Opinion ID: 805657
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Morton v. Mancari

Text: The defendants' first argument is that a state-granted preference to a tribe is not a racial preference and so entails only rational basis review. This argument relies on language used by the Court in Mancari, 417 U.S. 535. There, the Court addressed whether a federal law granting an employment preference for qualified Indians in a federal agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), violated the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 417 U.S. at 537. A statute directed the Secretary of the Interior to adopt standards for Indians who may be appointed, without regard to civil-service laws, to the various positions maintained, now or hereafter, by the Indian office, in the administration of functions or services affecting any Indian tribe. Such qualified Indians shall hereafter have the preference to appointment to vacancies in any such positions. Id. at 537-38 (quoting 25 U.S.C. § 472) (internal quotation mark omitted). The BIA adopted a policy that [w]here two or more candidates who meet the established qualification requirements are available for filling a vacancy. If one of them -33- is an Indian, he shall be given preference in filling the vacancy. Id. at 538 n.3. The Court rejected the equal protection challenge to the federal statute. The Court first noted that [t]he plenary power of Congress to deal with the special problems of Indians is drawn both explicitly and implicitly from the Constitution itself, citing the portion of the Commerce Clause allowing regulation of commerce with the Indian tribes, as well as the treaty power. Id. at 551-52 (citing U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3). The Court then noted that there was a special relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes, and that [l]iterally every piece of legislation dealing with Indian tribes and reservations . . . single[s] out for special treatment a constituency of tribal Indians living on or near reservations. Id. at 552. It was in this historical and legal context that the Court addressed the equal protection claim. Id. at 553. The Court held that this preference does not constitute 'racial discrimination.' Indeed, it is not even a 'racial' preference. Rather, it is an employment criterion reasonably designed to further the cause of Indian self-government and to make the BIA more responsive to the needs of its constituent groups. Id. at 553-54 (footnote omitted). The Court further explained: The preference, as applied, is granted to Indians not as a discrete racial group, but, rather, as members of quasi-sovereign tribal entities whose lives and activities are -34- governed by the BIA in a unique fashion. In the sense that there is no other group of people favored in this manner, the legal status of the BIA is truly sui generis. Id. at 554 (citation and footnote omitted). This passage was followed by rather pointed language that if the preference were applied to employment in federal agencies not related to Indians, a different question would be presented: Furthermore, the preference applies only to employment in the Indian service. The preference does not cover any other Government agency or activity, and we need not consider the obviously more difficult question that would be presented by a blanket exemption for Indians from all civil service examinations. Here, the preference is reasonably and directly related to a legitimate, nonracially based goal. This is the principal characteristic that generally is absent from proscribed forms of racial discrimination. Id. at 554. In a footnote, the Court remarked: The preference is not directed towards a 'racial' group consisting of 'Indians'; instead, it applies only to members of 'federally recognized' tribes. This operates to exclude many individuals who are racially to be classified as 'Indians.' In this sense, the preference is political rather than racial in nature. Id. at 553 n.24. The Commonwealth relies on but overreads the footnote. The Court concluded by explaining that [a]s long as the special treatment can be tied rationally to the fulfillment of Congress' unique obligation toward the Indians, such legislative -35- judgments will not be disturbed, and that this standard was satisfied. Id. at 555. Mancari's analysis as to federal laws giving preference based on Congress' unique obligation toward the Indians has been reaffirmed. See, e.g., Washington v. Wash. State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Ass'n, 443 U.S. 658, 673 n.20 (1979) (noting that this Court . . . has repeatedly held that the peculiar semisovereign and constitutionally recognized status of Indians justifies special treatment on their behalf when rationally related to the Government's 'unique obligation toward the Indians' (quoting Mancari, 417 U.S. at 555)); United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641, 645 (1977) (Legislation with respect to these 'unique aggregations' has repeatedly been sustained by this Court against claims of unlawful racial discrimination. (citing Mancari, 417 U.S. at 552)); see also Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676, 692 (1990) (That Indians are citizens does not alter the Federal Government's broad authority to legislate with respect to enrolled Indians as a class, whether to impose burdens or benefits. (citing Antelope and Mancari)), superseded by statute as recognized in United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 197-98, 207 (2004). However, it is quite doubtful that Mancari's language can be extended to apply to preferential state classifications based on tribal status. Mancari itself relied on several sources of federal authority to reach its holding, including the portion of the -36- Commerce Clause relating to Indian tribes, the treaty power, and the special trust relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government. 417 U.S. at 552-53. The states have no such equivalent authority,16 which is ceded by the Constitution to the federal government. Further, the state preference here has to do with establishment of gaming facilities and not employment of Indians within agencies whose mission is to assist Indians. Moreover, Mancari itself said that a different question would be presented by a preference in all civil services positions, and suggested that might be viewed as race based discrimination. KG argues that the state's argument that no racial classification is involved is undercut by Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000). In Rice, a case under the Fifteenth Amendment, the Court declined to extend the limited exception of Mancari to a new and larger dimension, id. at 520, and rejected the state of Hawaii's claim that Mancari applied to allow a voting scheme the state established regarding the Office of Hawaiian affairs, id. at 522. The voting scheme permitted only Hawaiians, defined as any 16 Indeed, the state's broad reading of Mancari is inconsistent with the Court's later decision in Washington v. Confederated Bands & Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463 (1979). We discuss Yakima below, and cite it now for its holding that [s]tates do not enjoy this same unique relationship with Indians which permits the Federal Government to enact legislation singling out tribal Indians, legislation that might otherwise be constitutionally offensive. Id. at 501. -37- descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands which exercised sovereignty and subsisted in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, to vote for the trustees of the Office. Id. at 509 (quoting Haw. Rev. Stat. § 10-2). The Court held this special favorable treatment of Hawaiians was an impermissible racial classification. Id. at 517-22. The Court also held that [a]ncestry can be a proxy for race, and was so in the context of the statute at issue there. Id. at 514. The effect of Rice on a Fourteenth Amendment claim involving federally recognized tribes is unclear. The defendants cite no authority holding that state preferential classifications based on tribal status which are not authorized by federal law are nonetheless not racial classifications under Mancari. Instead, they cite a number of cases upholding state laws, which are not like this case, said to be authorized by federal law under the rationale of Yakima. See Artichoke Joe's Cal. Grand Casino v. Norton, 353 F.3d 712, 736 (9th Cir. 2003) (upholding state law regarding Indian gaming enacted pursuant to the IGRA); United States v. Garrett, 122 F. App'x 628, 631-33 (4th Cir. 2005) (same, following Artichoke Joe's); Squaxin Island Tribe v. Washington, 781 F.2d 715, 722 n.10 (9th Cir. 1986) (upholding state law where the state is acting under a federal statute explicitly adjusting the state's jurisdiction over Indians); Greene v. Comm'r of Minn. Dep't of Human Servs., 755 -38- N.W.2d 713, 727 (Minn. 2008) (upholding state law where the law was a direct response to a federal law, citing Yakima); N.Y. Ass'n of Convenience Stores v. Urbach, 699 N.E.2d 904, 908 (N.Y. 1998) (upholding state law on the rationale of Yakima). We turn next to the defendants' argument that nevertheless the state may still make the classification, because § 91 is authorized by the IGRA under Yakima. In the present posture of this case, that too is quite doubtful.