Indian Affairs won't recognize Little Shell Tribe

[Kadie]

Indian Affairs won't recognize Little Shell Tribe

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer Matthew Brown, Associated Press Writer – 36 mins ago

BILLINGS, Mont. – After a 31-year wait, the U.S. Department of Interior said Tuesday it will not recognize Montana's Little Shell Tribe, a group of landless Indians who have struggled to stay together through more than a century of poverty and dislocation.

The tribe's long campaign for acknowledgment now turns to Congress. Members of Montana's delegation said they would push to circumvent the executive branch decision.

"It kind of hurts, naturally, but it's not the end of the line," said Little Shell elder Roger Salois, 72, after learning of the government's denial.

"It's really hard to describe a feeling like this," Salois added. "You have your community and your place to go. We don't have that. But we're still together, and we're still Little Shell."

The three-decade delay in answering the tribe's application was chalked up in part to "departures from precedent" — a reference to the Little Shell's scattered membership and its history of intermarriage with non-Indians and members of other tribes.

Critics, including U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, blamed the delay on the "broken" bureaucracy that oversees Indian recognition requests.

Tester and fellow Montana Democrat Sen. Max Baucus said they introduced legislation Tuesday to override the Interior Department's decision. U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican, earlier introduced a similar measure in the House.


more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_battle_of_little_shell

[Wetzelbill]

1. tough decision

I feel for them.

[petronius]

2. So they were essentially forced to disperse, and now they're not a tribe

because they dispersed? Sounds kind of unfair...

[Robb]

3. God forbid Tester and Baucus *fix* the problem.

Nedra Darling of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs said officials had to make their decision based on a strict set of criteria that allowed little flexibility.

"That's what Congress gave us. Those are the regulations they set," she said.

...Rather than a half-assed run-around of the executive branch, they could fix the legislation.

[BolivarianHero]

4. It's Tester and Baucus...

They make Snowe and Collins look like communists.