Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 67.0

22 

MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Indians  alike  in  the  new  State  of  Oklahoma,  Congress
brought Creek members and the land on which they resided 
under state jurisdiction.  By stripping the Creek Nation of 
its  courts,  lawmaking  authority,  and  taxing  power,  Con-
gress dismantled the tribal government.  By extinguishing 
the Nation’s title, Congress erased the geographic bounda-
ries that once defined Creek territory.  And, by conferring
citizenship on tribe members and giving them a vote in the 
formation of the State, Congress incorporated them into a 
new political community.  “Under any definition,” that was 
disestablishment.  Ibid. 

In the face of all this, the Court claims that recognizing
Congress’s intent would permit disestablishment in the ab-
sence  of  “a  statute  requir[ing]  that  result.”    Ante,  at  20. 
Hardly.    The  numerous  statutes  discussed  above  demon-
strate Congress’s plain intent to terminate the reservation. 
The Court resists the cumulative force of these statutes by
attacking each in isolation, first asking whether allotment
alone disestablished the reservation, then whether restrict-
ing  tribal  governance  was  sufficient,  and  so  on.  But  the 
Court  does not  consider  the  full  picture  of  what  Congress
accomplished.  Far from justifying its blinkered approach, 
the Court repeatedly tells the reader to wait until the “next 
section” of the opinion—where the Court will again nitpick 
discrete aspects of Congress’s disestablishment effort while
ignoring the full picture our precedents require us to honor. 
Ante, at 12–13, n. 5, 17, n. 7; see supra, at 11, 14. 

The  Court  also  hypothesizes  that  Congress  may  have
taken  significant  steps  toward  disestablishment  but  ulti-
mately  could  not  “complete[ ]”  it;  perhaps  Congress  just 
couldn’t “muster the will” to finish the job.  Ante, at 8, 15. 
The Court suggests that Congress sought to “tiptoe to the 
edge  of  disestablishment,”  fearing  the  “embarrassment  of 
disestablishing a reservation” but hoping that judges would 
“deliver the final push.”  Ante, at 7.  This is fantasy.  The 
congressional Acts detailed above do not evince any unease