Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

22 

YELLEN v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF CHEHALIS 
RESERVATION 
Opinion of the Court 

sociation, Alaska Preamble (1938).  Decades later, the Inte-
rior Department acknowledged the HCA as a federally rec-
ognized tribe, even though it is of fairly recent vintage and 
organized  around  a  bond  of  occupation  rather  than  solely
around  an  ancestral  tribal  heritage.    See  58  Fed.  Reg.
54369.  If the HCA could be federally recognized, respond-
ents say, some might have thought ANCs could too. 

Respondents  make  too  much  of  the  HCA  and  the  small 
handful  of  entities  like  it,  which  are  not  comparable  to
ANCs.    Unlike  ANCs,  the  former  entities  were  organized
under  federally  approved  constitutions  as  part  of  a  short-
lived attempt to recreate in Alaska a tribal reservation sys-
tem  like  that  in  the  lower  48  States.    ANCs,  by  contrast,
were incorporated under state law pursuant to legislation
that  embodied  the  formal  repudiation  of  that  approach.
That the Interior Department deemed the HCA and a hand-
ful of other entities like it federally recognized tribes dec-
ades after ISDA’s passage does not mean it was plausible 
in 1975 to think ANCs would one day become federally rec-
ognized tribes, as well.8 

Ultimately, respondents resort to the argument that, alt-
hough  the  idea  of  ANCs  becoming  federally  recognized
tribes might be farfetched, it is not technically impossible. 
That is, Congress’ plenary power over Indian affairs could 

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8 Respondents also point to a 1996 bill that would have “deemed” one 
regional ANC, CIRI, “an Indian tribal entity for the purpose of federal 
programs for which Indians are eligible because of their status as Indi-
ans” and would have mandated that CIRI be “specifically include[d]” “on
any list that designates federally recognized Indian tribes.”  H. R. 3662, 
104th Cong., 2d Sess., §§121(a)–(b) (1996).  By its terms, the bill would
not  have  entered  CIRI  into  a  government-to-government  relationship 
with the United States; it merely would have made CIRI eligible for all
federal Indian programs available to federally recognized tribes.  In any
event, it is hard to make too much of a failed bill.  See United States v. 
Craft, 535 U. S. 274, 287 (2002) (“[F]ailed legislative proposals are a par-
ticularly dangerous ground on which to rest an interpretation of a prior 
statute” (internal quotation marks omitted)).