Seattle National Archives Closure Would Hurt Northwest Tribal Heritage

The Trump Administration is preparing to shutter the National Archives facility located in Seattle’s Sand Point neighborhood and sell the property to the highest bidder. This plan would hurt Indian Country, particularly Indigenous Americans who seek to prove or confirm their belonging in their Tribal communities.

The Sand Point location is a repository for all federal records generated in the Pacific Northwest, including historical documents relating to the 272 federally recognized tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Notably, “[i]t contains important treaty documents.” As Josh Wisniewski, an anthropologist for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, explained to the Seattle Times: “You can see an earlier draft of a treaty.”

The facility also includes various federal land, census, and other information that tribes and tribal citizens use to establish or confirm tribal history and heritage. As genealogist and historian Trish Hackett Nicola explains:

Tribal members use these files to establish or keep membership in tribes. Proof of tribal citizenship is used to obtain education funds. Tribal records have been used for retaining fishing rights, as in the Boldt Decision. Native school records from Alaska and Oregon are included in the NARA collections.

The Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribes were quick to denounce the proposed closure and sale. Read Puyallup and Port Gamble’s opposition letters here.

Senators from Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Idaho, and eight of Washington’s ten House Representatives also condemned the proposal, in part because of the negative impacts it would have on Indian Country.

The facility houses records, both archival and in storage, that are vital to...tribal members…

Nor were Native American tribes or Alaska Natives consulted about the proposed relocation of records so important to their sovereignty and history.

This facility’s Textual Research and Public Access Research Rooms...provide in-person access to records of importance on a broad range of issues and topics...including....tribal membership…

Our firm has represented many Indigenous persons who seek Tribal citizenship, and hundreds of Tribal citizens facing disenrollment by politicians in charge of Tribal governments in Washington and Oregon.

The Sand Point location, which is within two miles of our office, is one of those clients’ first stops when seeking to establish or confirm that they belong to their Indigenous communities.

Disenrollees, in particular, travel from throughout the Northwest to Sand Point, at significant expense, to search for federal allotment and other Indian land records; U.S. censuses and Indian rolls; and Indigenous ancestors’ marriage and birth certificates and other vital records. They do so with a proverbial gun to their head, often expected to find such genealogical information within a few weeks.

Moving those records to National Archives storage in Kansas City and Southern California would render that information unavailable to disenrollees when needed the most, as well as other Indigenous Americans who casually seek ancestral information to ascertain or confirm their sense of belonging.

All of Indian Country would suffer if this plan is realized. Please do your part to help preserve our heritage:

1. Email the Office of Management and Budget’s Acting Director Russell T. Vought:  Russell.t.vought@omb.eop.gov.

2. Email the agency proposing the sale, the Public Buildings Reform Board: fastainfo@pbrb.gov.

3. Contact the National Archives via its contact page at https://www.archives.gov/contact.

Gabriel S. Galanda is the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, in Seattle. Gabe is a descendant of the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes, belonging to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California.

Trump’s NEPA Rollback Will Hurt Indigenous Communities

By Amber Penn-Roco

President Trump proposes to gut the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). 

A proposed rule, now published in the Federal Register, suggests significant changes that would narrow the range of projects that would require  NEPA review and impose strict deadlines for the completion of NEPA review.  The changes would also eliminate the need for agencies to consider the “cumulative impacts” of projects, namely: climate change.  The changes would also make it more difficult for affected local communities to comment on projects.

Minority communities would be disproportionately impacted by the proposed changes.  “The most vulnerable communities are going to pay with lives and their health.  They always have,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali with the National Wildlife Federation, previously a senior advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency.  “Moving forward with this is reckless and will endanger the lives of black and brown communities and indigenous communities.  It’s really that simple.”

Historically, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that:

Indigenous peoples of North America are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change.  The most vulnerable industries, settlements, and societies are generally those in coastal and river flood plains; those whose economies are closely linked with climate-sensitive resources; and those in areas prone to extreme weather events.  Nearly all tribes fit into one of those categories . . .

The Intergovernmental Panel found that, in particular, Tribes that rely on fisheries will be significantly impacted by climate change, explaining:

The Environmental Protection Agency predicts that the next 40 to 80 years will see the loss of more than half of the salmon and trout habitats throughout the United States.  These are fish that a large number of tribes rely on for subsistence, cultural practices, and economic development.  Native foods and fisheries are also declining, and tribal access to traditional foods and medicines is often limited by reservation boundaries.  The large role of climate change in separating tribal people from their natural resources poses a threat to Indigenous identity.

Indigenous communities will be disproportionally impacted by any impacts to the environment caused by the rollback of NEPA, particularly insofar as the proposed rule would: (1) eliminate the consideration of climate change impacts; while (2) limiting the voices of local communities. 

That’d amount to a double whammy for Indigenous peoples.

The proposed rule is subject to a 60-day public comment period; public comments must be received by March 10, 2020.  The proposed rule will also be subject to two public hearings, in Denver, Colorado on February 11, 2020; and in Washington, DC on February 25, 2020. 

I strongly urge Indigenous communities and leaders to submit public comments challenging the proposed rule and to ensure Indigenous voices are heard at both of these hearings.

Amber Penn-Roco is an Owner of Galanda Broadman, PLLC.  Amber practices in the firm’s Seattle office.  Amber’s practice focuses on the protection of tribal environmental, natural and cultural resources.  Her practice also includes promoting the economic development of tribes.  She is an enrolled member of the Chehalis Tribe.

Amber Penn-Roco Promoted to Partner at Galanda Broadman

On January 1, 2020, the Galanda Broadman law firm welcomed Amber Penn-Roco into its ownership ranks. Amber’s practice focuses on Indigenous environmental compliance, permitting, and litigation, from the tribal governmental point of view.  She represents Tribes and Tribal citizens throughout the West.

“I am so proud of my work at Galanda Broadman, where I have been allowed to make my passion into a practice,” said Amber. “I am proud to call myself an Indigenous environmental lawyer. I’ve dedicated my practice to the protection of natural and cultural resources and I’m thrilled to continue my work as a partner on behalf of Indigenous peoples.”

Over the last several years, Amber has fought for tribal clients in Washington and Oregon who seek to protect the Columbia River Gorge and Pacific Coast from fossil fuel contamination. 

On behalf of a Treaty Tribe, she persuaded the Columbia River Gorge Commission to uphold a county’s denial of a railroad expansion permit that was being sought to increase fossil fuel cargo in the Gorge.  She also helped the Tribe persuade the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council to deny a permit that would have allowed Tesoro Savage to transport 360,000 barrels of crude oil each day through the Gorge.

To accomplish these results for her tribal clients, Amber uses federal and state environmental statutes—like the National Environmental Policy Act, federal Endangered Species Act, and State Environmental Policy Act—as well as federal Indian Treaties and tribal environmental laws.

“I have the distinct honor of helping Tribes protect their homelands for sake of the next seven generations,” continued Amber. “I help protect their air, their waters, and their spectacular sacred places.  I am indebted to my tribal clients for the opportunities they have given me.”

Amber also helped 66 Grand Ronde Tribal citizens who directly descend from the Tribe’s Treaty Chief, avoid political disenrollment.  She co-chaired administrative, trial, and appellate litigation that began in 2013 and culminated with a watershed appellate decision in 2016.  That decision required the family to be re-enrolled.  

In recognition of her various professional accomplishments, Super Lawyers magazine has bestowed Amber with its “Rising Star” honor for the last four consecutive years.  During that same timespan, she has served on the Editorial Board for the National Lawyers Guild’s prestigious journal, Review.

In 2016, Amber published “Standing Rock and the Erosion of Tribal Rights” in Review, where she decried that “Tribes are suffering from an onslaught of projects…that imperil their rights and their sacred duty to protect their surrounding natural resources and culture.” She explained:  “A tribe’s rights are often attacked on multiple fronts. Projects that threaten them are often wide-scale and multi-dimensional.  Tribes are often forced into a battle of attrition, in which they must defend their rights before a wide variety of decision-makers.”

In 2018, Amber also published “Trump's Dismantling of the National Monuments: Sacrificing Native American Interests on the Altar of Business” in Review, condemning the Trump Administration’s demolition of Bears Ears and other National Monuments, which are also sacred spaces for many Indigenous peoples.  She excoriated President Trump for his “utter disregard for the preservation of the land and for the recognition of tribal interests,” explaining: “he has proven that when those interests compete with private business interests, he will always protect the businessman, to the detriment of tribal people across the nation.” 

Fearing, as she wrote in 2016, that “Tribes are suffering a death by a thousand cuts”—through battles in sacred places like the Columbia River Gorge, Standing Rock, and Bears Ears—Amber is ever-committed to protecting Indigenous communities from legal, environmental, or cultural harm.

Nine years ago, Amber began her career at K&L Gates, where she represented the Duwamish Tribe, pro bono, in their efforts to seek federal recognition.  She also worked in the Native American Unit of the Northwest Justice Project, helping to provide access to justice to indigent Indigenous populations.  Amber received her law degree from the University of Washington School of Law.

Amber was born and raised in Chehalis, Washington. She is married to David Caverly, a private chef, and she is mother to their baby girl, Lily.  In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking with her dogs, and going to street fairs.  Amber is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation.

Galanda Broadman is an Indigenous Rights Law Firm with seven lawyers, and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington and Bend, Oregon and an affiliate in Tucson, Arizona.  In existence since 2010, the firm is dedicated to protecting and defending Indigenous Treaty and sovereign rights, economic interests, and human rights.

“I am excited for my future with the firm and the ability to take a more active role in our team’s practice of law,” concluded Amber.  “And I am excited to help protect Indigenous America against further environmental degradation or cultural destruction.”

Gabe Galanda: "More Gaming Monies [Per Caps] Means More Problems [Disenrollment]"

Gabe Galanda is featured in Indian Gaming magazine’s “Ask the Expert” column titled, “Spotlight on 2020 and Beyond.” Gabe discusses the origins and perils of gaming per capita checks, and the resurgence of power-crazed and greed-addled disenrollments over the last year.

Here’s his full commentary:

In 2020, Indian gaming gross revenues should eclipse $34 billion. Those dollars will continue to bring economic vitality to 241 governmental gaming tribes. But far too often, more gaming monies means more problems.

As the late, great Dave Palermo reported, 130 – or 53% –  of those 241 tribes allot and distribute large chunks of those dollars to tribal citizens as per capita payments. At a correct amount, those payments supplement citizens’ earned income and allow their families to achieve middle class status or greater. But at an incorrect amount, those payments can create disincentive for employment, higher education, or vocational training.

Gaming per capita distributions also impact, and impair, tribal governmental operations and growth. By Congressional design in 1907, the first statutorily authorized tribal “pro rata” distributions to “competent” Indians weakened tribes, by draining their communal wealth. As millions of ancestral land acres were allotted and lost in the Dawes era, so too were tribal dollars.

Today’s gaming per capita distributions, which Congress authorized in 1988, divert billions of dollars away from tribal governmental operations and infrastructure. Rather than pooling those monies to build a new diabetes clinic or wellness center or to make capital investments, those monies get divvied up and spent. Yet, as tribal citizens clamor for more and more “per cap” from their elected leaders, too few appreciate the assimilationist origins and insidious nature of those monies.

There is not yet any empirical research on the impacts that gaming or other per capita payments have on tribes and their citizens, but perhaps tribal economists and political scientists can commence such critical research in 2020. Meanwhile, disenrollment is again on the rise. Although disenrollment waned between 2016 and 2018 as Indian Country got reeducated about the practice’s colonial origins and self-terminationist effects, wayward politicians in several communities decimated their own kin in the last year.

At least six tribes, hailing from northern, central, and southern California, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Michigan, pursued the disenrollment of as many as 600 tribal citizens during that span.  That increases the total of known disenrolling tribes to approximately 85 – a confounding 15% of all federally recognized tribes – and the total of known disenrollees to about ten thousand – an equally confounding statistic.

In their eye-opening book, Dismembered, Dr. David and Shelly Wilkins’ correlate modern mass disenrollment to gaming per capita greed. Gaming per capita regimes “promote membership decisions that culminate in disenrollments of otherwise qualified members because tribal officials want to limit the number of people who receive a portion of the money and thereby increase the size of each portion.” By ensuring that a smaller number of people get more gaming money, those politicians buy themselves long, lavish careers in power. That's not at all what IGRA intends.

Let’s hope for less per capita problems – and no disenrollment – in 2020.

Gabriel S. Galanda is the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, in Seattle. Gabe is a descendant of the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes, belonging to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California.

Galanda Broadman Once Again Named "Best Firm" in Native American & Gaming Law by U.S. News

Galanda Broadman, PLLC, has been named a “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News - Best Lawyers in the arena of Native American Law and Gaming Law, for the eighth year in a row. 

According to U.S. News - Best Lawyers, the firm's national ranking was determined through the firm's overall evaluation, which was derived from a combination of Galanda Broadman’s “clients' impressive feedback” and “the high regard that lawyers in other firms in the same practice area have for [the] firm.” 

Galanda Broadman, “An Indian Country Law Firm,” is dedicated to advancing Tribal legal rights and Indian business interests, and defending Indigenous human rights.

The firm, with seven lawyers and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington and Bend, Oregon, represents Tribal governments, businesses and members in critical litigation, business and regulatory matters—especially in matters of Indian Treaty rights, sovereignty, taxation, civil rights, and belonging.

“Reviving Indigenous Kinship Systems” Presentation By Gabe Galanda

Yesterday Gabe Galanda delivered a lecture titled "Reviving Indigenous Kinship Systems” to a packed classroom at his alma mater, Western Washington University. Read his slides here.

Gabe’s presentation drew on the Indigenous scholarship of Ella Deloria, Darrell Kipp, Rob Williams, Dr. Kim TallBear, David Treuer, Nick Estes, and others.

A van-full of Indigenous students from Northwest Indian College, as well as Indigenous students from WWU, including members of the Nooksack 306, attended Gabe’s presentation.

Nooksack Elder George Adams, the last fluent Nooksack speaker of Lhechelesmen, joined Gabe to explain to the students, in Lhechelesmen, traditional notions of Indigenous kinship and belonging by way of place.

Gabe Galanda and George Adams, with Northwest Indian College students

Gabe Galanda and George Adams, pictured with Nooksack 306 students from WWU and Northwest Indian College

Gabriel S. Galanda is the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, in Seattle. Gabe is a descendant of the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes, belonging to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California.

Gabe Galanda to Talk of “Reviving Indigenous Kinship Systems” at WWU on Oct. 10

Gabe Galanda listens to Nooksack tribal member, George Adams, the last fluent Nooksack speaker of Lhechelesmen, in late 2015.

On Thursday, October 17 at 10 AM, Gabe Galanda will reprise a lecture he gave this past spring at Harvard University, at his alma mater Western Washington University: “Reviving Indigenous Kinship Systems.”

Gabe will again discuss the acute need for Indigenous peoples to infuse historic tribal kinship values into modern modes and institutions of self-governance, particularly in regard to belonging.

Gabriel S. Galanda is the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, in Seattle. Gabe is a descendant of the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes, belonging to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California.

Gabe Galanda Joins All My Relations "Beyond Blood Quantum" Podcast

Matika Wilbur and Dr. Adrienne Keene welcomed Gabe Galanda (Round Valley), “a prolific Seattle attorney fighting disenrollment cases,” for a critical All My Relations podcast discussion regarding Indigenous existential issues and challenges associated with “blood, enrollment, law, genetics and belonging.”

Also participating were Charlotte Logan (Akwesasne Mohawk) a genetic researcher debunking blood quantum theory, Tommy Miller (Colville), attorney and author of law review article “Beyond Blood Quantum: The legal and political implications of expanding tribal enrollment,” and Professor David Wilkins (Lumbee), legal scholar and co-author of “Dismembered: Native Disenrollment and the Battle for Human Rights.”

Listen to the “Beyond Blood Quantum” episode here.

Federal Court Blocks “Riot Boosting” Law Targeting Water Protectors

By Amber Penn-Roco

On March 11, 2019, in the wake of the worldwide NoDAPL movement, South Dakota passed a law that prohibits “riot boosting”—an ambiguous term that is broadly written to include both participating in a riot and directing, advising, encouraging or soliciting other people to participate in a riot.  The law threatens advocates with fines, civil liabilities, and criminal penalties of up to 25 years in prison. 

As outlined by the ACLU in its Complaint, the law targets anti-pipeline protests and protesters.  The law was rather obviously passed in response to Indigenous protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, in hopes of preventing protests in South Dakota against the Keystone XL Pipeline.  

The Governor of South Dakota drafted the law in consultation with TC Energy, the company developing the Keystone XL Pipeline.  The Governor has been particularly outspoken about water protectors, mischaracterizing them as “out-of-staters who come in to disrupt” and as “paid protesters.” 

The ACLU filed its lawsuit on behalf of four organizations: the Sierra Club, NDN Collective, Dakota Rural Action, and the Indigenous Environmental Network; and two individuals: Nick Tilsen with NDN Collective and Dallas Goldtooth with Indigenous Environmental Network. All are currently protesting or are planning to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline. 

The ACLU’s suit claims the “riot boosting” law is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution and filed a preliminary injunction motion on April 9, 2019 to prevent the riot boosting law from being enforced.  On September 18, 2019, the U.S. District Court issued an Order granting the ACLU’s motion and blocking the enforcement of several provisions of the new law.   

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence L. Piersol wrote: “Imagine that if these riot boosting statutes were applied to the protests that took place in Birmingham, Alabama, what might be the result? . . . Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference could have been liable under an identical riot boosting law[.]”  Quoting Dr. King, the Judge continued: “’an unjust law is no law at all’ and . . . ‘to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it [permitting] becomes unjust.’”

This is a promising boost for the ACLU and our water protectors.   

Amber Penn-Roco is an Associate with the Seattle office of Galanda Broadman, PLLC.  Amber’s practice focuses on the protection of tribal environmental, natural and cultural resources.  Her practice also includes promoting the economic development of tribes.  She is an enrolled member of the Chehalis Tribe.

Indian Civil Rights Icon Lawrence Baca Publishes Article on "The Scourge of Tribal Disenrollment"

Lawrence Baca, longtime U.S. Department of Justice Indian civil rights warrior and former three-term President of the National Native American Bar Association, has published "Today You Are My Brother; But Tomorrow, Maybe Not (The Scourge of Tribal Disenrollment).”

The article appears in the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession’s Review 2019-2020: The State of Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession, at page 135.

Lawrence admitted to “stealing liberally from the work of Gabe Galanda – with his permission, of course. See Gabriel S. Galanda & Ryan D. Dreveskracht, Curing The Tribal Disenrollment Epidemic: In Search Of A Remedy,” explaining: “Of the many articles written on this subject theirs is the most thorough and thoughtful.”

An excerpt from Lawrence’s article:

The Supreme Court has granted unto itself the power to declare what tribal governmental powers are “inconsistent with their status” as domestic dependent nations.26 Tribes stand one too many disenrollments and five votes away from losing their immunity from suit in federal court because the Court decides that it is “inconsistent with their status” as sovereign governments to deny basic human rights to their members and remain beyond the rule of federal law.

And there’s this embedded image in the article:

Galanda Broadman, PLLC, is an American-Indian owned law firm that opposes disenrollment. #StopDIsenrollment