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U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#711

Post by enkid »

ggggtez wrote: post #299
cgb223 wrote: post #104

> The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city. So does this effectively create two different rules of law over the same land...? Like how does this work?

It probably will come down to further court cases, but likely, yeah half of Oklahoma will be subject to Oklahoma state law, and half will be subject to tribal law. That's no different than a state being neighbor to a different state with looser/different laws. Probably they'll work out a compromise like: tribal government pays Oklahoma fees to have them run infrastructure as they have been, and the State forwards tax…

It's actually a lot more complicated than that. Tribal law is mostly for intra tribal criminal cases, and does not have jurisdiction over people who aren't members of the tribe or when a crime is committed outside a reservation. So, going from having a relatively small portion of a state, where most people were probably part of a tribe to having have a state in that status makes thinks very complicated for law enforcement. It's not like the tribes just randomly took over half of Oklahoma and established a new state. For most people, Oklahoma will still have jurisdiction over them.

https://medium.com/@WillandCoch/the-tribal-court-system-what...

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#713

Post by uxp100 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #509
brobdingnagians wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do applaud that thinking; I hope it sets a precedent that can be used more widely. I hope they apply it more widely to things they don't necessarily ideologically agree with. Civil society needs more honesty and dedication to keeping your word, even when that is painful. That might lead to people thinking more carefully about where they stand and what they say as well.

Amen. This isn't a nonsequitor, I swear: why can't freedom of religion be used to legalize drugs? And, why can't Indian reservations, especially, sell what they please?

There are churches that "sell" marajuana and sometime other drugs this way. It really depends on the location how much it is tolerated. In California before recreational it was mostly tolerated. In states without even medical I think it is usually busted quickly, but you know, results in a court case, maybe they are busted a few times, things are kinda ambiguous, and they sometimes hang around for a while. They often have a connection to Native Americans, often just like, a few people who are Native American involved in the organization spreading what may or may not actually be traditional beliefs.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#714

Post by alex-wallish »

gruez wrote: post #689
refurb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up in Canada some of the reservations do 99-years leases with developers. They retain ownership, but can actually get something for it.

What happens after 99 years? Are they expected/obligated to renew for a reasonable fee? What's preventing them from refusing to renew the leases after 99 years, and keeping the property (and whatever improvements on top) for themselves? It might not be an issue for the first or second generation of owners, but you'd expect the uncertainly to hurt the resale value of the property as the 99 years approaches.

Reminds me of a certain piece of land that Britain has a 99 year lease on. Hard for them to end well without a contractual option to extend under reasonable conditions.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#716

Post by ridaj »

gruez wrote: post #689
refurb wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up in Canada some of the reservations do 99-years leases with developers. They retain ownership, but can actually get something for it.

What happens after 99 years? Are they expected/obligated to renew for a reasonable fee? What's preventing them from refusing to renew the leases after 99 years, and keeping the property (and whatever improvements on top) for themselves? It might not be an issue for the first or second generation of owners, but you'd expect the uncertainly to hurt the resale value of the property as the 99 years approaches.

Ground rents are fairly common

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_rent

Yes it can hurt resale prospects, the longer into the lease you get. At the same time it can also lower upfront acquisition costs. Something to know when you get into it.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#717

Post by kelnos »

supernova87a wrote: post #700
kelnos wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because they're not "rights"; they're legally-granted privileges. I agree that this sort of law is bonkers, but understand that no one has a "right" to own land[0]. That's a privilege conferred by legal frameworks, and only works because we all more or less agree to abide by them and live in civil society. [0] The US Constitution does not grant this right, and in fact the Framers were well aware of the divide…

The source of the possession being law is understandable. I guess what is bonkers or could use some (historical?) explanation is why real property is given an allowance to be taken through use by others, when the ownership of the land is recorded (though probably unmarked physically). To some, extending that logic might say, I have a right to take this bike because it's just sitting in front of a house unused. Is it…

That's a really good question, and I wonder as well.

I tend to believe that land is just different from things like manufactured goods. There's a fixed amount of land (modulo landfill and such), and we all have to live on it. People disagree as to how land should be used, and people believe they should get a say in how other people's land is used because land is a common good.

Land isn't fungible; some people would prefer waterfront property, while others would prefer to live in the woods, but at the same time most people would prefer to live such that they're not too far away from other people, and from things like grocery stores. While there are certainly some people who do want to live remotely, that's not that common. Each plot of land is different, and one person controlling one plot of land means everyone else is deprived of that particular plot.

So we basically say: "ok, you can own this land, but you have to use it in certain community-approved ways, and you have to actually use it; if you don't, we're going to take it away or require you to sell it to someone who will" (ok, the latter half of that is vanishingly rare). Or maybe "if someone else starts using it and you can't be arsed to notice, we're just gonna let them keep using it". And maybe that's not all that unreasonable, despite what I've said about this type of law being bonkers?

But a bicycle is just a bicycle, and the supply of them is effectively infinite. If I'm not using mine, there's no bicycle limit such that my "waste" would cause someone else to not be able to use a bicycle. They can simply go to a store and buy one, an identical one, even, if they want.

The same doesn't hold true for land: me owning and doing something (or not doing something) with a particular plot of land means that no one else can do something with that specific plot of land. If it's undesirable, or in the middle of nowhere where near-identical land is abundant, perhaps it doesn't matter. But if it's in a highly-desirable place where space is limited, it might matter.

(And thus we have the philosophical basis for housing crises.)

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#718

Post by remarkEon »

dluan wrote: post #635
remarkEon wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend a lot of time in the summers reading SCOTUS opinions, and I have to flatly disagree with this. Gorsuch peppers in these comments and they distinctly detract from the legal reasoning in the Opinion. It’s cute, but superfluous and further turns justices into “rockstars” to be cheered, which is bad.

this is like commenting code - who is the code meant to be written for? other programmers, or the compiler?

No, this is nothing like commenting code. These comments are not meant for other "programmers" (i.e. Justices). They're meant for the public, which doesn't compile anything with regard to the Supreme Court.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#719

Post by [deleted] »

antics wrote: post #130

Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it. This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications. The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Trib…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#720

Post by kelnos »

ponker wrote: post #319
ISL wrote: post #49

I found the conclusion compelling. I haven't yet had enough time this morning to read the dissent thoughtfully. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf "The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised…

What Gorsuch's opinion does directly imply is that the "promise" to the Creek can be revoked by Congress at any time, i.e. it's hardly a "promise" at all.

Well, yes, but that's just a fact of legislation. There are no "promises"; there are just laws that are easy or hard to change. If we were to amend the constitution to set aside land for native peoples, then that's probably the closest we can get to a promise, as that's probably the hardest kind of law to change -- but it's still not a promise, because it can be changed.

Sure, Congressional legislation could take away that land. That would be a lousy thing for them to do. Unfortunately since I doubt Native American groups are a big enough voting bloc, the only thing that would stop Congress from doing that would be enough negative public opinion from people who are not Native American. Hopefully there are enough people of that sort.

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