Law Commons^™

Indigenous Voices And American Politics, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

President [Bush], in a convoluted response to a question on the meaning of tribal sovereignty (essentially the inherent right of indigenous nations to self-governance) posed by a minority journalist on August 6, told the 7,500 assembled journalists that "tribal sovereignty means that it's sovereign. You're a—you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."

Nevertheless, these two statements by the leading presidential candidates are big deals for Indian nations. They provide a measure of overt national political recognition for several of the most …

Transformations In Supreme Court Thought: The Irresistible Force (Federal Indian Law & Policy) Meets The Movable Object (American Indian Tribal Status), David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This article is a content analysis examination of 107 federal court cases involving American Indian tribal sovereignty and federal plenary power rendered between 1870 and 1921. Our focus, however, is the U.S. Supreme Court's Indian Law jurisprudence; thus ninety of the cases analyzed were Supreme Court opinions. The cases seemingly entail two separate braces of opinions. One brace included decisions which affirmed tribal sovereignty. The other brace entailed cases which negatively affected tribal sovereignty. These negative decisions generally relied on doctrines such as plenary power, the political question doctrine, or the so- called “guardian-ward” relationship. We argue that the Supreme …