Native American Law Watch – Spring 2016
Articles:
- Professor Kevin Washburn: Reflections on Service as Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, the State of Indian Law in 2016, and Returning Home to New Mexico
Kevin Washburn recently returned to his position as a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law after serving more than three years as the Department of the Interior’s Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs. A member of the Chickasaw Nation and a graduate of University of Oklahoma and Yale Law School, Professor Washburn has served as a federal prosecutor, a civil litigator in the Department of Justice, as general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission, as a law professor at the Universities of Minnesota and Arizona, and as dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law. Continue Reading
- Reservation Diminishment: Implications for Tribal Taxing Powers over Non-Members
Writing another chapter in its long-running book regarding whether boundaries of Indian Reservations across the country have been diminished or reduced by Congressional action, on March 22, 2016, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Nebraska v. Parker. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Thomas, the Court held that the boundaries of the Omaha Indian Tribe’s (“Tribe”) reservation in eastern Nebraska were not diminished by an 1882 Act of Congress proclaiming that certain “lands are open for settlement under such rules as the [Secretary of the Interior] may prescribe.” Continue Reading
- Tribal Nations, CERCLA Litigation, and Sovereign Immunity
In Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Pueblo of Laguna, The Federal Court in New Mexico recently ruled that a tribal entity had partially waived sovereign immunity, allowing a limited claim against it under the Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”). Although the Pueblo has requested reconsideration, the case adds to a small body of case law regarding tribal nations and CERCLA. Continue Reading
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