Court Opinion

ID: 9655784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:21:43.228541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:21.892761
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL E. SMITH, District Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
On the ground of stare decisis, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes v. Moe, 392 F.Supp. 1297 (Civil No. 2145, Mont.1975) I concur in that portion of the opinion which holds that the personal property including automobiles of reservation Indians, who have not been issued a fee patent, may not be taxed.
I dissent from the opinion in so far as it declares R.C.M.1947 § 53-114 unconstitutional. I think that the state may as it did in § 53-114 condition the issuance of a license on the payment of property and license taxes. The Indian and his property does now have sanctuary from taxation in the reservation and the Indian may drive his unlicensed untaxed automobile in the reservation as he pleases. But the sanctuary ends when off reservation state services are demanded, i. e., the right to drive on off reservation highways and the right to the protection afforded by the off reser*1329vation machinery of the Registrar of Motor Vehicles.
The Flathead treaty says nothing about the Indians’ rights to license and register motor vehicles. There is no Act of Congress which requires the state to license and register untaxed Indian motor vehicles for off reservation use. In the history of Indian taxation the courts have accomplished much by inference but Congress didn’t leave much room for an inference that the untaxed Indian has a right to the full gamut of state services when it said in the Montana Enabling Act:
“The constitutions shall be republican in form, and make no distinction in civil or political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not taxed . . .” Act of Feb. 22, 1889, 25 Stat. 676.
I see no reason why the untaxed Indian should not pay to drive his car off reservation exactly as other citizens do. If the reservation Indian can pick and choose the taxes which he will pay in exchange for off reservation state services then in my opinion we have departed from the concept that there may be no discrimination based on race alone.