Native American Rights Fund

Programs: The native american rights fund (narf) is the oldest and largest nonprofit national indian rights organization in the country devoting all its efforts to defending and promoting the legal rights of indian people on issues essential to their tribal sovereignty, their natural resources and their human rights. Narf believes in empowering individuals and communities whose rights, economic self-sufficiency and political participation have been systematically eroded or undermined. At its inception in 1970, narf believed that the best hope for indian survival and development rests with the maintenance of the tribe as an institution. The inherent sovereign powers of a tribe to hold land, to govern tribal members and to command the respect of other units of government are essential to an indian nation concept. Throughout its history, narf has held fast to this hope and through its work has insured that this concept has become a reality. The native american rights fund (narf) continues to address its traditional priority areas in accordance with narf's long-standing program priorities. Narfs priority areas are: 1) preservation of tribal existence; 2) protection of tribal natural resources; 3) accountability of governments to native americans; 4) development of indian law & educating the public about indian rights issues; and 5) promotion of native american human rights. Over the course of narfs existence, a strong legal foundation has been built around narf's major priority areas. Narf will continue to build on that progress on behalf of native american people who would otherwise lack access to and representation in the justice system. Narf currently has approximately fifty ongoing cases and/or projects representing tribes, organizations and individuals. The volume and importance of the cases on narf's docket illustrates the continuing need and demand for narf's services. Bears ears national monument in 2010, the grassroots nonprofit organization, utah din bikyah (udb) was formed to help coordinate the bears ears proposal, which sought protections for the bears ears region in southwestern utah which are sacred to five tribes who used to occupy the lands. Udb spent the next several years developing a comprehensive cultural mapping of the area. Using that information, detailed maps were prepared to show why 1. 9 million acres of land now owned by the federal government should be set aside as a cultural landscape. Their work showed that the bears ears landscape is one discrete unit, bound together in numerous ways, and blending perfectly with other protected federal and tribal lands. On december 28, 2016, after the better part of a decade of activism, president obama proclaimed 1. 35 million acres as the bears ears national monument pursuant to his authority under the antiquities act. The proclamation also included a management plan that empowered tribal leaders to provide guidance and recommendations on care of their ancestral lands. The designation was the culmination of local activism, coordinated outreach, and collaborative land-use management. On april 26, 2017, president trump attacked this important designation. Trump signed an executive order directing interior secretary ryan zinke to conduct a review of the bears ears national monument to determive if it was created without "public outreach and proper coordination. " however, the suggestion that the monuments designation lacked outreach and coordination is disingenuous. The bears ears national monument was created after years of advocacy and many public meetings in the region and in washington, dc. The effort to protect bears ears was very long, very public, and very robust. On december 4, 2017, president trump signed a proclamation slashing the bears ears designation by 85%. Five tribes-hopi tribe, navajo nation, pueblo of zuni, ute indian tribe, and ute mountain ute tribe-led the effort to establith the bears ears national monunument, an area still used for cultural and religious purposes. Increased looting of the estimated 100,000 plus structures, sites, and objects within every reach of the monument dictated the need for protections in the form of a monument designation. In response to president trumps action, the native american rights fund, representing the hopi tribe, pueblo of zuni, and ute mountain ute tribe filed a lawsuit to protect bears ears against this unlawful land grab. As of this writing, judge tanya chutkan, an obama appointee to the federal district court for washington, d. C. , has been assigned to the case. Agua caliente band of cahuilla indians and the coachella valley water aquifer - for over twenty years, the agua caliente band of cahuilla indians has voiced concerns to california water agencies over their management of the coachella valley aquifer. The tribes long-standing concerns center on the need for more responsible management of the aquifers water quality and quantity. While the agua caliente band of cahuilla indians has been treated as an interested party in management issues, its standing as an indian tribe with a sovereign status under federal law and defined rights to a share of the aquifer has been repeatedly ignored and rebuked by the agencies. The tribe offered to negotiate a settlement with the agencies in 2012-2013 before initiating a lawsuit, but the agencies steadfastly refused to talk and were unwilling to acknowledge the tribes rights. Subsequently, millions of ratepayer dollars have been needlessly spent by the agencies as they fight the tribes efforts. The tribes rights to ground water were up held in the federal district and court of appeals, but the california water agencies appealed to the supreme court. In december of 2017, the supreme court denied writ of certiorari on the issue. The denial enforces the lower court decision that when the united states established the reservation as a homeland for the agua caliente band of cahuilla indians, the federal government reserved appurtenant water sources including groundwater for use by the tribe. This denial of the water agencies appeals means that the tribes right to groundwater is firmly shielded. However, the case is far from over. With this "phase one" part of the trial put to rest, the tribe, the united states, and the water agencies are addressing what are called the "phase two" legal issues. Phase two will deal with the correct method for quantifying the tribes share, whether there is a right to water of a certain quality, and whether the tribe owns the groundwater storage space under its reservation. A decision on these three legal issues will be issued by the court in the first quarter of 2018, and that decision will guide the "phase three" legal issues of the case which include quantification. Narf will continue to fight to ensure that the tribes water rights are properly acknowledged and honored. North dakota native voting rights case on april 24, 2017, governor doug burgum signed north dakota voter id bill h. B. 1369 into law after north dakotas previous voter id law was enjoined by a preliminary injunction due to its discriminatory and burdensome effects. Some legislators supporting this new voter id bill have described it as a way to cure the problems identified by the federal court in 2016. H. B. 1369, however, does not contain any of the cures for the burdens on the right to vote required by the court. The newly minted law completely ignores judge hovlands directive. For example, h. B. 1369 allows for provisional balloting, but it requires each voter to present a qualifying id to an election official within six days in order for the vote to be counted. In this way, the law makes an allowance for voters who left their ids at home, but it does not address the problem of voters who, although qualified to vote, cannot obtain one of the narrow set of permitted ids because of financial or other circumstances. In effect, those qualified electors are not allowed to vote. Due to reasons rooted in the discriminatory treatment of native americans, many living on indian reservations in north dakota do not have a qualifying id, such as a drivers license or state id card. While the law allows for the use of tribal ids, the law disqualifies most tribal ids by requiring a residential address be printed on them. Many tribal ids do not have permanent residential addresses. This is due, in part, to the fact that the u. S. Postal service does not provide residential delivery in these rural indian communities. Most tribal members primarily use ap. O. Box on their ids, which does not satisfy north dakotas restrictive voter id requirement of a permanent physical address. Prior to the court order in 2016, in both the primary and general election in 2014, many qualified north dakota tribal electors were disenfranchised because they only had a tribal id. Likewise, the onerous north dakota voter id law disenfranchises many other qualified electors in addition to native americans. There is no doubt that there

the national indian law library (nill) is the only law library in the united states devoted to american indian law. The library serves both narf and members of the public. Since it was started as a narf project in 1972, nill has collected nearly 9,000 resource materials that relate to federal indian and tribal law. The librarys holdings include the largest collection of tribal codes, ordinances and constitutions; legal pleadings from major indian cases; and often hard to find reports and historical legal information. In addition to making its catalog and extensive collection available to the public, nill provides free weekly indian law updates via email to over 5,000 subscribers and answers more than 150 research questions from the public each month. New to the indian law updates this year is a tribal courts opinion bulletin. In addition, the library has created and maintains a huge web site that provides access to thousands of full-text sources to help the researcher. Most importantly, nill supports the research needs of narf so that it can make the best arguments and provide the best representation to its clients. The access to tribal law project continues to be an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners in tribal law. In 2017 fiscal year, we completed comprehensive tribal law research web pages for each of the 567 federally recognized tribes providing access to hard to find tribal law. We have established good relationships with a number of tribes who regularly send us updates to their laws as changes are made and we are working to develop relationships with others who have expressed interest. In 2017, the tribal nation pronunciation guide was also completed on the nill website. Appropriate pronunciations for all federally recognized tribes and alaska native villages have been published on the tribal law gateway. We believe this unique guide will be a valuable resource for those who need to communicate with tribes and will allow people to address a tribe in a respectful manner.