Opinion ID: 2806515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Particular Objections

Text: But before considering the significance of Bay Mills, several elements of the majority’s approval of the Board’s innovation deserve particular mention. First, my colleagues purport to find legitimacy for the Board’s new approach in two Supreme Court opinions that are said to “anticipate” this evolution in traditional Indian law principles. The first of these is the Tuscarora opinion itself. Tuscarora, of course, speaks for itself. The grounds for my conclusion that some courts, and now the Board, have read much more into the Tuscarora statement than was ever intended are adequately stated above. Not least of these is the fact that the Tuscarora statement (much less the Tuscarora “doctrine”) has been ignored by the Supreme Court ever since. Moreover, even those courts that have viewed the statement as significant have recognized it to be in the nature of dictum. Lastly, the holding in Tuscarora, on the reach of the Federal Power Act: (a) did not result in any impairment of tribal sovereignty; and (b) hinged not on the generally-applicable nature of the Act, but on the Court’s discernment of Congress’s manifest intent. The holding of Tuscarora, then, is entirely consonant with traditional Indian law principles. The Tuscarora holding gave effect to the clear indications of congressional intent, just as we should here . . . to the extent there are any. The majority also cites Merrion as signaling the Supreme Court’s willingness to find implicit divestiture of tribal sovereignty in a federal law of general applicability. Majority Op. at 12 n.1.) Yet, the Merrion Court held that just such a generally applicable law, the Natural Gas Policy Act, did not effect a divestiture precisely because the text and legislative history did not evidence such a congressional intent. Merrion, 455 U.S. at 152. Merrion, too, thus confirms traditional Indian law principles: absent some clear indication from Congress, a federal law will not be deemed to implicitly impair tribal sovereignty simply because it is generally applicable. No. 14-2239 NLRB v. Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Govʼt Page 33 Nonetheless, my colleagues note that the FEP Code affects non-Indians who obtain employment within the Band’s trust lands. Without denying that the FEP Code is a generally applicable and comprehensive regulatory scheme in exercise of the Band’s tribal sovereignty, the majority prefers to characterize the Code narrowly (and disparagingly) as a mere “regulation of activities of non-members.” Hence, the majority opinion cites several Supreme Court decisions that recognized limitations on tribal sovereign authority to regulate non-Indians even in the absence of congressional action or indications of congressional intent to divest tribal power. Majority Op. at 8–11. The cited decisions are inapposite. In Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 564–66 (1981), for instance, the Court held not that tribal sovereign power had been implicitly divested by Congress, but that the tribe did not have authority in the first place via “retained inherent sovereignty” to regulate hunting and fishing by nonmembers of the tribe on lands no longer owned by the tribe—unless the nonmembers entered consensual relationships with the tribe through commercial dealing, contracts, leases, or other arrangements; or unless the conduct of nonmembers on fee lands within the reservation threatened or had some direct effect on the political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare of the tribe. To similar effect are the decisions in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land and Cattle Co., Inc., 554 U.S. 316, 341 (2008), and Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353, 358–60 (2001). That is, all three cases, Montana, Plains Commerce and Hicks, deal with the bounds of retained inherent sovereignty, not the implicit divestiture thereof. Here, in contrast to those cases, there is no real dispute that the Little River Band’s enactment of the FEP Code, regulating employment relations between the tribe and tribal members and nonmembers alike, on tribal lands within the Tribal Government’s jurisdiction, is a bona fide exercise of inherent sovereign authority. See Merrion, 455 U.S. at 137 (recognizing that a tribe’s authority to regulate economic activity within its territory is among its retained sovereign powers). To the extent that nonmembers are subject to regulation under the FEP Code, the regulation flows directly from the Band’s inherent sovereign interests in tribal selfgovernment and management of internal relations. See Plains Commerce, 544 U.S. at 335; Montana, 450 U.S. at 564. In the language of Hicks, the FEP Code is a “[t]ribal assertion of No. 14-2239 NLRB v. Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Govʼt Page 34 regulatory authority over nonmembers . . . connected to that right of the Indians to make their own laws and be governed by them.” Hicks, 533 U.S. at 561. Yes, the Band’s interest in regulating nonmembers may be weaker, but the nonmembers that come within the FEP Code’s regulation have entered into consensual contractual (employment) relationships with the Band and are therefore properly subject to the Code’s requirements. See Montana, 450 U.S. at 565. While these decisions address questions regarding the scope of retained inherent tribal sovereignty, the instant appeal, as the majority recognizes, presents a different question. Majority Op. at 7–8. The Band’s authority to enact the FEP Code is unquestioned. We must instead decide whether, under traditional Indian law principles, the Board has authority, per its “new approach,” to interfere with the Band’s legitimate exercise of tribal sovereignty, and specifically, whether there are clear indications that Congress has authorized such interference, explicitly or implicitly. Because there are no such clear indications, as the majority must concede, we should stay the Board’s overreaching hand—unless and until Congress acts or the Supreme Court alters the governing law. See Bay Mills, 134 S. Ct. at 2037 (recognizing “it is fundamentally Congress’s job, not ours,” to determine the nature and extent of tribal sovereignty).