Shinnecock Indian Nation

Shinnecock Indian Nation Tribal Trustee Lance Gumbs appeared before a congressional committee in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning, imploring the panel to help make the federal recognition process for Native American tribes more fair and less time-consuming.

April 1, 2004

He also asked the federal government not to give local municipalities taxpayer-funded financial assistance in their efforts to oppose tribal recognition efforts.

Mr. Gumbs, who has been the Shinnecocks' de facto public spokesman since news of the Nation's intentions to build a casino on tribe-owned lands was made public more than a year ago, appeared with the leaders of five other Native American tribes before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Resources on Wednesday. He appeared at the invitation of the committee's chairman, U.S. Representative Richard Pombo of California.

The tribal leaders had the chance to air their grievances over the expensive and often decades-long process of earning federal recognition through an exhaustive review by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Only with federal recognition can a tribe receive official consent from the federal government to open and operate a casino.

The Shinnecocks, Mr. Gumbs told members of the committee, have had a formal relationship with the State of New York for more than 200 years and with colonial governments for more than 150 years before that. Mr. Gumbs said the Shinnecock Indian Nation is one of the best documented tribes in the nation and yet faces more than two decades of review before the Bureau of Indian Affairs before it can be officially recognized by the federal government under the current guidelines.

"My nation, the Shinnecock Indian Nation, is one of the oldest continuously self-governing tribes in the country and was one of the first to have contact with the colonial government," Mr. Gumbs told the committee, according to a transcript of Mr. Gumbs statement. "Thus, it is well-documented that we ... have had a formal relationship with the state dating to the 1600s, which predates contacts western tribes have had with the federal government by more than 200 years."

In the case of such a well-documented and obviously legitimate tribe, Mr. Gumbs said, there should be a provision for an expedited review of its federal recognition application. There is an expedited process for rejecting applications, he noted, but not one for approving them.

Mr. Gumbs cited a federal Government Accounting Office report issued in 2001 that criticized BIA decisions as unclear on "what level of evidence is sufficient to demonstrate a tribe's continuous existence over time" and that the "regulatory process is not equipped to respond in a timely manner."

Mr. Gumbs and other tribal leaders called on Congress to boost federal funding and staffing to allow for more timely and less costly reviews and streamline the requirements so that well-documented tribes are not subject to overly exhaustive reviews.

The application process will be made further unfair if the House adopts a proposal brought by representatives from Connecticut that would allow up to $500,000 in federal grant monies for local municipalities challenging tribal recognition applications and land claim issues, he said.

"I am appalled that the federal government would contemplate using taxpayer dollars to oppose tribal recognition," Mr. Gumbs told the committee. "Did you know that our tribe's recognition effort stalled for 35 years because we could not afford the costs associated with completing our application? No federal funds have been made available to assist us."

Since its submission in 1978—the first year such applications were accepted—the Shinnecocks' federal recognition application languished until last year, when casino investor Ivy K. Ong gave the tribe a reported $1.5 million in exchange for the right to operate an anticipated casino on the East End.