Bypassing the recognition process

Tribe Battle Goes To Senate

Bypassing Of BIA Process Is Opposed By ManyWhen North Carolina's Lumbee Indians sought formal recognition through an act of Congress recently, four of Connecticut's five House members opposed the plan.

If recognition happens in this unorthodox way, warned Christopher Shays, R-4th District, "the tribes in Connecticut, the tribes in Massachusetts, the tribes in New York, those that can't prove that they meet the federal standard ... will come to Congress and say they want the same thing."

The lawmakers' votes against a tribe hundreds of miles away were unusual, but their motives couldn't have been clearer: to limit the number of "new" tribes and, more important, new casinos. The means to this end was to force petitioning tribes to make their case through the rigorous U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs process, rather than the easier route of wooing Congress.