Court upholds tribal payday loan companies

Will John Suthers Drag Down Romney's Presidential Hopes?

By Phil LinsalataAmong the many reasons Colorado Attorney General John Suthers could drag down Mitt Romney's presidential hopes--Suthers covets a position running Romney's Department of Justice--is the loss Suthers sustained in an epic seven-year lawsuit that was both outrageously expensive and ill-advised from the start.

Suthers waged his lawsuit against two Native American tribes, earning him pariah status with the well-funded Native American lobby throughout the country.

A guaranteed loser

Suthers sued the Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma to block the tribe's online loan operations in Colorado--a battle that anyone with even the most basic understanding of the law and longstanding legal precedents could see was a guaranteed loser.

Suthers may have skipped class the day his law professor discussed the federal doctrine of Tribal Immunity, which prevents states from enforcing regulations against congressionally recognized sovereign tribes.

Suthers didn't just lose the case; he and his office got spanked. Officially.

Presiding judge scolds, sanction Suthers

Suthers' team blundered in the case so badly that his lead staffer in the case was ultimately sanctioned and fined $12,500 by the presiding judge for wrongly having one defendant arrested and jailed on a warrant issued by Colorado and executed in Missouri, where Colorado was found to have no authority in the first place.Comment:  I don't know much about these particular companies, but payday loans are morally questionable in general. Nevertheless, it's good to see a court uphold tribal sovereignty for any reason, even if the cause is dubious.

For more on the subject, see Americans Support Tribal Sovereignty and "Rent-a-Tribe" Payday Loan Companies.