Gabe Galanda to Deliver CRT Lecture at Berkeley Law School

On November 17 at 12:50 PM Pacific, Gabe Galanda will deliver a lecture at Berkeley Law School titled, “Deploying CRT to Revive Indian Civil Rights & Renew Indigenous Kinship Rules.”

Through a Critical Race Theory lens, Gabe will the legal origins of modern Tribal neocolonial practices, including blood quantum, enrollment moratoria, disenrollment, and per-capitalism.

He will explain how Indigenous kinship rules have been replaced by federal Indian rights since the late 18th Century, and how those rights have been decimated by the courts since the U.S. Supreme Court's Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez decision in 1978.

Gabe will call for the renewal of Indigenous kinship rules systems as a way to protect and sustain Tribal nationhood and Indigenous belonging.

You can watch his lecture online via Zoom here: tinyurl.com/GGxBerk

Gabe Galanda to Talk Treaty Rights to King Co. District Court Judges

On Thursday, Gabe Galanda will present a special program to the King County District Court Judges titled, "State v. Shopbell/Paul: Countervailing Law Enforcement Bias: Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud." Gabe will discuss a case involving two Tulalip fishermen who were charged and prosecuted by the Washington State Dept. of Fish & Wildlife. He and Summit Law Group's David Smith were able to secure a dismissal of five felony charges against both fishermen, pursuant to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott.

Galanda Broadman Named "Best Firm" in Native American & Gaming Law for Eleventh Year

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 eleventh 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 is dedicated to advancing Indigenous legal rights and business interests and defending Indigenous human rights.

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

Mothers for Police Accountability Honors Gabe Galanda with Thurgood Marshall Award

On November 10, Gabe Galanda will receive the Thurgood Marshall Award from Mothers for Police Accountability, a group that has worked to improve the police and reduce gun violence in Seattle since 1990.  

Gabe will be honored for his “tireless work” on behalf of Indigenous Americans and others affected by police violence.

The Indigenous Home Ownership Shell Game

Nooksack federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit homes

As HUD reported in 2019, the unique circumstances of Indian country—“remoteness, lack of infrastructure, and complex legal and other constraints related to land ownership”—make home ownership very difficult.  With Indigenous home ownership rates drastically below national averages, the federal government has endeavored to help bring home buyership opportunities to Indian country.

In 2001, Congress amended the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) provision of the Internal Revenue Code (Section 42) to make it an eventual home ownership program. In the years that followed, the promise of home ownership was extended to tribal members throughout Indian country.

Through the IRS and state housing finance agencies, competitive and lucrative federal income tax credits have been granted to investors like Florida's Raymond James.  In exchange, tax credit investors—which hold title to the tribal LIHTC homes during a 15-30 year tax credit compliance period—are supposed to develop rent-to-own “transfer plans” for tribal homebuyers. 

The tax credit investors are also supposed to make equity reserve account payments for tribal members renting to own the homes.  After a home is in the LIHTC program for at lest 15 years, those monies are supposed to be applied as equity towards the home, allowing a tenant-homebuyer to receive a deed to the home and achieve the American dream of home ownership.

But two decades later, the promise of tribal member LIHTC home ownership has not been widely, if at all, realized in Indian country.

Take Nooksack, for example, where starting in 2006 Raymond James acquired the tax credits for at least three LIHTC projects predicated upon eventual tribal member home ownership.

The Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC)—formed by the State Legislature in 1983 to catalyze low income housing opportunity in rural Washington—awarded highly competitive and lucrative LIHTCs for each Nooksack low income housing project. Each award of tax credits was specifically based on a 15-year home ownership promise.

For the Nooksack LIHTC homes in rural Whatcom County, though, no home ownership “transfer plan” was ever created by the Tribe or Raymond James, or subject to compliance monitoring or regulatory enforcement by WSHFC.  According to news reporter Chris Aadland:

When the housing units were built, the intent was to sell them to tenants ‘in good standing’ after 15 years, said [WSHFC] spokeswoman Margret Graham. But a rent-to-own plan was never finalized, she said.

State law obligates WSHFC to impose a transfer plan and monitor its progress every five years, but the agency never did its job. 

Seven low income households at Nooksack now face eviction from their homes without due process or just compensation, as reported by Crosscut. As Luna Reyna explains:

By 2021, most of the seven LIHTC homes had been in the program at least 15 years, some much longer, yet none of the heads of households received deeds to the homes.

WSHFC now confesses that it has not approved a single tribal home buyership plan in Washington state. Not one. That means tribal members are not getting deeds to homes, as Congress intended.

Nooksack households facing eviction

Meanwhile Raymond James never made the required equity reserve account payments at Nooksack over the 15-year compliance period.  According to an astonishing WSHFC finding:

Accounts were not funded based on a determination by the tax credit investor that doing so would increase [its] tax liability.

In other words, over the 15 years when Raymond James used LIHTCs to reduce the corporate income taxes it pays to the federal government, the company decided not to fund tribal member equity reserve accounts in order to further reduce its federal income tax liability.

Despite finding the Nooksack LIHTC program in noncompliance with federal and state LIHTC laws on March 15, 2022, WSHFC has demurred, with the state agency’s Executive Director simply citing “tribal sovereignty.” Since the IRS defers to WSHFC to enforce applicable LIHTC covenants, the federal government has thus far also looked away from the apparent federal tax fraud.

This reality is decidedly not what Congress or the Washington State Legislature intended. As things stand in Washington state, the tribal LIHTC program is a shell game.

Gabriel Galanda is an Indigenous human rights rights lawyer in Seattle and the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC.

Galanda Broadman Tribal & Litigation Associate Positions Announcement

Galanda Broadman, PLLC, an Indigenous rights firm with nine lawyers and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington, and Bend, Oregon, seeks to add two experienced lawyers to its growing practice in the firm’s Seattle office: a litigation associate and a tribal law associate.

Galanda Broadman is an Indigenous owned firm dedicated to advancing tribal and tribal citizen legal rights and tribal business interests.  The firm represents tribal governments, businesses, and citizens in critical litigation, business and regulatory matters, especially in the areas of Treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, land rights, cultural property protection, taxation, commerce, gaming, serious/catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, disenrollment defense, and Indigenous human/civil rights.

The firm seeks lawyers who are deeply committed to representing Indigenous interests, who is state bar licensed, preferably in Washington State; and who have civil litigation or a judicial clerk experience.  A litigation associate should have at least three years of experience.  A tribal law associate should have least two years of experience.

Proven motion and civil rules practice, if not trial, experience, and the ability to self-direct are critical. Impeccable writing and research skills; critical and audacious thinking; strong oral advocacy; tremendous work ethic; tenacity; and sound ethics are required. 

Salary DOE. 

Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter tailored to this announcement, as well as a résumé, writing sample, transcript, and list of at least three educational and professional references, to Alice Hall, the firm’s Office Manager, at alice@galandabroadman.com. 

Gabe Galanda Named Among Best Lawyers in America for Sixteenth Straight Year

Gabe Galanda’s peers have named him to Best Lawyers in America for the sixteenth consecutive year.

Gabe is the managing lawyer at Galanda Broadman, PLLC, an Indigenous rights law firm headquartered in Seattle. He has also been dubbed a Super Lawyer by his peers from 2013 to 2022.

The American Bar Association named Gabe a Difference Maker in 2012 and recognized him with the Spirit of Excellence Award this year.

The Washington State Bar Association honored him with the Excellence in Diversity Award in 2014. The University Arizona College of Law awarded him the Professional Achievement Award and Western Washington University named him a Distinguished Alumnus, in 2018.

His practice focuses on complex, multi-party litigation and crisis management, representing Indigenous nations, businesses and citizens.

Gabe is skilled at defending Indigenous nations and business against legal attack by governmental or private parties, as well advocating for the human rights of Indigenous citizens. He advocates against tribal disenrollment and other Indigenous human rights abuse.  He also assists Indigenous clients with transactions and strategy related to various economic diversification initiatives.

Galanda Broadman Litigation Associate Positions (2) Announcement

Galanda Broadman, PLLC, an Indigenous rights firm with nine lawyers and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington, and Bend, Oregon, seeks to add two experienced litigation associates to its growing practice in the firm’s Seattle office.

Galanda Broadman is an Indigenous owned firm dedicated to advancing tribal and tribal citizen legal rights and tribal business interests.  The firm represents tribal governments, businesses, and citizens in critical litigation, business and regulatory matters, especially in the areas of Treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, land rights, cultural property protection, taxation, commerce, gaming, serious/catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, disenrollment defense, and Indigenous human/civil rights.

The firm seeks lawyers who are deeply committed to representing Indigenous interests, who is state bar licensed, preferably in Washington State; and who have civil litigation or a judicial clerk experience.  A senior litigation associate should have at least five years of experience.  An associate should have at two to five years of experience.

Proven motion and civil rules practice, if not trial, experience, and the ability to self-direct are critical. Impeccable writing and research skills; critical and audacious thinking; strong oral advocacy; tremendous work ethic; tenacity; and sound ethics are required. 

Salary DOE.   

Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter tailored to this announcement, as well as a résumé, writing sample, transcript, and list of at least three educational and professional references, to Alice Hall, the firm’s Office Manager, at alice@galandabroadman.com. 

Applications directed elsewhere will not be considered.

For more information about Galanda Broadman, visit galandabroadman.com.

Gabe Galanda To Teach "Summer School" Alongside CRT Pioneers

Gabe Galanda joins Kimberlé Crenshaw, Rob Williams, and other Critical Race Theory pioneers for the Teaching Truth to Power: Critical Race Theory Summer School, which is taking place online July 18-22.

Crenshaw's African American Policy Forum is hosting its third Critical Race Theory Summer School and for the first time will have a full week of classes focused on Indigenous peoples' issues and the intersections with Critical Race Theory and Practice. 

Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar on civil rights, Critical Race Theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. In addition to her position at Columbia Law School, she is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Williams is also a pioneering scholar on Critical Race Theory, particularly its intersection with federal Indian law. He organized the “Indigeneity & Decolonization” channel at Crenshaw’s request, and invited Gabe to participate.

Gabe will speak Thursday:

Thursday, July 21: Gabe Galanda, "Tribal Neocolonialism: Disenrollment, Enrollment Moratoria & Per-Capitalism": This class will explore modern tribal identity crises, not notably the disenrollment “epidemic” and its imperialist causes and the potential cures available through renewed Indigenous kinship traditions. The class will examine the history of the colonial and federal laws and systems that define Indigenous peoples and “who belongs” to an Indian tribe, as well as the neo-colonial deployment of disenrollment and enrollment moratoria by contemporary tribal politicians and the challenges and opportunities at the intersections of traditional Indigenous knowledge, federal Indian and tribal law, and international human rights law.

Law-related CLE reading: Gabe Galanda, “Curing the Tribal Disenrollment Epidemic: In Search of a Remedy,” 57 Ariz. Law Rev. 383 (2015), and “Tribal nationhood requires citizen civil rights protection,” available at: https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/tribal-nationhood-requires-citizen-civil-rights-protection.

Scholarships are available to attend and CLE is available for some of the sessions.  To register and learn more visit: https://web.cvent.com/event/cee3600f-6c48-4b56-9767-0a468698db14/summary

Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta: Supreme Court Upends the Rules. Again.

States now have concurrent authority to prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians in Indian Country. 

Prior to today’s ruling, on many reservations, only the federal government could.  Considering that this was already the state of the law with “victimless” crimes under United States v. McBratney, 104 U.S. 621 (1881), and other tribes are already subject to state criminal jurisdiction by operation of other federal statutes, today’s decision will not change the landscape for every tribe. 

Still, this is a massive expansion of state authority in tribal territory.  The Court’s approval of state incursions into Indian Country necessarily diminishes tribal sovereignty.

A few other observations:

• Justice Kavanaugh’s framing of tribal jurisdictions as state “territory” does not bode well for tribal sovereignty before the Court.  Plan to see cites to this in future taxation, civil jurisdiction, and other cases.   

• Justice Gorsuch’s penchant for historical analysis couldn’t persuade any of the originalists to join him. 

• Brackeen may give us our next opportunity to see if history will move Gorsuch and another justice to protect tribal interests. I doubt it will.

• The Court did not reverse McGirt v. Oklahoma.  Given the Court’s fleeting interest in stare decisis, I suppose this is notable. Especially since Oklahoma sought to dispense with the 2020 case. 

• For Tribes in states like Oregon where Tribal police can exercise state law enforcement authority, Tribes have an additional charging route for non-Indian on Indian crimes: state court. 

• Either Justice Kavanaugh does not know how to apply Bracker or I don’t.  Today was the day I learned that the Bracker balancing test has any relevance in the criminal context.   

Anthony Broadman is a partner at Galanda Broadman PLLC: anthony@galandabroadman.com