The Pechanga American Indian Tribe and the U.S. Supreme Court

After over two years working it's way up through the court systems, a fight that started in the Pechanga Indian Enrollment Committee has ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, with the Court refusing to intercede on behalf of the 133 former members of the Pechanga Tribe of American Indians. The expelled members are all descendents of Manuela Miranda, a Pechanga Indian who moved off the reservation in the 1920s. According to Los Angeles CBS affiliate KCAL, the position of the Pechanga Tribe is that Miranda had severed all ties with the Pechanga people, and therefore, her descendents are not considered valid members of the tribe.

What, on the surface, appears to be an ideological question about the rights of tribal counsels to control their own rosters and the appropriateness of the court systems of the United States government to intervene in American Indian disputes unfolds itself into a less dogmatic scrapple over gaming money and its associated perks.

As owners and operators of the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, CA, the Pechanga tribe of Luiseno Mission Indians has found financial cache with the success of its gaming and resort enterprises. With the loss of their status as Pechanga Indians, the 133 ousted members claim that they stand to lose approximately $120,000 to $180,000 per year per person in casino profits, as well as homes, health insurance, college scholarships, and jobs.

Accounting for approximately 20% of the number of enrolled members, the dis-enrollment of Manuela Miranda's descendents certainly works mathematically in favor of the remaining members of the tribe, who stand to enjoy a healthy increase in their portion of the spoils of this war.

But, just how did this dispute end up in the United States court system? Native American tribes are considered political entities that enjoy Sovereign Nation status. They have the power to be self-governing, and, according to the Native American Management Services, they have the right to form their own government, the power to make and enforce both civil and criminal laws, and the power to establish membership. So how did this argument find itself outside of tribal government and make itself all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court?

The booted members of the Pechanga Tribe utilized an interpretation of Public Law 280 to take their grievance to California state courts. Public Law 280 grants courts in California jurisdiction in civil litigation between American Indians and Tribes, as California tribes lack courts to settle civil disputes, according to San Diego's Union-Tribune.

That dispute has now seen several lawsuits filed, appeals argued, a Public Law brought into question by tribal officials, and years of angry press. The final legal play was made May 2006 when the United States Supreme Court refused to intervene in the Pechanga Tribe's decision to expel its members, choosing instead to support the tribe's right to control its own enrollment.

So, what is going on? The former Pechanga members' lawsuit is just one of many that have been filed by Native Americans ousted from their tribes where a question of casino and gaming money is in question. Has the newfound wealth that many tribes are experiencing served to separate what once was solid in its unity, or has it encouraged an increase in unsubstantiated claims against tribes that have recently had to have more fabric sewn into their pockets?

The answer may not be a simple one, and it certainly won't be answered in these seven hundred words, but two things are clear: 133 former members of the Pechanga Tribe of the Luiseno Mission Indians are experiencing a sharp downward shift in their financial situation, employment status, healthcare, and education potential because of their descendency from a tribal member whose entitlement to her place in the enrollment roster of the Pechanga Tribe had not been called into question before the Pechanga Resort & Casino came into being, and that the strongly held beliefs by Native American groups that their governmental affairs are controlled independently by those groups, enjoying Sovereign Nation status, unless large amounts of gaming revenue is involved. The disenfranchising of their own by disenfranchised people is hard to watch.