A brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court by Al Maul, county attorney for Nebraska’s Thurston County, takes a clear stand against a tribe’s right to try other Indians in its court system. However, Maul’s brief erroneously frames this issue as one affecting non-Indians.
This issue has nothing to do with non-Indians, and Maul should know better because he represents a county that includes the Winnebago and Omaha reservations.
The brief was filed in a case called U.S. v. Lara. This case is significant because many Indians live on the 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 disturbed when I read the brief. So I went to the Thurston County Courthouse and asked another elected official about this issue.
I was surprised to be 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 Tom Tobin, a South Dakota lawyer who specializes in reservation diminishment to address the supervisors. Apparently, Mr. Tobin became acquainted enough with Mr. Maul to add his signature to the brief that went 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. The county paid Mr. Tobin more than $1 million.
I only hope that Indian and non-Indian citizens of Thurston County won’t follow that example and spend a single 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.
