ACTION ALERT
Please telephone or write to your U.S. Representatives and express your opinion about this bill! See to find your elected representatives. Currently the bill has been referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The author of this bill and its supporters are attacking the unique sovereign status of Indian
tribes. Indian Preference hiring policies are based on the Political status of Indian people as members of sovereign nations, NOT on race, thus these are not "racial preferences." This is yet another attack on sovereignty in the year 2000!
Following is the excerpt from the Congressional Record and the text of the bill, H.R. 5523. Thanks to "yona" for sending this to us!
Subject: Anti-Indian Preference Legislation On the Move
By Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania:
H.R. 5523. A bill to repeal the Indian racial preference laws of the United States; to the Committee on Resources, and in addition to the Committee on
Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
[Congressional Record: October 19, 2000 (Extensions)]
[Page E1864]
From the Congressional Record DOCID:cr19oc00-125]
INTRODUCTION OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ACT OF 2000
HON. CURT WELDON
of Pennsylvania
in the house of representatives
Thursday, October 19, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the "Native American Equal Rights Act of 2000."
Most Americans believe that ours should be a color-blind society in which an individual's merit, not his or her race, is the determining factor in whether that individual climbs the ladder of success to achieve the American dream. Most Americans, therefore, oppose any racial preferences in our Nation's laws. Most Americans would be surprised, therefore, to learn that
non-Indians are lawfully discriminated against under what are known as "Indian preference laws."
The Federal Indian preference laws do three things. First, Federal law allows discrimination against all non-Indians with respect to employment at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the Tribal overnments/agencies and the Indian Health Service. Second, Federal law allows discrimination against all non-Indians with regard to certain Federal contracts. Third and finally, Federal law provides an exception to the civil rights laws that allows discrimination against all non-Indians in employment at the two Federal
agencies, the Tribes and with respect to contracts.
Mr. President/Mr. Speaker, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and white Americans should have the same rights to compete for jobs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Tribes and the Indian Health Service that Indians do. Likewise, all Americans should have equal rights, regardless of race, to compete for Federal and Tribal contracts. Finally, the civil rights laws
should protect all Americans equally from the scourge of discrimination. That is why I believe that the Indian preference laws are wrong.
A recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States has called the constitutionality of Indian preference laws into serious question. On February 23, 2000, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Rice v. Cayetano. The case involved a challenge to a law of Hawaii that limits the right to vote for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to persons who are defined under the law as either Hawaiian" or "native Hawaiian" by ancestry. Harold Rice, who was the plaintiff in the case, is a citizen of Hawaii who nevertheless does not qualify, under the Hawaii law, as "Hawaiian" or "native Hawaiian." Mr. Rice sued Hawaii because he believed that this law deprives him of his constitutional right to vote because of his race. Many Americans are deprived of this right on America's Indian reservations and within Indian governments. The U.S. District Court for Hawaii rejected Mr. Rice's claim. In doing so, the District Court argued that the Congress and native Hawaiians have a guardian-ward relationship that is analogous to that which exists between the U.S. government and Indian tribes. Based on this analogy, the District Court determined that the Hawaii is entitled to the
same constitutional deference that the Supreme Court has shown towards the Congress when it enacts laws under its authority over Indian affairs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision. Mr. Rice asked the Supreme Court review his case. The Court agreed to do so. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and ruled in Mr. Rice's favor. In his opinion for the Court, Justice
Kennedy rejected the lower courts' use of the analogy of the Hawaii law limiting voting rights to the Federal laws granting preferences to Indians. Under the Federal Indian preference laws, individuals who have "one-fourth or more degree Indian blood and. . . [are] members of a Federally-recognized tribe" are given preferences with respect to hiring and promotions at the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior, as well as with regard to employment and subcontracting under certain Federal contracts. The Supreme Court upheld the Indian
preference laws in its 1974 decision in a case called Morton v. Mancari. Even though the Indian preference laws clearly have the effect of giving one race an advantage over others, the Mancari Court held that they are "political rather than racial in nature" because they are not "directed towards a 'racial' group consisting of 'Indians,' but rather only to members of 'federally recognized' tribes."
In his opinion for the Supreme Court in Rice, Justice Kennedy said that Hawaii had tried to take the Mancari precedent too far. "It does not follow from Mancari," Justice Kennedy wrote, "that Congress may authorize a State to establish a voting scheme that limits the electorate for its public officials to a class of tribal Indians, to the exclusion of all non-Indian citizens."
In a technical legal sense, in the Rice case the Supreme Court did not reconsider its ruling in the Mancari case that the Indian preference laws are
constitutional. Instead, the Court avoided the issue by attempting to draw a distinction between the Indian preference law from the Hawaii voting rights law.
In a broader philosophical sense, though, the Rice decision seriously calls into question the constitutionality of the Indian preference laws. The racial preference for voters in Hawaii that the Court held to be unconstitutional clearly was politically and not racially motivated. The Court found, however,
that a well-meaning political motivation behind a law that has the effect of favoring one race over another does not make it constitutional. Likewise, it is clear that what motivated the Congress to pass the Indian preference laws was not racism, but rather political favoritism. The effect of the Indian preference laws, though, is no less to favor one race over all others than was the case with the Hawaii voting rights law. Under Rice, this political motivation should not save the Indian preference law from being found to be
unconstitutional for the same reason as was the Hawaii law. In an insightful opinion article in The Washington Times on May 5, 2000, Thomas Jipping,
Director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Law and Democracy, recognized the inconsistency between the Supreme Court's decisions with respect to the Indian preference laws and the Hawaii voting rights law. "Either it is legitimate to avoid the
Constitution," Mr. Jipping wrote, "by relabeling a racial preference [as a political one] or it is "not". "Gimmicks such as relabeling or declaring the context in which a case arises as 'unique' [are] simply not sufficient to overcome a constitutional principle so fundamental and absolute." "Both the
U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals in this case believed that Hawaii's relationship with Hawaiians is similar to the United States['s]
relationship with Indian tribes," Mr. Jipping noted. "They were right and the U.S. Constitution applies to both of them," he asserted. "Rather than
preserve a precedent through verbal sleight-of-hand," Mr. Jipping concluded, "the Supreme Court should have said the fundamental constitutional principle that decided Rice also calls its precedent in Mancari into question."
Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely clear to me that statutory provision that grant special rights to Indians with respect to employment, voting in "tribal
elections", contracting, or any other official interaction with an agency of the United States are racial preference laws. Racial preference laws are
fundamentally incompatible with the equal protection of the laws that is provided to all Americans by the Constitution. The Constitution simply does not tolerate racial preferences of any kind, for any
reason.
The Congress, no less than the Supreme Court, has a duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States. We should not wait for the Supreme Court to recognize the very serious constitutional mistake it made when it upheld the constitutionality of the Indian preference laws. Congress should repeal the Indian preference laws now.
The legislation that I am introducing today, the "Indian Racial Preferences Repeal Act of 2000," does just that. I ask unanimous consent for the full
text of my bill, as well as a section-by-section analysis, to be printed in the Record immediately following the conclusion of my remarks.
Native Americans Equal Rights Act (Introduced in the House)
HR 5523 IH
106th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5523
To repeal the Indian racial preference laws of the United States.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 19, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Resources, and in addition to the Committee on
Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
A BILL
To repeal the Indian racial preference laws of the United States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Native Americans Equal Rights Act'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Statutory provisions granting special rights to Indians with respect to employment, contracting, or any other official interaction with an agency of the United States are racial preference laws.
(2) Racial preference laws are incompatible with the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
(3) Such Indian racial preference laws should be repealed.
SEC. 3. REPEAL OF INDIAN RACIAL PREFERENCES IN EMPLOYMENT WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
(a) REPEAL OF INDIAN PREFERENCE ACT AND INDIAN RACIAL PREFERENCE LAWS APPLICABLE TO BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS AND INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE-
(1) Section 12 of the Act of June 18, 1934 (25 U.S.C. 472) (commonly referred to as the Indian Preference Act) is repealed.
(2) Section 2 of the Act of December 5, 1979 (25 U.S.C. 472a) (relating to Indian preference laws applicable to Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian
Health Service positions) is repealed.
(b) REFERENCES- Any reference in any law to an Indian preference requirement of section 12 of the Act of June 18, 1934 or section 2 of the Act of December 5, 1979, is null and void.
SEC. 4. REPEAL OF INDIAN RACIAL PREFERENCES WITH RESPECT TO CONTRACTS WITH AND GRANTS FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
(a) REPEAL OF INDIAN PREFERENCE LAWS APPLICABLE TO FEDERAL CONTRACTS AND GRANTS- Subsections (b) and (c) of section 7 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450e(b) and (c))
are repealed.
(b) REFERENCES- Any reference in any law to an Indian preference provision of subsections (b) and (c) of section 7 of the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act is null and void.
SEC. 5. REPEAL OF INDIAN RACIAL PREFERENCES EXEMPTIONS FROM THE CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS.
(a) REPEAL OF INDIAN RACIAL PREFERENCES EXEMPTIONS FROM CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS-The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended--
(1) in section 701(b) (42 U.S.C. 2000e(b)), by striking `an Indian tribe,'; and
(2) in section 703 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-2) by striking subsection (i) and by redesignating subsections (j) through (n) as subsections (i) through (m),
respectively.
(b) REFERENCES- Any reference in any law to an Indian preference exemption under section 701(b) or 703(i) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is null and void.
SEC. 6. EFFECTIVE DATE.
The amendments made by this Act shall take effect 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, but shall not affect any employment, contract, or other legal relationship in existence on the date of such enactment.
ANOTHER TREATY BROKEN IN THE YEAR 2000, so much for a new people friendly nation. These politicians are getting reelected time after time after time, keep doing this, this, aaaa stuff and getting by with it. VOTE AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. STOP THE INSANITY IN ANY WAY NECESSARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are sick and tired of living at the white mans whim and now he wants to run the Bureau of Indian Affairs.......GreyWolf Runs With Elk & Willow Woman
