Provides for the reinstatement of state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation; provides that the Montaukett Indian nation shall have a chief or sachem, three tribal trustees and a tribal secretary; provides for the qualification of voters; makes related provisions.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A9124
SPONSOR: Thiele TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the Indian law, in relation to the reinstatement of
state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation
PURPOSE:
Relates to the reinstatement of state recognition and acknowledgement of
the Montaukett Indian Nation. It provides for the leadership of the
Montaukett Indian Nation; qualification of voters and office.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1. Legislative Findings
Section 2. Amends Section 2 of the Indian Law to add the Montaukett
Indian Nation to the list of New York State Indian Nations and Tribes
Section 3. Amends the Indian Law by adding a new Article 11 - "The
Montaukett Indian Nation"
Section 4. Provides for an immediate effective date
JUSTIFICATION:
The Montaukett Indian Nation seeks reinstatement of its recognition and
acknowledgment by the state of New York. Such recognition and acknowl-
edgment was improperly removed from the Montaukett Indian Nation in 1910
in the case of Pharaoh v. Benson,69 Misc. Rep. 241(Supreme, Suffolk
Co., 1910) affirmed 164 App. Div. 51, affirmed 222 N.Y. 665, when the
Montaukett Indian Nation was declared to be "extinct".
The court ruled that "the tribe has disintegrated and been absorbed into
the mass of citizens and at the time of commencement of this action
there was no tribe of Montaukett Indians". This arbitrary ruling ignored
earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions defining Indian Nations according
to criteria under which the Montaukett Indian Nation qualified as an
existing sovereign tribe and giving Congress, rather than the courts,
power to decide the status of an Indian.
In the first of these U.S. Supreme Court decisions, United States v.
Roger, 45 U.S. 567 (1848), the court ruled that the primary criteria for
Indian identity was evidence that an Indian had to have some genealogi-
cal connection with a recognized group that had existed before the
arrival of the European white explorers, traders, and settlers. Verified
evidence demonstrates that the Montaukett Indian Nation existed prior to
the Doctrine of Discovery and, as a sovereign tribe, ruled from the end
of the Island to what is today the town of Hempstead.
Subsequently, a decade before the Montaukett decision, in Montoya v.
U.S., 180 U.S. 261 (1901), the U.S. Supreme Court further defined an
Indian tribe as "a body of Indians of the same or similar race, united
in a community under one leadership or government, and inhabiting a
particular though sometimes well-defined territory". The Montaukett
Indian Nation also met this criteria.
Further, at the time of Pharaoh v. Benson decision, the judicial branch-
es of state and federal governments had no authority to determine the
status of an Indian tribe. Only the U.S. Congress had such power. In
1903, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the United States v. Rickert, 188
U.S. 432 (1903) that only Congress can determine when changes in customs
are sufficient to invalidate tribal status.
The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled in Butts v. Northern Pacific Rail Road
(1911), that neither the lapse of time, allotment of a portion of the
tribal lands in severalty, immigration of a majority of the tribe, nor
the fact that the habits and customs of the tribe have changed by inter-
course with whites authorize the courts to disregard tribal status.
That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court again spoke to the question of
judicial authority in cases involving tribal existence, holding in Tiger
v. Western Investment Company, 221 U.S. 286 (1911) that only the U.S.
Congress had the authority to determine changes in tribal status.
In 1994, the State Supreme Court, in the case of Breakers Motel, Inc.
v. Sunbeach Montauk Two, Inc., subsequently described the Pharaoh case
as being of "questionable propriety", a recognition by the State Supreme
Court that the decision removing recognition and acknowledgment from the
Montaukett Indian Nation was dubious.
This legislature finds that in Pharaoh v. Benson, the Court improperly
ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent and lacked jurisdiction to judge
the status of the Montaukett Indian Nation. It is the purpose of this
legislation to reverse this improper and illegal result by the rein
statement of acknowledgment and recognition by the State of New York to
the Montaukett Indian Nation.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2023: A.6919/S.6721 Veto 61 of 2023
2021-22: A.4069/S.6889 Veto 110 of 2022
2019-20: A.5411/S.3691
2018: A.9898/S.7770 Veto 360 of 2018
2017: A.2325/S.3006 Veto 174 of 2017
2015-16: A.202A/S.375A
2014: A.9704/S.7619
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
