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11.6: Tribal Governments

  • Page ID
    179314

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    Native Americans

    109 federally recognized tribes reside in California. US law states these tribes are sovereign, meaning they are not “creatures of the state” of California. Instead, they are sovereign nations like the United States or other countries. Federal law and courts have established the parameters of law and policy on tribal lands. Tribal governments administer them under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the federal government. Federal laws and court decisions introduce autonomy for tribes in many areas of civil law. In California, as in several other states, the federal government has stipulated that states and tribes jointly share authority over many criminal matters.

    In the last twenty years, tribes have become much more prominent in California politics because of gaming. After the US Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that tribes have a right to develop gambling businesses on their land, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This Act stipulated that tribes must negotiate compacts with states specifying the kind and extent of gambling to be allowed. The tribes gained a new source of revenue, and the states also benefited from new tax revenue. The new wealth derived from casinos has enabled tribes to become significant players in state politics using advertising and campaign donations.

    Many tribes across the United States continue to petition the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for federal recognition.  Among them is the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, which encompasses many lineages of indigenous peoples that trace their heritages to a number of villages in northern Los Angeles County that existed for hundreds of years. To be federally recognized as a tribe, the Tataviam must show evidence of a governing body, a membership list whose members must be primarily not members of other federally recognized tribes, and trace their origins to a "historic Indian tribe."   With the process of adjudication having many steps and opportunities for formal written responses, in 2020, in a phase 1 proposed finding, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the petition of the Tataviam for federal recognition due to a lack of evidence showing that they could trace their heritage to a single tribe.  However, the Tataviam governing council responded in June of 2023 to the Bureau of Indian Affairs with evidence that the Tataviam villages acted together as a "council of the whole," or in other words, a government. As of 2024, this deliberative process continues between the federal government and the Tataviam. 

     


    This page titled 11.6: Tribal Governments is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steven Reti.

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