[Vigilanteman]

“It’s going to take an act of congress,” said John Gomez Jr., president of the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization, who is a disenrollee.

Gomez says that congress must amend the Indian Civil Rights Act to allow courts to hear the cases.

I'm not saying Mr. Gomez does or doesn't have a legitimate beef. But that's a very interesting solution he is proposing.

He's asking the Federal Government to overrule the Tribal Council and thereby effectively dissolve its sovereignty by said overrule.

The bennies the Tribal Council distributes are generated based on its sovereign immunity from the very courts to which Mr. Gomez is seeking relief from the rules of the Tribal Council. So, in the unlikely event he is successful, the entire tribal structure could come crashing down.

[muawiyah]

Actually not ~ the tribe exists because of a "treaty" between the USA and the tribe ~ so if there's a question about the tribe even existing the USA certainly needs to get involved.

Some tribes are already in a bind when it comes to determining who is qualified to be a member. Their namesm (or the names of their ancestors) are on the Dawes Rolls. Even there they have problems with Indians marrying into the tribe and leaving descendants with less than 1/32 Cherokee (for example), even though they might be substantially more Indian than most Cherokees.

Pechanga was named by a white trapper/trader named (I believe) Jedediah Smith. The original Pechanga is actually located in Nikel Oblast in Russia. It's a river in the Sapma, or Sa'ami homeland ~ belonging, in general, to the Skolt tribe.

I still haven't figured out why Jedediah named the place. The Indians are mistreating the name and should be forced to quit using it.

[Ellendra]

More then just the Tribal Council for his own tribe, what he’s proposing would destroy the sovereignty of EVERY tribe in the US that has it.