WASHINGTON – Important allies are turning their backs to the way Congress is currently considering the Cobell settlement.
Leaders with the National Black Farmers Association are drawing major attention to their desire that a settlement under consideration by Congress involving African-American farmers be considered separately from a settlement on a different case involving Native American trust mismanagement by the federal government.
“I am calling for a cloture vote on a stand-alone black farmers bill,” John Boyd Jr., president of the organization, said in a Sept. 21 statement. “While there are lots of very important causes, the black farmers know that unless this bill is considered on its own merits other bills that have nothing to do with this issue – including the Cobell Native American trust fund case – may keep it from passing. Black farmers are dying, in fact another farmer active in the movement died this past week, and I can’t let politicians use other issues as excuses not to vote on justice for black farmers.”
The organization listed the following as an “important note” to Boyd’s statement: “A separate issue now before the Senate called Cobell deals with mismanagement of Native American trust accounts by the United States’ Department of the Interior, while the black farmers’ settlement seeks to give black farmers and blacks who attempted to farm the opportunity to have their claims of discrimination by the USDA determined on their merits.”
Boyd issued his statement in a press release titled, “Black farmers call for Congress to separate black farmers case funding from Cobell, pass stand-alone bill this week.”
In his talk of a settlement for African-American farmers, Boyd was referring to the Pigford II case, which centers on discrimination toward African-American farmers who have had problems dealing with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Black farmers to date have received an approximately $1 billion settlement as a result of the Pigford I case, settled in the late-1990s.
The Obama administration recently brokered a new settlement for $1.2 billion more in Pigford II, which involves new claims. The terms of Pigford I called for black farmers to receive approximately $50,000 each. A similar amount has been proposed for farmers in Pigford II.
Cobell plaintiffs haven’t received any settlement funds to date, although the Obama administration has strongly supported a $3.4 billion proposal.
Many of the thousands of plaintiffs under the Cobell deal negotiated by the administration would receive somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000. Cobell plaintiffs had argued in court that they deserved a much higher number as a result of historical accounting misdeeds by Interior since 1887.
The Pigford and Cobell cases center on far different matters, so the situation has tended to make for interesting bedfellows as Congress and the White House began this year to consider the separate settlements in unison.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., reflected on the differences soon after Boyd’s statement, saying through a spokeswoman, “The settlements address different issues, and combining them certainly makes it more difficult to pass either. The decision to combine the two was made by the administration and the Democrat leadership in Congress last winter.”
Barrasso, the vice chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has expressed numerous problems with the settlement, including the amounts proposed for lawyers’ fees in comparison to what the average plaintiff would get, but he has said a settlement should ultimately be approved.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has taken the opposite view of Barrasso on most points involving Cobell, and this situation was no different. “The two should not be separated, and they will not be separated,” the SCIA chair said through a spokesman. “Any settlement that moves through Congress must include Cobell.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., echoed Dorgan’s sentiment: “Many American Indians have been waiting; some have died waiting, for this settlement to be funded by this Congress. I support passing settlement funding that pays the plaintiffs in both the Pigford II and Cobell settlements. The plaintiffs in both cases know what it is like to suffer from ongoing wrongdoing and both sides deserve justice. Funding these settlements is something I have fought for over many months and I will continue to push for justice.”
Even given the strong positions of the senators, the joint consideration of Pigford and Cobell has sometimes led to questions of whether top policymakers actually know the differences in terms of the cases.
President Barack Obama, in his White House press conference Sept. 10, muddled his description of Cobell to make it sound as if it dealt with the same issues as Pigford II, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a similar mistake in May. The White House has not corrected the president’s misstatement.
Meanwhile, some detractors of the Cobell settlement have used the coupling of the cases to highlight the distinct difference in the amount of funds that the individual Indian plaintiffs would receive versus how much the average black farmer would receive.
Until Boyd made his statement publicly, many involved with Cobell appeared content to let their case be considered alongside the Pigford II settlement. After all, a settlement involving the farmers had already made progress once in Congress. Plus, Pigford II has had the backing of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. Native Americans do not have a similarly powerful group to rally support for their case within Congress in the same manner.
The Cobell team was silent immediately after Boyd issued his statement. Dennis Gingold, the lead lawyer for the Indian plaintiffs, said he had “no comment,” and lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell did not return requests for comment through her spokesman.
This summer Gingold closely monitored attempts by Congress to pass Pigford, and communication has been known to occur between the Cobell and Pigford factions as the cases have progressed.
“The Black Caucus is unhappy that Pigford was stripped from tax extenders, and it will oppose any supplemental war appropriations bill unless Pigford is on it,” Gingold said June 30, as he monitored the progress of congressional approval, which hasn’t come from the Senate to date. The House has twice granted support.
Some observers said the effort to have the cases separated could be especially harmful to Cobell.
Chris Stearns, a Navajo lawyer who worked under the Clinton administration and earlier in Congress, said the development could potentially be “very bad” news for the Indian settlement.
“As long as the White House has Cobell and Pigford coupled together, that’s good news for team Cobell, Stearns said. “It means that the president wants them both done. Which is what Congress needs to hear. I’d get real nervous, however, if the White House gives the green light to separate the two settlements. That’d be trouble.”
Shin Inouye, a spokesman for the White House said, “The president remains committed to seeing these injustices corrected, and continues to urge the Congress to provide funding in both the Cobell and Pigford suits.”
The White House has not said if it would support separating the cases.
