Corin La Pointe-Aitchison Elected Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section Co-Chair

Corin La Pointe-Aitchison has been elected by his peers to serve as the Co-Chair of the Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section.

Corin is an associate in the Seattle office of Galanda Broadman, PLLC. His practice focuses on litigation involving tribal governments and enterprises, and Indigenous civil rights. He is a Koyukon Athabaskan descendant whose family hails from Nulato, Alaska.

Anthony Broadman was also elected to an Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section leadership position. Anthony will serve as a Section Trustee. He is a past Chair of the Section.

NCAI Passes Historic Tribal Citizenship Protection Measure

Jamestown S’Klallam Chairmen Ron Allen, previously pictured at NCAI in 2019.

Last Monday President Fawn Sharp convened the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) annual convention with a call for national conversation about equality and “what it means to just respect another human being, just basic civil and human rights."  

As its last measure of business on Friday, NCAI passed a measure to protect the Indigenous human and civil rights associated with Tribal citizenship for the first time in its seventy-six year history.

NCAI Resolution #PDX-20-001 affirms the inherent Tribal sovereign right of each Native Nation to decide who belongs as a citizen, and recognizes the Indigenous right to belong as a citizen free from discrimination. 

Both rights are recognized as human rights in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

“The resolution powerfully affirms both sides of the tribal citizenship coin: The Indigenous human and civil right to belong and the inherent Tribal sovereign right to decide who belongs,” said Shannon O’Loughlin, a Choctaw Nation citizen and Director of the Association of American Indians Affairs (AAIA).

The resolution also creates an NCAI Tribal Citizenship Protection and Policy Task Force “to study, educate, and develop recommendations regarding issues of Indigenous tribal citizenship.”  The task force will empower NCAI to defend against federal and anti-Tribal assaults on Tribal citizenship. 

During NCAI committee deliberations, delegates cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Baby Veronica decision as well as current litigation before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Indian Child Welfare Act has been undermined by attacks on Tribal citizenship blood quantum criteria.

The Trump administration’s treatment of Native Nations as racial groups under Medicaid rules and disregard of Tribal citizenship data as a basis for federal COVID-relief funding were also discussed as reasons for greater NCAI Tribal citizenship protection.

“Our Tribal citizens—the People—are the foundation of our sovereign nations,” said the resolution’s prime sponsor, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Chairman and former NCAI President Ron Allen.  “We must protect against outside attacks on Tribal citizenship, whether from the U.S. Congress, federal courts or anti-Indigenous groups.”

The Congress’ deliberations also touched on internal Tribal human and civil rights violations associated with disenrollment, which certain NCAI leaders denounced as inconsistent with Indigenous kinship tradition. Language was added to the resolution to prevent it from being used to undermine Tribal sovereignty and membership prerogative.

Joining Chairmen Allen in support of the resolution were former NCAI Presidents Brian Cladoosby, Susan Masten, and Mel Tonasket, and several Native Nations and national inter-tribal organizations.

Also supportive were the Jamestown and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribes, Yakama Nation, and Spokane Tribe of Washington State; the Organized Village of Saxman in Alaska; Robinson Rancheria of California; Hualapai Tribe of Arizona; and Citizen Band of Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma. 

Those Native Nations were joined by the Great Plains Chairmen’s Association and eastern and southern Alliance of Colonial Era Tribes. In addition to AAIA, the National Urban Indian Family Coalition, National Native American Bar Association (NNABA), National Native American Law Student Association, and Association of American Indian Physicians also endorsed the resolution.   

NNABA, which passed its own resolution of support, applauded NCAI for Resolution #PDX-20-001 and pledged “technical assistance and legal guidance to NCAI's Task Force upon request.”

O’Loughlin believes it is "imperative that Tribal leadership have open dialogue about protecting Tribal citizenship, nationhood and identity,” explaining: “It is time that our Nations be the example of what it looks like to the world to protect human rights and cultural sovereignty."

With Chairmen Allen hopeful that the resolution and forthcoming task force “will help prepare NCAI for frontline defense of Tribal citizenship and nationhood,” the national Indigenous human and civil rights conversation has commenced.

Gabriel S. Galanda is the Managing Lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, an Indigenous rights firm headquartered in Seattle. Gabe belongs to the Round Valley Indian Tribes, descending from the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes.

After 76 Years, Tribal Citizenship on National Indian Congress' Agenda

The 76 year-old National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has never proclaimed its support of Tribal citizenship rights.  But that could change this week.

NCAI will convene its annual meeting on Monday and consider a Tribal citizenship protection Resolution, at the urging of a broad coalition of former NCAI Presidents, Native Nations, inter-Tribal organizations, and Indigenous leaders, educators, and advocates.

Past NCAI President Ron Allen proposes Resolution #PDX-20-001, which would affirm that “since time immemorial, each Tribal Nation retains the right to determine its own membership and each Indigenous individual enjoys the right to belong as a citizen of his or her Tribal Nation, according to its traditions and customs . . .” 

“Our tribal citizens—the People—are the foundation of our sovereign nations,” said Allen, the current Chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.  “We must protect against outside attacks on tribal citizenship, whether from the U.S. Congress, federal courts or anti-Indigenous groups.”

Tribal citizenship has increasingly come under attack by the federal government and anti-tribal groups. 

In the Baby Veronica case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito derided Tribal belonging in the first line of his majority decision that undercut the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), with this statement: “This case is about a little girl  . . . who is classified as an Indian because she is 1.2% (3/256) Cherokee.”  

Earlier this year the Goldwater Institute cited Tribal blood-quantum citizenship criteria to assail ICWA as an unconstitutional race-based law before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Brackeen v. Bernhardt. 

The Trump Administration likewise mischaracterized Tribal governmental health care beneficiaries as a racial class for Medicaid purposes, and also attempted to unilaterally stop issuing the federal Indian blood degree certifications that many Tribal governments utilize for citizenship purposes. 

The NCAI Resolution “will help prepare NCAI for frontline defense of tribal citizenship and nationhood,” Allen continued.  Former NCAI Presidents Brian Cladoosby, Susan Masten, and Mel Tonasket also support the Resolution, which as of this morning awaits referral by NCAI’s Executive Board to a committee of jurisdiction.

During yesterday’s NCAI Executive Board Meeting by Zoom, Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians President and Suquamish Chairman Leonard Forsman shared these words with the Board:

And Indian identity and citizenship are essential to Native nationhood. According to Dr. Joe Kalt of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development: “Nothing is more central to any nation’s sovereignty than the power to determine who shall hold rights of citizenship and belonging,”   

Observing that Tribal leaders frequently contact the Harvard Project for advice regarding Tribal citizenship challenges, Dr. Kalt sees the Resolution as an opportunity “to bring much-needed focus to these critical matters” and to “strengthen the self-governing powers of all Indigenous nations.”

The Jamestown and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribes, Yakama Nation, and Spokane Tribe of Washington State, the Organized Village of Saxman in Alaska, Robinson Rancheria of California, Hualapai Tribe of Arizona, and Citizen Band of Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma are urging NCAI to adopt the Resolution.

Those western Native Nations are joined by the Great Plains Chairmen’s Association and eastern and southern Alliance of Colonial Era Tribes. 

The Association of American Indian Affairs (AAIA), National Urban Indian Family Coalition, National Native American Bar Association, National Native American Law Student Association, and Association of American Indian Physicians have also endorsed the Resolution, understanding the great extent to which Tribal citizenship undergirds Indigenous life, health, safety, culture, and law.

Believing it is “imperative that Tribal leadership have open dialogue about protecting Tribal citizenship, nationhood and identity,” Shannon O’Loughlin, a Choctaw citizen and AAIA’s Executive Director, remarked: “It is time that our Nations be the example of what it looks like to the world to protect human rights and cultural sovereignty.”

Galanda Broadman Once Again Named "Best Firm" in Native American & Gaming Law by U.S. News

Galanda Broadman, PLLC, has been named a “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News - Best Lawyers in the arena of Native American Law and Gaming Law, for the ninth year in a row. 

According to U.S. News - Best Lawyers, the firm's national ranking was determined through the firm's overall evaluation, which was derived from a combination of Galanda Broadman’s “clients' impressive feedback” and “the high regard that lawyers in other firms in the same practice area have for [the] firm.” 

Galanda Broadman is dedicated to advancing Indigenous legal rights and business interests and defending Indigenous human rights.

The firm, with eight lawyers and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington and Bend, Oregon, represents Tribal governments, businesses, and citizens in critical litigation, business and regulatory matters—especially in matters of Treaty rights, sovereignty, taxation, civil rights, and belonging.