please proceed when you're ready thank your honor may please the court my name is rachel heron on behalf of the federal government with the court's permission i'd like to reserve about two minutes of time for rebuttal for the plaintiffs in this case an individual member of the three affiliated tribes of the fort berthold reservation seeks to overturn the results of a two thousand and thirteen election administered by the department of the interior based on greed and fear of tribal law and federal law that had been rejected by the tribe and the agency respectively government briefs explained why plaintiffs arguments fail on the merits but i'd like to start today by addressing the threshold question that was identified in this court's recent has not to this point in the litigation met his burden of demonstrating particularized injury to the extent this court is willing to give the plaintiff the opportunity to demonstrate an injury now plaintiff's birding and the government's view would be to demonstrate that he is personally impacted by the tribal constitutional amendment that became effective as a result of the a legit misapplication of tribal and federal law the government would note that plaintiff has not made any such argument up to this point in the case neither in his submissions to the agency nor in his briefs to the court your honors i'm happy to elaborate further on the government's view of the standing issues here unless there are specific questions on standing that the court would like to hear the government answer for there's a there's a regulation by and harry that allows individual members to challenge votes and so allowed certainly at least the administrative level of type of challenge i don't think there's any dispute about that my question is what is the origin of that regulation i didn't see anything sort of a me you know or reorganization act that would have been know that was drawing upon or purporting to interpret and so what i was trying to think about standing here was understand what the basis was for interior and recognising that right or maybe creating that right tell me that in that regulation is there something about the historic trust relationship a stork practice with tribes with the allows these type of challenges in a way that seems different so much and yet so here are the regulation  question you're correct allows any member who has voted to challenge i will say that in practice the i b i a which is the body is an interior that he'll hear the appeals within the agency from these  challenges does apply standing principles as a matter of what they call administrative prudence and there are i b a decisions i can point your honour's to that that make that point so it's not as though that there is sort of no concept with the weather of standing in these administrative challenges although we acknowledge that the i b i and here did not make any findings with regard to mr hudson standing in terms of the to probably be rules and regulations which will govern the conduct of the secretarial elections and this this mechanism for voters bringing a challenge is simply one regulation that interior has promulgated i'm not aware of any do you buy interior that you know this is sort of a necessary feature as a result of the trust relationship or or something like that and just an example of something you know i think the one example that i have here today for the court it's the i think one in which they found that there was not standing so i can't stand here today give you an example of a time where the where the you know i'd be a has made enough for me to finding that that there there was standing to proceed but i think that the analysis would would proceed similarly to sort of what the government is saying here would would apply in the article three context in the federal courts and that you would need to show some personalized impact from the decision in this case the approval and making effective of these constitutional changes it would not be enough simply to have an interest in making sure that the agency is applying the law correctly or correctly and the challenge decision and you can you just give us an example of what would be enough for so you know i think this case i mean on the facts of this case sure so i think one of the the difficulties here is that it's not immediately obvious from the amendments that are in question which have to do with the composition of the tribal business council how this particular plaintiff would be able to show a particular ised injury but you could i mean i think that you could posit for example with regard to a st amend the whose vote would be diluted by the inclusion of new members on that council an extension of the body being able to show that they are injured in a particular way you know and also you know you could imagine different kinds of election amendments that would have a you know a clear impact on just the right to you know anon governing member of the tribe for example something that went to membership criteria something that you know changed you know the ability or the eligibility of voters to vote in future elections and those kinds of situations i think a place that would be able to readily show that they are personally impacted and there's been no showing of that here and i said it it's far from clear to the government how the plaintiffs would be able to make such a showing in this case given the nature of the amendments and all that what i would i would add as well that in thinking about whether the plaintiffs can show a personalized impact from these separately challenges in in another lawsuit that's currently being held in abeyance so you know there are i think a number of hurdles to be able to the point of being able to show up particularized impact  games i'm trying to figure out whether it was even there was ever any on the ground practical implementation of two thousand and thirteen provisions of the challenges that you're aware of your honor i don't i'm not aware of that you know d the record obviously that we have before us only goes to the state of things and thirteen i'm not aware of what happened in terms of the tribes actual implementation after two thousand and thirteen other than you know to know that there was a relatively short period of time in which this these changes could have even come about before we had increase the size of the business council is that supposed to happen to like the next election i think the text of the amendment which is that g eight dollars to thirty four dollars sort of spelled out what the sequence would be in terms of when the elections would be held to add these new members but as far as i'm aware it's not like there was sort of a slate in place when the th amendment was and those other elections were not held to increase that's my understanding your honor i see i'm running out of time so i would simply note on the merits that the plate that the government to the extent this court reaches the merits stand by the arguments that it makes in its briefs on the issues and to the extent this court has any questions on them now or in any quorum was is arbitrary capricious and contrary the statute but i do want to address that issues as well that reorder this court does have articles freestanding i'm surprised to hear that we're focused on that partic regulation that judge millette referred to which narrows that that people who can actually challenge that election to not just any voter but down to those who well not any member but a qualified voter and then again mr hudson actually did vote in that election and i think the standard that that department of justice is putting forward is that counterintuitive and i think you expand that logic you would think not yet in your choice of presidential candidate would be seen as some kind of particular allies injury it requires going into mr hudson's brain and examining  violation of the statute is not a benefit and but when you vote you can vote in the negative or in the positive here mr hudson opposed the amendment and what happened then is the interiors practice d likely to pass but then his voting power is diminished in another way because that amendment is then vulnerable to a subsequent later on lawful secretarial election conducted by interior with the requisite  sorry what what's the causal interaction between the the fight here over how the quorum requirement works and the fact that is position in the election didn't prevail this would seem to be just different issues well they're tied by the fact that interior f evaluating which injuries you know which personal injuries in terms of political outcomes of various types of elections are just discipline i wouldn't ask this court to do that because that would be a very sticky situation for the court to delve into but here the injury is really to his vote and the and the practice can we talk about positive and negative gross those things add up to the fact that it puts my resurrection i just ask this question if suppose he didn't vote but he opposed the measure then it seems like someone in that position could say the same thing because they they could say that well i wish the the what you believed to be the proper quorum requirement wasn't forced because if it had been then a measure would have been adopted and i don't like that i don't like the outcome that exists now because the measure was treated as having been adopted and it seems like that the fact of voting then doesn't really matter that much because the vote as judge katz pointed out was that was counted and was maximized but the injuries just disagree as certain injuries desegregated from it because that would be the same for somebody who didn't vote at all and and i think it's pretty clear that if somebody didn't vote at all they can't claim an injury in this context well i understand your hypothetical in which my client didn't vote and i did mention that there is an injury  as i spoke even even to those who don't know but that's not what we're certain here what we're certain here is that when mr hudson mr hudson did vote he that the outcome changed based on interiors practice but it would have even had to have changed to have diminished vote i mean if you look at the overseas woodford baker v car in those cases that the courts didn't delve into what whether they wanted to democrat or republican winner or what those policies democratic this we have to ask not generically about this election process but this twenty four thousand election because that's the one that's challenge and so in voting in the two thousand and thirteen constitutional amendment election was his did that and the things he complained but he opposed you said it because he opposed it but the things he opposed never took effect i'm just trying to understand because that's what we're deciding here is this rd like to be fair they never took effect because of mr henson's lawsuit they would have taken effect if he hadn't suit you know brought his regional case you know way back then i got nothing to do with a standing question i'm asking am i right and that is how was he insured by you say he voted against something that never took a fabric and his vote i think because of the other voters was the same just pro or con right well your vote is his books diminished versus those prose but that let me go you know i think that the gun baker case really show that this that i think this court may be looking further than it needs to in terms of the injury because what we're looking for is just a plain direct and adequate interest in slappy which provide that we're in which the plaintiffs challenged essentially the government to government relationship between the united states and their indian tribe so if the court a that vote is being distorted as compared to other voters here i think the right way to conceptualize the way these secretarial election work is that there are two separate hurdles that that a proposed amendment needs to clear and one is that it needs to get the majority of votes cast and that you know context is where you could potentially be concerned about some sort of a de lucia an argument to the extent some way that the way that the votes are cast  reasons stated in the government's thank you counsel thank you to both counsel will take this case under submission