Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

6 

YELLEN v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF CHEHALIS 
RESERVATION 
GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

contends that ANCs are recognized by the federal govern-
ment in this sense. 
  Admittedly,  not  every  statutory  use  of  the  word  “recog-
nized” must carry the same meaning.  See ante, at 14.  But 
not only does ISDA arise in the field of Indian law where 
the term “recognition” has long carried a particular mean-
ing.  The statute proceeds to refer to groups that are “rec-
ognized  as  eligible  for  the  special  programs  and  services 
provided by the United States to Indians because of their 
status  as  Indians.”    This  full  phrase  is  a  mouthful,  but  it 
was a familiar one to Congress by the time it passed ISDA 
in 1975.  In preceding decades, Congress used similar lan-
guage in statute after statute granting and terminating for-
mal  federal  recognition  of  certain  tribes.1    All  of  which 
strongly  suggests  that  ISDA’s  recognition  clause  likewise 
refers  to  the  sort  of  formal  government-to-government 
recognition that triggers eligibility for the full “panoply of 
benefits  and  services”  the  federal  government  provides  to 
—————— 

1

 E.g.,  Act  of  Sept.  21,  1959,  §5,  73  Stat.  593  (upon  termination,  the 
former Tribe and its members “shall not be entitled to any of the special 
services performed by the United States for Indians because of their sta-
tus as Indians”); Act of Aug. 23, 1954, §2, 68 Stat. 769 (same); Act of Aug. 
18, 1958, §10(b), 72 Stat. 621 (same); Act of Sept. 5, 1962, §10, 76 Stat. 
431 (same); Act of Apr. 12, 1968, Pub. L. 90–287, §2, 82 Stat. 93 (“Nothing 
in this Act shall make such tribe or its members eligible for any services 
performed  by  the  United  States  for  Indians  because  of  their  status  as 
Indians”); Menominee Restoration Act, Pub. L. 93–197, 87 Stat. 770 (An 
Act “to reinstitute the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin as a feder-
ally recognized sovereign Indian tribe; and to restore to the Menominee 
Tribe of Wisconsin those Federal services furnished to American Indians 
because of their status as American Indians”).  This sort of language also 
appeared  in  recognition  statutes  in  the  years  immediately  following 
ISDA.  E.g., Indian Tribal Restoration Act, §4, 92 Stat. 247 (Tribes and 
their members “shall be entitled to participate in the programs and ser-
vices provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as 
Indians”); Siletz Indian Tribe Restoration Act, §3(a), 91 Stat. 1415 (rein-
stating eligibility for “all Federal services and benefits furnished to fed-
erally recognized Indian tribes”); Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Restora-
tion Act, §3a, 94 Stat. 317 (same).