Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 68.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

23 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

about extinguishing the Creek domain, or any shortage of 
“will.”  Quite the opposite.  Through an open and concerted 
effort, Congress did what it set out to do: transform a reser-
vation into a State.  “Mustering the broad social consensus
required to pass new legislation is a deliberately hard busi-
ness,”  as  the  Court  reminds  us.  Ibid.  Congress  did  that 
hard work here, enacting not one but a steady progression 
of major statutes.  The Court today does not give effect to
the cumulative significance of Congress’s actions, because 
Congress  did  not  use  explicit  words  of  the  sort  the  Court 
insists upon.  But Congress had no reason to suppose that 
such words would be required of it, and this Court has held 
that  they  were  not.  See  Hagen,  510  U. S.,  at  411–412; 
Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 U. S., at 351; Solem, 465 U. S., at 
471. 

B 
Under our precedents, we next consider the contempora-
neous  understanding  of  the  statutes  enacted  by  Congress
and  the  subsequent  treatment  of  the  lands  at  issue.  The 
Court, however, declines to consider such evidence because, 
in the Court’s view, the statutes clearly do not disestablish 
any reservation, and there is no “ambiguity” to “clear up.” 
Ante, at 20 (internal quotation marks omitted).  That is not 
the approach demanded by our precedent, supra, at 10–13, 
and,  in  any  event,  the  Court’s  argument  fails  on  its  own 
terms here.  I find it hard to see how anyone can come away 
from the statutory texts detailed above with certainty that 
Congress had no intent to disestablish the territorial reser-
vation.  At the very least, the statutes leave some ambigu-
ity, and thus “extratextual sources” ought to be consulted. 
Ante, at 20. 

Turning to such sources, our precedents direct us to “ex-
amine  all  the  circumstances”  surrounding  Congress’s  ac-
tions.  Parker, 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6) (quoting Ha-
gen,  510  U. S.,  at  412).    This  includes  evidence  of  the