Assembly Bill A9124

2023-2024 Legislative Session

Relates to the reinstatement of state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation

download bill text pdf

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Current Bill Status - Passed Senate & Assembly


  • Introduced
    • In Committee Assembly
    • In Committee Senate
    • On Floor Calendar Assembly
    • On Floor Calendar Senate
    • Passed Assembly
    • Passed Senate
  • Delivered to Governor
  • Signed By Governor

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2023-A9124 (ACTIVE) - Details

See Senate Version of this Bill:
S8550
Law Section:
Indian Law
Laws Affected:
Amd §2, add Art 11 §§170 - 173, Indian L
Versions Introduced in Other Legislative Sessions:
2017-2018: A9898, S7770
2019-2020: A5411, S3691
2021-2022: A4069, S6889

2023-A9124 (ACTIVE) - Summary

Provides for the reinstatement of state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation; provides that the Montaukett Indian nation shall have a chief or sachem, three tribal trustees and a tribal secretary; provides for the qualification of voters; makes related provisions.

2023-A9124 (ACTIVE) - Bill Text download pdf

                             
                     S T A T E   O F   N E W   Y O R K
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                   9124
 
                           I N  A S S E M B L Y
 
                             February 7, 2024
                                ___________
 
 Introduced  by  M.  of  A.  THIELE,  WALKER,  SEAWRIGHT -- read once and
   referred to the Committee on Judiciary
 
 AN ACT to amend the Indian law, in  relation  to  the  reinstatement  of
   state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation
 
   THE  PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
 BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

   Section 1. Legislative findings. The Montaukett  Indian  Nation  seeks
 reinstatement  of its recognition and acknowledgment by the state of New
 York. Such recognition and acknowledgment was  improperly  removed  from
 the  Montaukett  Indian Nation in 1910 in the case of Pharaoh v. Benson,
 69 Misc. Rep. 241(Supreme, Suffolk Co., 1910) affirmed 164 App. Div. 51,
 affirmed 222 N.Y. 665, when the Montaukett Indian Nation was declared to
 be "extinct".
   The court ruled that "the tribe has disintegrated  and  been  absorbed
 into the mass of citizens and at the time of commencement of this action
 there  was  no  tribe  of  Montaukett  Indians". This   arbitrary ruling
 ignored earlier U.S. Supreme Court  decisions  defining  Indian  Nations
 according to criteria under which the Montaukett Indian Nation qualified
 as  an  existing  sovereign  tribe  and giving Congress, rather than the
 courts, power to decide the status of an Indian.
   In the first of these U.S. Supreme Court decisions, United  States  v.
 Roger, 45 U.S. 567 (1848), the court ruled that the primary criteria for
 Indian  identity was evidence that an Indian had to have some genealogi-
 cal connection with a recognized  group  that  had  existed  before  the
 arrival  of  the European white explorers, traders, and settlers.  Veri-
 fied evidence demonstrates that the  Montaukett  Indian  Nation  existed
 prior to the Doctrine of Discovery and, as a sovereign tribe, ruled from
 the end of the Island to what is today the town of Hempstead.
   Subsequently,  a  decade before the Montaukett decision, in Montoya v.
 U.S., 180 U.S. 261 (1901), the U.S. Supreme  Court  further  defined  an
 Indian  tribe  as "a body of Indians of the same or similar race, united
 in a community under one leadership  or  government,  and  inhabiting  a
 particular  though  sometimes  well-defined  territory".  The Montaukett
 Indian Nation also met this criteria.
 
  EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                       [ ] is old law to be omitted.
              

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