| dc.description.abstract | Public Law 280 was a piece of legislation that dramatically altered the landscape of federal Indian jurisdiction. In order for its legal implications to be made clear, I will first define the general context of federal Indian law, the pillars of governance that tribal nations are able to exercise, and the relationship between tribal nations and the federal government. I will satisfy this requirement of my essay by using the definitional foundations put forth by Michalyn Steele in her article “Congressional Power and Sovereignty in Indian Affairs,” as well as the account given by Vanessa J. Jimenez and Soo C. Song in their article, “Concurrent Tribal and State Jurisdiction under Public Law 280” (Steel 2018; Jimenez 1998). Likewise, I will refer to several influential Supreme Court decisions that shaped these principles. In establishing the jurisdiction exercised by tribal nations prior to the enactment of Public Law 280, I will consult two legal dictionaries that are predominantly concerned with educating the general public about the relationship between the federal government and tribal nations. First, I will look at Native Americans and the Law: A Dictionary, written by Gary Sokolow; secondly, I will look at Indian Jurisdiction, written by Kirke Kickingbird (Sokolow 2000; Kickingbird 1983).
Tribal lawyer and indigenous scholar Carole Goldberg, has made an extensive contribution to the legal analysis of Public Law 280 through several essays that can be found in the publication of Planting Tail Feathers: Tribal Survival and Public Law 280 (Goldberg 1997). In these essays, she discusses how Public Law 280 negates the federal trust responsibility, one of the four pillars supporting the doctrine of tribal sovereignty (Goldberg-Ambrose 1997). I will use this book to provide an account of Public Law 280 in Chapter 2 and to explain how the federal trust responsibility is violated by the statute’s enactment. I will use her research to argue that because Public Law 280 tribes no longer possess the federal trust responsibility, they are no longer to be considered sovereigns at all.
In Chapter 3, I will turn to the research conducted on behalf of Duane Champagne in his book entitled Captured Justice: Native Nations and Public Law 280, Annita Lucchesi in her report entitled “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,” and the policy brief published by the National Congress of American Indians regarding violent crime committed against Native women. These documents will allow me to establish what an absence of sovereignty looks like for Public Law 280 tribes, and why a solution is warranted.
Finally, in Chapter 4, I will utilize Anna Stilz’s article, “Decolonization and Self-Determination” to explain why Public Law 280 tribes have a moral right to self-determination that ought to be seen as a replacement for their diminishment of tribal sovereignty. Likewise, Joanne Barker’s essay, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” will prove beneficial for these purposes. The doctrine of tribal sovereignty is violated by Public Law 280. Therefore, Public Law 280 tribes have a moral claim to self-determination. Throughout the course of my research, the method of comparative equilibrium will be implemented. Using this theoretical framework will allow me to build my argument from a legal, as well as from a philosophical perspective. My research objectives for this project are to determine the consistency of Public Law 280 and the doctrine of tribal sovereignty. Likewise, I will develop an argument for how this legal finding contributes to the larger conversation of what it means to be sovereign. To fulfill these objectives, I will provide a legal analysis that will answer my research question: Does Public Law 280 violate the doctrine of tribal sovereignty? The legal analysis will include a historical and legal background so that it can be understood how tribal nations exercised jurisdiction before the enactment of Public Law 280. After this is completed, I will compare the doctrine of tribal sovereignty with the jurisdictional stipulations put forth in Public Law 280 so that I am able to determine the consistency of the two legal texts.
I will take the answer to my findings to contribute to the philosophical discussion surrounding the concept of sovereignty, where I will explore the value of sovereignty and what the contemporary application of this concept actually looks like. This will be done through the lens of tribal nations, a group of people for whom consideration has not always been applied when examining the philosophical underpinnings of sovereignty. In other words, thus far, most theories of sovereignty have been developed in response to the political histories of European nations and have tested the conditions of sovereignty against the activities of those nations, while there is a small amount of literature that holds up the conditions of governance that tribal nations abide by to the paradigm of sovereignty. Furthermore, an even smaller amount of literature exists that provides an examination of sovereignty as it applies to Public Law 280 tribal nations. The significance of this project lies in the fact that it serves to fill this gap in the conversation surrounding the concept of sovereignty. | en |
