of governance that falls under federal jurisdiction. They're "outside" the state government. It's a hot mess, but I don't think forcing sovereign nations to conform the the occupational nation is a good idea.

Currently the federal government has a wide range of powers over reservation land such as the ability to prosecute crime. For better or for worse, Congress can expand these powers at any time to include dissolving the reservation. The law in all these aforementioned areas is well settled.

The issue in this case was with a state government, specifically Oklahoma. This ruling will limit Oklahoma's ability to prosecute crime when (1) it occurs on the reservation and (2) involves members of the tribe. Congress would have to act to change this, or some agreement could be reached with the tribe.

One thing I'm unclear about is this: "If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so." The question in the case, as I understand it, was whether previous acts of Congress had in fact dissolved the reservation. Could Congress, if they wanted to, pass a resolution saying, "Actually, such-and-such bill from 100-some years ago dissolved the reservation." Or can they only say, "Starting today, the reservation is dissolved."

Is Congress empowered to clarify the meaning of its own past statements? Or once the text leaves Congress, only the courts can say what that text means, and if the courts disagree with Congress, then Congress can only remedy that going forward?

Congress writes the laws. Courts interpret them. Congress can't simply say "oh actually back then we meant this other thing," as that would be completely nullifying the power of the Courts. Yes, they can make an amendment that changes/clarifies the meaning of an existing law, and that might sound like the same thing, but doing that requires the formality of the process -- in particular, bringing it to a vote.

That's a good question. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it would be problematic if Congress could make those decisions. That would allow them to de facto create ex post facto laws by contriving "interpretations" of past laws. It might incentivize intentionally ambiguous laws that allow them flexibility in the future. At that point, the Supreme Court would be in the very odd position of deciding whether something is a plausible interpretation of a previous law.

Congress controls the reservation system. It's not real sovereignty. That's one of many reasons why there is such large debate over accepting federal recognition among Kanaka specifically. At that point the federal government controls the land, distributes it, decides who is and is not eligible to use the land. The government literally stole my friend's house just by revising the definition of "hawaiian" and telling her she was not eligible.

I'm not sure it matters. Whether Congress creates a new law overwriting the old, or passes one that tries to explain the old differently than it was executed on, if anyone doesn't object it's moot, and if anyone does, it will end up in the courts.

Particular to this case, Congress could do either, and either way the courts will have to decide whether it's fair to do. But, also particular to this case, Congress has done neither, so the courts were left with interpreting what Congress last decided.

I think they could, but even if it matched the SCoutUS decision it could only apply going forward or it would be unconstitutional via Section 9.3 on barring ex post facto laws. Now if Congress were to pass a law saying not that something 100 years ago meant XYZ but that as of the sign date the reservation no longer exists, that might pass 9.3 but if that bill hits the courts, lower courts would need to reference this case and probably conclude that it isn't a correct application and ax it.

I believe the Congress can simply enact a new law and say there is no such thing as a reservation and the law would he constitutional. That being said it would be similar with China's latest laws on HK if not worse.

I believe the answer is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_State...

Congress is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.

No. Congress writes laws but they're supposed to be careful because the Supreme Court interprets.

They'll essentially have to create a new bill (or tack this on to something else going through) and go through the full process, i.e. get senate approval and the presidential signature.

> Is Congress empowered to clarify the meaning of its own past statements?

I don't think so. The statute is the actual text that is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. Congress does not have the power to "interpret". It only has the power to pass a new statute, which can only be in effect as of the date of its passage (when the President signs it). Anything Congress says or does that does not follow the process given in the Constitution for passing a law is not a law and does not have the force of law.

No, it doesn’t mean Congress has that power. That question hasn’t been decided. That question would be raised if congress attempts to change the law. Until then, a Congress is bound by the Court’s interpretation of what the law is/was/means. In short, Congress lack the authority to tell the courts what a prior law meant. If they’re not happy with the interpretation then. Ingress has to change the words of the statute / treaty.

If your interested in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend the podcast "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law". It's a podcast focused on constitution law rulings made by the supreme court. Often looking at a current court ruling, giving historical context with historical cases that laid down precedent. The political disdain for Trump comes through the hosts a little bit, but I think it's fairly neutral in it's evaluation of the cases, and very educational.

As I understand it: The court's job is to interpret the law under specific circumstances.

As a stupid example, lets say that congress makes a law that you can't have those fake flamingos on your lawn, else you'll go to jail. Fred ignores the law and puts some fake flamingos on their lawn. The executive branch enforces the laws, so the police arrest Fred. The courts rule that you violated the law, so to jail you go.

Bob is rebellious, so he paints his fake flamingos with orange spray paint. The police arrest Bob under that law, and in court he argues a core characteristic of Flamingos is that they're pink. So really he just has decorative orange birds in his lawn. If the court agrees with his argument, then he goes free. This sets a precedent: The judicial branch didn't really make any laws here, but they kind of did. Courts don't have the power to make laws and decide on a case by case basis what's legal or not. So they take breaking precedent as a really, really big deal.

Now what congress can do is go back and make any birds in the form of flamingos illegal, no matter the color. Now that the law has changed, the courts will use a new interpretation, and Bob could now be arrested if he doesn't take down his "decorative orange birds".

However, he could make another argument in court: That he has the first amendment right to have orange flamingos because that's freedom of speech. The courts (possibly up to the supreme court) can rule that he is indeed protected by the first amendment, and nullify congress's law.

Of course, the constitution can be amended. So if people really hated fake lawn flamingos, they could go through that process and remove the first amendment's protection in this case. The bar for changing the constition is so high that it basically doesn't happen for anything political.

This is why the supreme court's rulings can be so politicized, against the court's wishes. The courts aren't political because they don't make laws, and are intended to be impartial interpreters of it. However a 5-4 split supreme court ruling today is basically law until there's a super-super-majority of people who want to change it.

Does anyone know the status of private land, not belonging to tribe members, now considered within the reservation? Can it be confiscated by the tribe?

I don't have background other than reading the background included in the decision, but it seems that in late 1800s/early 1900s, the land was allotted into parcels with individual ownership by members of the Creek Nation, and after a time that ownership became freely conveyable to any person.

Conveying property to a non-member does not remove land from a reservation, and this ruling does not void any conveyances. Whoever owns the land, owns the land. This ruling just makes it clear that all of the land within the treaty boundaries is still a reservation. I don't know all of the implications this will have, but I imagine a lot of things done by the state of Oklahoma assuming they were operating within the state of Oklahoma may need to be reviewed, given that they were operating within the Creek Nation.

For example, can the state allow formation of counties and cities within the Creek Nation? What about if said counties and cities were formed inclusive of only land owned by non-members of the Creek Nation?

Of course, the court mentioned that Congress is free to stop honoring the treaty, the only requirement is that it must do it explicitly.

Here is Washington state, sometimes tribal land is leased to non-natives for 99 years. Will definitely be interesting to see what happens, but it is quite possible that "property tax" could be moved over into a land leasing fee.

Around Lewiston, Idaho, the Nez Perce tribe has been buying up land as it comes onto the market. They're also doing land swaps with non-tribal land owners for other reasons - better wildlife acreage for better farming acreage, for instance.

Land that is privately owned will not be affected. The tribes often manage large amounts of reservation land in trusts, but fee simple/patent land (land privately owned outright) is protected by the constitutions of the states and federal government. Reservations are managed by the federal government via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. However, the tribes can establish many zoning rules, but they can be successfully challenged by private owners.

Here is a recent significant case about this matter where the courts sided with the non-Indian private land owner regarding a permit he received from the county even though he refused to also go through the Reservation's own permit process: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1651530.html

I have no idea, but a policy what would make sense to me would be to respect existing private property, though layer a "right of first refusal" for the indigenous nation to buy it back if it comes up for sale.

[Not US lawyer, but] an option open to some common law courts is leaving the legal owner in place while declaring that the thing owned is for the benefit of someone else (i.e. a beneficial owner).

Sometimes Supreme Court justices will surprise you. Justice Gorsuch is from the American West, and has proven to be a strong and consistent advocate for Native American rights in the Supreme Court, just as Justice Scalia was for the Fourth Amendment.

This comment just demonstrates your political biases, that's all. I don't know why you would be surprised that Gorsuch or Scalia would be in favor of freedoms for the people.

Are all the other treaties going to be reviewed? What percentage of the USA would become reservation land if all the treaties were honored? If it was >50% would we still call them reservations?

It seems that what they've ruled is not that the treaty must be honored, but that only the federal government gets to decide not to honor it. Absent a specific decision to that effect, the treaty is still in force which limits the state's authority.

They're not saying the treaty must be honored. They're saying, unlike the many other treaties that were explicitly invalidated by laws passed, these ones were never really directly addressed so they must de facto still stand.

Also, no where near 50% of the US was ever granted in treaties. The vast majority was simply taken militarily without compromise.

I think this had more to do with the specifics of this specific land and how things played out legally. I'm not sure these circumstances apply anywhere else.

This doesn't answer your question directly but its fascinating [1]

[1] https://www.whose.land/en/

Here's a fun map to look at. [1] So, where do we draw the line?

[1]: https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia_prod.opengov.ibmcloud.com/file...

It's so weird how sentences so significant are often "protecting" the rights of terrible, terrible people:

> McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted [...] of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt [...] did not contest his guilt in the case

I'd be interested in learning who was involved in McGirt's proceedings and why. Did they mean to actually get this guy free (which, to be fair, at his age could be a charitable act in itself), or did they just think it was as good a chance as any to get this old treaty back on the table? There is a book and a film in that story.

Everyone deserves a vigorous legal defense, even the most reprehensible. If the accused or convicted are exempt from the rule of law, so are those who are accused or convicted by mistake, corruption, or abuse of power. Competent and committed legal defense for everyone defends the rule of law as it's applied to all of us.

You should look into Ernesto Miranda. He did horrible things but the Supreme Court said that he incriminated himself without knowing his rights. Because of this, his conviction was overturned and now cops have to read ‘Miranda’ rights to everyone they arrest.

As an aside.. whats up with that file photo Reuters is using? Is that somebody naked in front of the supreme court wearing just a fanny pack?

Lol. That is what I initially thought as well, but it turns out it's a lady wearing a nude colored dress.

I zoomed in and think it's a brown top with brown shorts. You can see the armhole.

I agree it's looks like they are naked. Even if they are wearing clothes it is a very odd choice. There are infinite pictures of those steps.

Zoom in. It's a skin-colored dress.

No, just someone walking

Ok City is just down the road from Tulsa. Guess this means Liz Warren was born on a Native American reservation.

The genesis of this case (it started with Murphy) is an amazing and wonderful story. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/05bar.html ... and for more depth, check this excellent podcast series: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/this-land/ Full disclosure -- I knew and worked with the attorney who discovered the original issue. She was also a geologist, so she checked on the mineral rights to see if she could develop a jurisdiction claim.

> It started with Murphy

What do you mean? Murphy is reported as a murder, whereas McGirt is a rape. Do you mean that McGirt's defense adopted the strategy Murphy introduced...?

"Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right." Courts need to apply the above to Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution, as well as the 10th and 2nd amendment.

I agree, it's far past time to remove California's unconstitutional gun laws.

I follow court news pretty closely and was genuinely curious about this decision. Here is a brief description of what I understand the decision to mean (I am not an expert by any means). Under the federal "Major Crimes Act" (MCA) members of various Native American tribes are not subject to state prosecution for crimes committed in "Indian territory". This case was brought by McGirt, a member of the Creek Nation, who challenged his conviction based on the original treaty establishing the Creek reservation in eastern Oklahoma. The headline is a bit misleading: for purposes of the MCA, eastern OK is now considered a part of the Creek Nation. This means McGirt must be convicted with the reservation's justice system or in federal court. It also has the consequence (discussed extensively in Roberts' dissent) that many existing convictions could potentially be vacated. It will be interesting to see how the Creek nation works with Oklahoma to address these changes.

They guy has already served 20 years for a crime which he originally plead guilty for. He was convited for raping a four year old girl.

Why he is challenging it now and by contesting the court's authority rather than his own guilt? Does he expect to be found not guilty under the Cree Nation?

I understand the to the winner go the spoils...lose a war, regardless of who declared or started it and there goes your land. Human history...but I also think that treaties made at the time should be honored. Apparently Congress can unilaterally change the treaties, as per another SCOTUS decision in https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/187us553

In a unanimous decision, the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and upheld the Congressional action. The Court rejected the Indians' argument that Congress' action was a taking under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Edward D. White reasoned that matters involving Indian lands were the sole jurisdiction of Congress. Congress therefore had the power to "abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty," including the two-million acre change. Justice John M. Harlan concurred in the judgment.

If Congress cannot, who can?

I think treaties must be able to be reneged. And since Congress is signing the treaties, they should also have the power to renege.

Now there might be consequences for those actions (the counterparty might attack you, your allies may no longer trust you, etc) and those consequences are what keeps treaties stable.

The issue here is that the other party (Native Americans) has no power to enforce the treaty... But IMO, that is a public outrage issue and not a Constitutional issue.

“ McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted in 1997 in Wagoner County in eastern Oklahoma of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt, who did not contest his guilt in the case before the justices, had appealed a 2019 ruling by a state appeals court in favor of Oklahoma.”

Many reservations were affected by the allotment of 'excess land', and by tribal members selling their allotments (by wile or by intimidation), which led to the 'checkerboarding' of ownership. In recent decades, multiple tribes have had programs to recover their lands by purchase.

"The Dawes Act of 1887 created the most Native American checkerboarding. The act was intended to bolster self-sufficiency and systematically fracture native cultures, giving each individual between 40 acres (16 ha) and 160 acres (65 ha)." [0] [emphasis mine]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act

Highly recommend "The Five Civilized Tribes" by Grant Foreman to better understand the period, as well as "A Traveler in Indian Territory" to add some color. The OHS or Oklahoma Historical Society has a wealth of information, too.

European here: what does it mean economically, geographically and for the local ecosystem?

It means Congress is shortly going to renege on yet another treaty they made with a Native American tribe.

Likely very little. There's about 20,000 people who report Native American as their ethnicity in Tulsa, and likely the number of tribal members is lower.

Nothing drastic. The real consequence is going to be to the state criminal justice system, where and who it applies to. Federal laws will still apply.

Here's most of it:

"Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes, while certain Native Americans found guilty in state courts may be able to challenge their convictions on jurisdictional grounds. The tribe also may obtain more power to regulate alcohol sales and expand casino gambling. "

This just talks about the case with the rape, but there was also one with a murder that SCOTUS decided on the same day, and it was based on the same question of whether the reservation still exists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGirt_v._Oklahoma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_v._Murphy

Can somebody explain why is it that in "Sharp v. Murphy" only Thomas and Alito dissented, while in "McGirt v. Oklahoma" Roberts and Kavanaugh dissented, too?

My guess is that it's because it was a per curiam decision, meaning the majority felt that it didn't need a lot of elaboration. The reason for that is probably that given McGirt v. Oklahoma, Sharp v. Muphy was an obvious ruling.

In other words, Roberts and Kavanaugh disagreed with McGirt, but once McGirt was precedent, Sharp followed immediately. Thomas is known for thinking precedent doesn't matter and should therefore be (mostly) ignored, so his dissent is not surprising to me, though I didn't read it. Likewise, I didn't read Alito's, so I don't know what his reasoning was.

I suspect that Congress will consider repealing the Major Crimes Act with respect portions of Oklahoma. Congress has already done so for other reservations in several states. See 18 U.S.C. § 1162.

>"The decision means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city."

[...]

>"Unless changes are made, tribe members who live within the boundaries would now become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes, while certain Native Americans found guilty in state courts would be able to challenge their convictions on jurisdictional grounds."

Was looking through the comments hoping I would find some discussion about how this would affect things like property rights and title insurance for affected land, but I didn't see anything. I realize what was at issue in this case was jurisdictional priority, but still, if the court is arguing half of Oklahoma is "tribal land", what does it mean for people who theoretically own parts of that land?

By the way, has anyone else noticed that Gorsuch takes a much more conversational writing tone in his opinions? He uses contractions like "can't", "doesn't", "it's", etc.

I'm am not sure yet whether I like it or will get used to it. But it is noticeably more informal than the other justices.

As a general note,

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Indian_L...

I realize this is a petty concern compared to the repeated and compounded violations of the rights of Native Americans, but I can't help wondering if the unsettled questions related to this ruling will make it impractical for Tesla to choose Tulsa as a factory site.

> The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court.

Is this a joke?? Does the US "justice" system really mete out sentences of 1000 years in prison?

Anyone interested in historical Indian law cases that didn't set good precedent might be interested in reading In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided, by Walter Echo-Hawk.

I don’t know how to feel about this. I would be nice if there was good warning.

Even worse is the “for purposes of the MCA” which means it may or not be state territory for other purposes.

We need to know who is in charge so they can be held accountable.

I’ve lived near plenty of reservations and they are very different places. Some have very good government services, and relations with non-tribal authorities. Others, not so much.

The idea of telling a tribal authority: “surprise you’re responsible for criminal laws of half a state” puts a ton of pressure on tribal authorities, and even more pressure on tribal members to hold them accountable.

I’m not for or against this decision. I’m saying the small print and details matter a lot. And “small print” is an area where tribal relations often go bad.

I hope this works out. It has great potential- for bad and good!

This is a good start. Next they should return Indiana and Hawaii.

Why not just dismantle the whole country?

Uh, surely it doesn't mean the the people residing in the area in question can go on committing what would be a crime under Oklahoma law... right ?

I think it means that the borders of Oklahoma get more complex when you consider the treaties that the US has entered into.

It's worth noting that according to the constitution, treaties have equal weight to the constitution. Therefore this ruling seems to me a way of saying "hey, maybe we should draw the maps according to the highest law in the land".

It has a bonus effect of signalling that the native people are actually people for both punishment AND benefit. Traditionally the US is bad at acknowledging the benefit side for folks with pigment (and doubling down on the punishment side, but that's a different discussion).

How is this not bigger news? This is a crazy - in terms of impact, not logic - ruling. Probably the biggest ruling since Obamacare if not before.

If the land encompasses the western border and parts of the northern and southern border of Oklahoma, is it even _in_ Oklahoma anymore?

I thought the US bought OK as part of the Louisiana purchase. Does this mean France has to refund the price?

AFAICT, the ruling is based on the US' own agreement made after that purchase.

What are the implications of this for non-tribe-members who live and have business on the land in question?

Unresolved. All they've really judged is the jurisdiction of the state government over tribal members in this area of the state. It does not affect non-tribal members. And it may also only apply to tribal members who have committed crimes against other tribal members.

So the scope is very limited at this point, but it does open the door for more interesting discussions.

Is everyone purposely overlooking the fact that a rape conviction got overturned? That's not good news

If you believe the means weren't good, and that ends shouldn't justify means, then you accept it as part of functioning due process, similar to Miranda rights.

Now only if Hawaii had the same type of record of the unlawful overthrow and forced annexation ...

Do Native Americans not pay any tax at all? Or are they still obligated to pay federal taxes.

Seems like all they did was say the feds get to punish native americans rather than state officials. Where's the sovereignty?

Nearly all US presidents, including George Washington, led genocidal campaigns that burned down entire towns or otherwise committed crimes against humanity in the name of expanding the colonial lands of settlers.

Half? Wasn't it all back in the day? Anyway, this is a step forward!

The decision has no bearing on land ownership or governance, but will force Oklahoma to tie up its historical loose ends.

EDIT: I originally incorrectly wrote "All they did was interrupt the trial of an accused rapist." in addition to the above sentence.

He was a bit more than "accused". He was convicted.

And, they didn't interrupt the trial. He's been in prison for more than two decades for this crime.

> Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes

What about everyone else? Shouldn't they pay taxes to the tribe?

For what services?

"Forceful sodomy of a 4-year old girl"

Yeah, if this is true, can we just hang this guy already?

Honestly I'm surprised he's still alive, pop culture has lead me to believe that men who commit sexual crimes on children don't survive long in prison. This is also one of the most heinous acts imaginable, what gives?

So crimes committed by Americans on reservation land are basically unchargeable now?

Not chargeable by the state. This isn't new.

So when are they going to get to all the other unlawful stuff the government does?

When someone with standing sues.

when someone - like you - starts working for it. You are going to start, right?

When cases against all the other unlawful stuff reach them, presumably.

> they

In democracy there is no "they".

"In democracy you have to be a player" – Hunter S. Thompson, source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHeSC_Ws5Ic

When you file a lawsuit about it that makes its way up the courts.

Trump had a weird, forced rally in Tulsa during COVID and now half of Okalahoma state is gone. I'm not that into conspiracies but is somewhat notable.

"We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so."

As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever. instead the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements with big ramifcations that largely should be left to the legislative body.

> because of the massive failure that congress is

This is a conclusion I'm coming to more and more. It's easy to blame Presidential overreach or Supreme Court overreach, but the Congress seems to be steadily abdicating responsibility while still managing to get very little of substance accomplished.

They are supposed to be the most powerful branch of government, but instead they have deadlocked themselves into uselessness. In some ways we're probably fortunate that the other two branches have picked up the slack, as much as we (myself included) like to complain about it.

If congress doesn't change something, then that means they have determined no change is necessary.

That isn't an invitation for the executive branch (or judiciary) to overreach.

In theory congress could go years without passing a single law, and that would be fine. It would signal that the current laws are sufficient.

(As an aside, congress has ceded much of it's lawmaking authority to federal agencies anyway -- so even if they didn't pass any new laws, the legal code will still change every year.)

"As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever. instead the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements with big ramifcations that largely should be left to the legislative body. "

Agreed. Congress is way too addicted to political grandstanding and partial fighting instead of making laws to clarify the situation. It seems pretty clear that with all the 5-4 divisions the Constitution is not precise enough to decide these things unambiguously.

There are countless situations in which Congress tries to punt its responsibility to the other branches. If they want to be a responsibility-free elected TV pundit class that lives high on the taxpayer hog, then let's amend the constitution accordingly. Congress just tries to delegate responsibility to the other two branches so it can get back to fundraising, "investigating," and grandstanding.

I've recently adopted both Francis Fukuyama's vetocracy thesis as well as Ezra Klein's prescription for majoritarian rule.

Yes, both are major oversimplifications to a complicated situation, with path dependencies and subtle counterintuitive cofactors. But it's good battle cry.

We need more accountability, more transparency, more democracy.

A systems engineer strives to create functional feedback loops. Today, that means closing the gaps in our broken feedback loops. Consent of the governed, and so forth.

But isn't this literally Justice throwing the ball back to Legislature? "We understand why you may want this to be true, but if that's the case, you need to do it specifically"

> our courts keep getting put into the decision because of the massive failure that congress is

We need more Civics classes for students.

Branches of the Federal Government being put into the decision because of a massive failure of another is exactly why we have 3 branches. It's rock-paper-scissors. Checks and balances. Which is why, for instance, people squawk so much when the executive branch imagines itself new powers it was not granted.

Honestly after all the Native Americans went through, give them the whole state at least. People in the United States speak and reflect often about the atrocities of slavery. We need to equally reflect on and remember the atrocities against Native Americans.

What do you mean "them"? You do realize that there were many different tribes who had very drastically different interactions with the US, right?

This is what Oklahoma was initially meant to be. There were even talks of having two Native American states in the united states, the other being Sequoia I think. Then the US renegged on those promises, land was given to railroad companies, and flooded colonists.

In many ways we're seeing the same thing with Tibet and China. It's horrific.

As the article suggests, this doesn't really give the land to the first nation. It simply means that it falls under federal jurisdiction.

Which Native Americans should we give the state to, the ones that lived there originally or one of the tribes we force relocated to the area?

I'd rather not. In the NorCal (Jefferson) reservations, the natives setup huge nets to catch fish, load them into refrigerated trucks, and sell the catch to San Francisco restaurants. It's devastating to the ecosystem. As with building casinos, or the Grand Canyon Skywalk, they tend to commercialize/exploit as much as they can when they are free from state laws.

Ok, how about your state?

(I'm not disagreeing, just trying to highlight one of the fundamental challenges here...)

It's also disappointing how little has been done to close the racial wealth gap from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It seems the gap hasn't changed much since the 1950s and 1960s and I don't see how it gets better short of a massive reparations package and investment in building up distressed communities.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/todays-racial-wealth-gap...

I am not from US, so i am not very clued in to this, but a State or mini-state would sound a lot better than a 'reservation'

This is a really strange ruling. It also means that all prior convictions must be overturned, as they happened on a reservation instead of the state of Oklahoma.

Dumb question... but can I still move to Tulsa?

Incredible. Do the right thing America!

Let the Native Americans go. Let them be free. Give them back their lands.

You have enslaved them for far too long. You genocided them. Killed their culture. Killed their language. Raped their women. Killed their men. Killed their children. And now, the Covid virus is about to kill off the remaining Navajo Tribe.

You must be a heartless monster, if you don’t feel any sense of sorrow, for what is about to happen to the Navajos. They’re all about to die from the virus. Their culture is about to disappear from this earth.

For all the hot air talk about foreign nations and their supposed cultural genocide, well, you have one right here in your own backyard. And you have the historical baggage that goes with it.

It’s time to let them finally be free. They have suffered long enough, for the sake of America’s Manifest Destiny project!

Americans need to depopulate the Oklahoma territories, and return that land back to the Native Americans. As wells as the Dakotas, and return that back to the Sioux Tribes.

Americans already took all the good lands on the east and west coasts, by the waters, and left the sh*t lands to the Native Americans. Do the right thing. Prove it!

Let's get rid of the Normans while we're at it, and return England to the Anglo-Saxons. Except they took it from the Romans, who took it from the Britons and Picts. The details might be off, but my point stands: land ownership is complicated; wars happened, and all the genocides and land disputes going unrecognized for political reasons are only recently considered issues that need restitution. I'm sure the Native Americans have their own history of wars (admittedly, likely on a smaller scale) that pushed tribes to live in different places (I wouldn't know, I'm a product of the California school system, and while we learned about the natives in the missions, we spent more time glorifying the missions with models than studying precolonial American history)

You prove your racism by implying only Whites can be Americans.

The numbers should really be 100% instead of 25% and 10%. Much has been stolen from them.

Every country in the world that exists today is occupied by a people who can be traced back to a conquering nation. If you think through the implications of your statement, you'd see you're talking about wiping out 10,000 years of history and forcibly moving 7 billion people somewhere else.

You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them.

You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the results are the results all the same, and it's not theft when you win.

No thank you. As someone who lives in one of those states this is a worrying precedent.

Maybe if their laws didn't apply to me as a non citizen I would be ok with this. As it is, I can be arrested for stopping at the wrong gas station with a firearm in my car.

I have no choice but to pass through reservations on a regular basis. And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws apply to me just the same.

Didn't they steal that land from the tribes before them?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782234.

Might makes right. Land has no true owners, only those with the means to defend it. Florida could be part of "greater Canada" if the US government was weak and the Canadian government felt it was worth it.

> Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberals in the majority.

The US supreme court is a special kind of circus.

For the life of me, I can't remember any of the names of the justices on the Canadian supreme court. Its extremely uneventful, and even if there have been controversies, they were so minor or rare that I can't remember them.

The US on the other hand... The partisanship is so blatant and just accepted.

And not only that, the controversy.

I am still astounded that Kavanugh was approved after he started ranting openly about clinton conspiracy theories, awkwardly asking people if they like beer, and lying about common terms like "devil's triangle".

The United States has a different system of government from Canada so it's not surprising that there are differences.

Given the primacy of our Constitution and the Supreme Court's role in interpreting whether a law is consistent with our our Constitution, choosing justices is a rather existential question.

The reality is more complicated.

Supreme Court decisions may be explained by (1) partisan views; (2) differences in judicial philosophy; and even (3) pragmatic views (e.g. 'what can the country handle right now?').

As to learning what specifically motivates the justices, this is a lengthy topic. There is a lot to chew on.

Actors outside the Supreme Court regularly try to influence it in many ways. Some want it to be more partisan, for example. Some want to make the court more insulated from elections of the president and senators. Some want to modify the structure of the Court itself.

I see this boosting U.S. Treasury demand. The decision affirms that the U.S. keeps it's word.

I wish the Supreme Court had this kind of attitude towards other questionable decisions and actions by our Congress, namely the passage of the 16th amendment.

Can someone explain why America has reservations? From what I know, Native Indians had this land almost 2+ centuries ago. Why have a special, looks like an autonomous, region and special treatment to people that are a few generations down from when this happened?

How far back into the history should we go?

> Can someone explain why America has reservations?

Because we signed treaties with the tribes, which are now semi-sovereign entities as a result.

Because in many cases we signed legally binding treaties with what were sovereign people at the time (and ostensibly are today but in practice not actually). We have either used loopholes or outright reneged on the treaties to further take their land away. I don't know if the time passed is relevant, when we pass treaties and sign agreements in general they have to mean something if we intend to be a nation of laws.

Can someone explain why America has reservations?

As I understand it, it's not "special" status and more a result of the laws that were put into place when the land was "obtained" from Native Americans. Renegading on those treaties would be no different than the government repossessing your generations-owned land because "you shouldn't get special treatment because your great grandfather bought this land for $3".

The US government signed treaties (Legal documents) with Native American tribes. This decision rests on the fact those are, indeed, binding documents. Congress can explicitly modify these treaties, but that is an explicit legislative duty.

It really isn't that hard of a question to answer. If I legally own land, how far back in history should it go? Well, probably as far back as the entity that enforces legality says.

These rights existing because the US government signed treaties with independent foreign nations. Those treaties are valid law until the Congress withdraws from them.

Because we systematically killed the majority of their race, culture, land, and way of life. So we’ve given them 1% of that back as penance.

You can go as far back as you want and it’s still native Americans / native North Americans.

I think like most things, reservations weren't a solution to all things all native peoples for all time. It was more of a point in time act for specific reasons.

In this case the US was engaged in very specific legal deals with these groups. Reservations grew out of that process.

It's contracts between nations (the US federal government and the the tribes). Native American tribes are numerous (the federal government recognized 550 distinct tribes when I last checked) and have agreements with the government that were to guarantee their sovereignty.

The US government was making treaties with Native American tribes as recently as 1871. One hundred and fifty years ago isn’t long at all. It’s two lifetimes. It’s recent enough for someone to have known someone who was alive then.

Think of it like this:

You own quite a bit of fenced-land and have built some dwellings on it, a main home, a couple outbuildings, a barn, etc... you and your family farm it, raise livestock, hunt, fish, etc... and live quite well off the land without ever needing to leave or venture beyond the fence.

One day you see some strangers outside your fence, looking quite haggard, and ill setting up a camp using nothing but the meager supplies left in their vehicles, and what looks to be parts of the vehicles themselves...

Feeling compassion you attempt to help them, you open your gate and land to them, your home even, providing food, additional shelter, and even teaching them some basic things about your land and how to harvest, hunt, fish and generally live off it...

Fast forward a couple centuries, and now your "guests" have double-crossed you... taken all your land by force, persecuted your family while committing countless crimes including rapes, murders, and basically genocide on a continental scale.

In an act of "graciousness" during one of countless "treaties" you've been forced into accepting under duress - so that your entire family wasn't completely wiped from the face of the earth... you were "allowed" some small areas of undesireable land by your new masters where you be confined and kept out of the way without constantly needing to be harrased and supervised into submission... that was until those same people found out there was oil and other commodities buried underneath your newly constucted hovels... at which point they just pushed you into smaller and smaller areas, and took what they wanted from you and yours at-will anyway... I mean who could you complain to? their bought-and-paid for system of goverment and courts? the same that were used to persecute your family and steal your lands and heritage?

Now apparently some judges have decided to interpret the law as written, instead of posing for pictures in black gowns with pretty little wooden hammers...

Most reservations are not great places to live. A google search shows there's lots of crime, depression, and poverty. I think these people should realize its difficult to live in relative isolation these days and move forward. Let them keep this land but don't attempt autonomous independence. Pick your source. An oversimplification: white-guilt. You're being downvoted because people assume this comment is racist when I think you're just asking for information.

Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.

I disagree with this reasoning.

As a counterexample I point you to squatters rights. If I live on your land long and openly enough, my unlawful act will confer ownership of the land to me. This principle is not only recognized in our courts, but the clarity that it provides around ownership is a major foundation of our economic system. The reason is that before ownership was clarified with this principle, our land was covered by a mess of overlapping and contradictory claims to ownership of the land. But with a clear owner, however established, that owner can now use their ownership as collateral.

For a book-length treatment of that thesis I point you at https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-E....

But this decision opens up the legal status of half of Oklahoma for debate, while other tribes around the nation are going to be thinking about which further claims they can now press.

If we continue to open up the course of reversing long-done ills, will we start to ask whether West Virginia should not exist not as an interesting academic question, but as a current legal one? See https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/01/west-virgin... for background on that.

Squatter's rights seems related, but different.

With squatters rights, there is a law that says if they squat long enough, they can gain legal rights to the property. Squatters are amending the law through action, the law that gives them eventual rights is already there.

There is no law that says if the federal government fails to live up to their promise long enough, it's no longer a legally binding promise.

The Court is saying that if Congress really wants to break the promise, Congress needs to express that with updated legislation.

You're thinking of laches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)

"Laches refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making a legal claim, or moving forward with legal enforcement of a right, particularly in regard to equity"

It doesn't apply because nobody is claiming tribal groups failed to protect their interests. They haven't just been blowing off and watching TV all this time.

Good. The natives deserve a fair shake and the land is roomy enough for people to get along and work together.

Forcing that is a damn good thing.

The USA has a lot to account for, and it is very sick.

Rough roads ahead. Maybe they lead to better places.

I do not feel good about the last 4 or so decades of travel.

As a people, maybe world, we may well be better for going down this road.

Seems that you are trying to bootstrap off of Adverse Possession, where Alan uses Bob's land for a certain period (often 20 years) and ends up owning it.

But it does not work that way

Adverse Possession requires that the use be "open and notorious" and uncontested. [1]

The potential possessor must be using it in a way that is obvious (i.e., not sneaky), and not objected to by the owner.

Sure, the uses of the native lands have been open and notorious, but they have been continuously and vigorously contested.

This time, the owners finally won their contesting of the use of their land.

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-open-notorious-...

Squatters rights only apply to abandoned property though. This land wasn't abandoned at any time. People were forced out and it was occupied.

Adverse possession is different. That only applies if the rightful owner gives de facto consent by ignoring the injustice and making 0 express or implied to claim in the property. Petitioning for redress cancels the adverse possession claim (obviously), or else you get legal title to any property simply by taking the property by force.

squatters rights don't amend the law, they amend ownership.

Squatters rights are explicitly codified in the low

You cannot adversely possess a US government's land. Tribes have similar sovereign rights.

This is a terrible article, it just cites the facts of the decision, teases the implication (OMG half of OK!) and explains nothing. Here's a review article about the same case from a while back which does a better job: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/28/half-land-...

The tl;dr is that, yes, indeed, half of Oklahoma is part of land reserved for the Creek in a 1833 treaty. And almost two centuries of subsequent jurisprudence and state development has (unsurprisingly) completely ignored that with effectively no legal basis. Neither Congress nor the state of Oklahoma has ever lifted a finger to try to make this right.

Basically, this is the Supreme Court saying that enough is enough, this can't go on, and telling the relevant governments to get their shit together and figure this out.

No, Injuns aren't coming for Tulsa.

Side note - as a part 'native' I wish that term you used would come back. Indian is now ambiguous and First Nations and Native American sound so stupid.

If we are going to truly treat this 1833 treaty as legally valid, does that mean that one party is entitled to compensation for 187 years of damages? Or is it more likely that we will somehow hand-wave it away and just find a way to retroactively undo the treaty?

Upvoted for sharing that article.

However, I think your comment would have been more impactful if you coolly made your point and linked to the WaPo article for further reading instead of using that inflammatory tone and language.

So if it's not part of OK, how does that impact OK from a representation in Congress, electoral college, e-Rate/federal funding perspective. All of those people are no longer part of the state?

Do you realize the word you used is pejorative? Please be kind and show some respect.

EDIT - a note about the sarcasm - it is NOT OK to use pejorative or racist terms sarcastically.

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