The Timbisha Shoshone Tribal Council is considering a federal lawsuit to challenge Congress' power to take Indian property and funds without compensation. They have asked for our help in securing a court decision that declares such takings unconstitutional.
The Council wants to invalidate an act of Congress that confiscates a fund of money belonging to the Tribe and to other Western Shoshone tribes. The case arises out of the astonishing injustices the federal government has dealt to the Western Shoshone tribes, including Timbisha, in order to divest them of rights to their lands in Nevada and California.
These tribes, nine of them, live on tiny remnants of their lands, while the federal government controls nearly all their former homelands. Gold is mined extensively throughout most of the area taken from the tribes, damaging sacred sites and water resources. For more than a century, Congress has done practically whatever it wished with Indian property and Indian money held by the federal government. Such Congressional acts have almost never been challenged.
A successful lawsuit would mean that Congress cannot freely take or control Indian property and tribal funds. Tribes would have much greater ability to manage tribal affairs, and would be able to stop unjustified government control and interference.
We believe we can win such a case and rid federal law of a very pernicious and unjustifiable legal doctrine that has deprived tribes of their rights for generations.