News > Lance Morgan: The politics of fear and racism

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Lance Morgan: The politics of fear and racism
Thursday, February 19, 2004

I got an email a few weeks ago that included a legal brief filed by Al Maul, the attorney for the county that includes the Winnebago and Omaha reservations in Nebraska. The brief took a clear stand against a tribe's right to try other Indians in its court system, an issue that has nothing to do with non-Indians.

The brief was filed in a U.S. Supreme Court case called U.S. vs. Lara. The case is a big deal because lots of Indians live on reservations of other tribes. It has huge implications in divorce, child support, child custody and any number of civil cases. Without jurisdiction over non-member Indians, tribes will see negative impacts on any number of real-life situations.

Although I have personally had nothing but cordial relations with Mr. Maul, I was pretty upset when I read the brief. So I went to the Thurston County Courthouse and asked another elected official about this issue.

I was actually surprised when I was told that the Thurston County Board of Supervisors gave Mr. Maul approval to file the brief. An employee told me the supervisors were scared that "if the Indians got jurisdiction over other Indians that they might want jurisdiction over white people too."

The Lara case has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with jurisdiction over non-Indians. No rational lawyer or politician thinks that Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court will make non-Indians go to tribal court against their will. This obviously race-based scare tactic by the elected county attorney is very troubling.

Most people don't realize the kind of influence the county attorney can have on a body of public officials like the board of supervisors. In just the last couple of years, I have experienced Mr. Maul's version of "fair representation" of his Native American constituents and think it might be educational to give some examples.

I have seen him touting a bogus legal case stating that the Omaha Reservation doesn't exist anymore near Fort Pender. He claims the federal government diminished the reservation but if you ask the federal government, they will say they didn't.

In response to the Winnebago Tribe's attempt to bring some sense of order to pollutants in our water supply, Mr. Maul brought in a South Dakota lawyer who specializes in reservation diminishment to address the supervisors. Apparently, our county couldn't afford to hire him but Mr. Maul must have become buddies with the guy because the lawyer, Tom Tobin, also signed the brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ties don't end there. The attorney for the Minnesota county that includes the Mille Lacs Reservation signed the brief too. The Mille Lacs Tribe just fought -- and won -- an expensive legal battle against the county's claim that the reservation didn't exist anymore.

By the way, the Minnesota county paid over $1 million to Mr. Tobin to lose the case. I only hope that Indian and non-Indian citizens of Thurston County won't spend a dime of taxpayers dollars to enrich lawyers -- and I am a lawyer!

Thurston County is the most diverse county in Nebraska with over 50 percent of its population made up of Native Americans. Dakota County is the second most diverse, with a 29 percent minority population -- they just recalled their county attorney.

Nowhere else would such an obviously race-based political agenda thrive against a population that holds a majority of the votes. The only way it can continue to happen is if we let it.

Never again should the interests of the majority of the population be so blithely dismissed, or actively worked against, just to feed the politics of fear and racism.

Don't forget to vote in 2004.

Lance Morgan, a member of the Winnebago Tribe, is the chief executive officer of Ho-Chunk Inc., the economic development corporation of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Ho-Chunk Inc. owns Indianz.Com and http://www.allnative.com.

Relevant Documents:
Docket Sheet: No. 03-107 (Supreme Court) | Briefs: U.S. v. Lara (NCAI/NARF Supreme Court Project)

Get the Decision:
8th Circuit: U.S. v. Lara (en banc) (March 24, 2003) | U.S. v. Lara (panel) (June 20, 2002)

Related Decisions:
9th Circuit: U.S. v. Enas (June 29, 2001) | 7th Circuit: U.S. v. Long (March 20, 2003)