Senate OKs payments to Indians
Landowners claim they were swindled out of royalties
WASHINGTON – The Senate has approved almost $4.6 billion to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the government.
The money has been held up for months in the Senate as Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it. The two class action lawsuits were filed over a decade ago.
The settlements include almost $1.2 billion for black farmers who say they suffered discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department. Also, $3.4 billion would go to Indian landowners who claim they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department. The legislation was approved in the Senate by voice vote Friday and sent to the House.
President Barack Obama in a statement praised the Senate for passing the bill and urged the House to move forward on it. He said his administration is also working to resolve separate lawsuits filed against the USDA by Hispanic and women farmers.
Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning, Mont., and the lead plaintiff in the Indian case, said Friday that it took her breath away when she learned the Senate had passed the bill. She said was feeling despondent after the chamber had tried and failed to pass the legislation many times. Two people who would have been beneficiaries had died on her reservation this week.
“It’s 17 below and the Blackfeet nation is feeling warm,” she said. “I don’t know if people understand or believe the agony you go through when one of the beneficiaries passes away without justice.”
Lawmakers from both parties have said they support resolving the long-standing claims of discrimination and mistreatment by federal agencies. But the funding has been caught up in a fight over spending and deficits. Republicans repeatedly objected to the settlements when they were added on to larger pieces of legislation. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., satisfied conservative complaints by finding spending offsets to cover the cost.
The legislation also includes a one-year extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which gives grants to states to provide cash assistance and other services to the poor, and several American Indian water rights settlements in Arizona, Montana and New Mexico sought by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
In the Indian case, at least 300,000 Native Americans claim they were swindled out of royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. The plaintiffs would share the settlement.
The Cobell lawsuit has dragged on for almost 15 years, with one judge in 2008 comparing it to Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House,” which chronicles a never-ending legal suit. Using passages from that novel, U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that the “suit has, in course of time, become so complicated” that “no two lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises.”
The Indian plaintiffs originally said they were owed $100 billion, but signaled they were willing to settle for less as the trial wore on. After more than 3,600 court filings and 80 court decisions, the two sides finally reached a settlement in December.
“Personally I still think we’re owed a hundred billion dollars, but how long do you drag this thing out?” Cobell said Friday. “Do you drag it out until every beneficiary is dead? You just can’t do that.”