BILL NUMBER: S3308
SPONSOR: PALUMBO
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the Indian law, in relation to the reinstatement of
state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation
 
PURPOSE:
Relates to the reinstatement of state recognition and acknowledgement of
the Montaukett Indian Nation. It provides for the leadership of the
Montaukett Indian Nation, qualification of voters and office.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1. Legislative findings.
Section 2. Amends section 2 of the Indian law to add the Montaukett
Indian Nation to the list of New York State Indian Nations and Tribes.
Section 3. Amends the Indian law by adding a new article 11 - "The
Montaukett Indian Nation".
Section 4. Provides for an immediate effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
The Montaukeft Indian Nation seeks reinstatement of its recognition and
acknowledgment by the state of New York. Such recognition and acknowl-
edgement 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 an Indian identity were evidence that an Indian had to have some
genealogical 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 partic-
ular though sometimes well-defined territory". The Montaukett Indian
Nation also met these criteria.
Further, at the time of the Pharaoh v. Benson decision, the judicial
branches of state and federal governments had no authority to determine
the status of an Indian tribe. Only the U. S. Congress had such power.
In 1903, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in the United States v Rickert,
188 U. S. 432 (1903) that only Congress can determine when changes in
customs are sufficient to invalidate tribal status.
The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled in Butts v Northern Pacific Railroad
(1911), that neither the lapse of time, allotment of a portion of the
tribal lands in severalty, immigration of a majority of the tribe nor
the act that the habits and customs of the tribe have changed by inter-
course with whites, authorize the courts to disregard tribal status.
That same year, the U. S. Supreme Court again spoke to the question of
judicial authority in cases involving tribal existence, holding Tiger v.
Western Investment Company, 221 U.S. 286 (1911) that only the U.S.
Congress had the authority to determine changes in tribal status.
In 1994, the State Supreme Court, in the case of Breakers Motel, Inc.
v. Sunbeach Montauk Two, Inc., subsequently described the Pharaoh case
as being of "questionable propriety', a recognition by the State Supreme
Court that the decision removing the recognition and acknowledgement
from the Montaukett Indian Nation was dubious.
This legislation finds that in Pharaoh v. Benson, the Court improperly
ignored U. S. Supreme Court precedent and lacked jurisdiction to judge
the status of the Montaukett Indian Nation. It is the purpose of this
legislation to reverse this improper and illegal result by the rein
statement of acknowledgement and recognition by the state of New York to
the Montaukett Indian Nation.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2024 S.8550/A.9124 (Veto 120; 2023 S.6721/A.6919 (Veto 16); 2021-2022
S.6889/A.4069 (Veto 110); 2019-20 S.3691/A.5411; 2018 S.7770/A.9898
(Veto 360); 2017 S.3006/A.2325 (Veto 210); 2015-16 S.375A/A.202A; 2014
S.7619/A.9704
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.

Statutes affected:
S3308: 2 Indian law