where are the promises they could open casinos?
The harsh truth of the matter is the state of Oklahoma — aided and abetted by the U.S. Congress — allowed non-American Indians to buy land and settle in territory officially demarcated for the Creek by Congress, without shrinking the borders of the reservation. In effect, Congress enabled the violation of the very treaties it crafted and passed. The fact that settlements grew into towns and cities was the result of Oklahoma choosing to ignore the legal boundaries of the Creek’s Indian territory for nearly a century.
And it’s based on this, that this ruling that much of Oklahoma is legally part of an Indian reservation, could cause many legal issues in the years ahead.
Conservatives should be celebrating USSC decision as being one of strict construction interpretation of words contained in legislation/treatied rather than political ideology. Right?
Nonsense.
Congress long ago disolved Indian tribe law-making and land ownership in “reservations.”
The US Government severely broke agreements and treaties with the native peoples. At the Heard Museum in Phoenix is an exhibit of how their children were placed in boarding schools for “Americanization.” Representatives of dozens of tribes gathered at the Washington Monument in October 2016 to forgive the USA for these actions and more. Isn’t the fear of doing the right thing for possible future effects is akin to “the end justifies the means” and living by fear rather than living by faith?
Yes we should uphold the law.
Can we consider the implications? There’s no law saying we can’t. What are the implications? Will towns, previously located in the state of Oklahoma, now find themselves located in the Indian reservation?
Legally, how does Stare Decisis figure in? This legal principle means that one should acknowledge and respect precedent. The principle of Stare Decisis has been used and abused in the past. How does it apply here? It seems to me that informing the residents of a town that they no longer fall under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma is a major violation of past legal precedent. Justice Roberts, as quoted in Townhall:
“Today, the Court holds that Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute McGirt—on the improbable ground that, unbeknownst to anyone for the past century, a huge swathe of Oklahoma is actually a Creek Indian reservation, on which the State may not prosecute serious crimes committed by Indians like McGirt. Not only does the Court discover a Creek reservation that spans three million acres and includes most of the city of Tulsa, but the Court’s reasoning portends that there are four more such reservations in Oklahoma. The rediscovered reservations encompass the entire eastern half of the State—19 million acres that are home to 1.8 million people, only 10%–15% of whom are Indians.”
In the real world the SCOTUS decision opens the door to negate any and all property rights exercised by non Native Americans.
Hope one of the first things they do is get rid of Tulsa’s mayor. He’s a zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Sequoyah
Maybe now the State of Sequoyah—which had been stymied by Theodore Roosevelt—can come into being after all!!!!