Carcieri v. Salazar (2009)

Carcieri v. Salazar (2009)

555 U.S. 379

The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), enacted in 1934, authorizes the secretary of the interior, a respondent here, to acquire land and hold it in trust “for the purpose of providing land for Indians” and defines “Indian” to “include all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized tribe now under Federal jurisdiction.” The Narragansett Tribe was placed under the Colony of Rhode Island’s formal guardianship in 1709. It agreed to relinquish its tribal authority and sell all but two acres of its remaining reservation land in 1880 for $5,000, but it immediately regretted its decision and in the early twentieth century began trying to regain its land and tribal status. From 1927 to 1937, federal authorities declined to give it assistance because they considered the tribe to be under state, not federal, jurisdiction. In a 1978 agreement settling a dispute between the tribe and Rhode Island, the tribe received title to eighteen hundred acres of land in Charlestown in exchange for relinquishing claims to state land based on aboriginal title, and it agreed that the land would be subject to state law. The tribe gained formal recognition from the federal government in 1983, and the secretary of the interior accepted a deed of trust to the eighteen hundred acres in 1988. Subsequently, a dispute arose over whether the tribe’s plans to build housing on an additional thirty-one acres of land it had purchased complied with local regulations. While litigation was pending, the secretary accepted the thirty-one-acre parcel into trust. The Interior Board of Indian Appeals upheld that decision, and Rhode Island sought review. The U.S. District Court for Rhode Island granted summary judgment to the secretary and other officials, determining that the IRA’s plain language defines “Indian” to include members of all tribes in existence in 1934, but does not require a tribe to have been federally recognized on that date, and concluding that because the tribe is currently federally recognized and was in existence in 1934, it is a tribe under the IRA. The First Circuit affirmed, finding the IRA ambiguous as to the meaning of “now under Federal jurisdiction”; it deferred to the secretary’s construction of the provision to allow the land to be taken into trust. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case with the named parties being Donald Carcieri, governor of Rhode Island, and Ken Salazar, secretary of the interior.

Opinion of the Court: Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, Alito.

Concurring opinion: Breyer.

Concurring in part and dissenting in part: Souter, Ginsburg.

Dissenting opinion: Stevens.

JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA or Act) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior, a respondent in this case, to acquire land and hold it in trust “for the purpose of providing land for Indians.” §465. The IRA defines the term “Indian” to “include all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction.” §479. The Secretary notified petitioners—the State of Rhode Island, its Governor, and the town of Charlestown, Rhode Island—that he intended to accept in trust a parcel of land for use by the Narragansett Indian Tribe in accordance with his claimed authority under the statute. In proceedings before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA), the District Court, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, petitioners unsuccessfully challenged the Secretary’s authority to take the parcel into trust.

In reviewing the determination of the Court of Appeals, we are asked to interpret the statutory phrase “now under Federal jurisdiction” in §479. Petitioners contend that the term “now” refers to the time of the statute’s enactment, and permits the Secretary to take land into trust for members of recognized tribes that were “under Federal jurisdiction” in 1934. The respondents argue that the word “now” is an ambiguous term that can reasonably be construed to authorize the Secretary to take land into trust for members of tribes that are “under Federal jurisdiction” at the time that the land is accepted into trust.

We agree with petitioners and hold that, for purposes of §479, the phrase “now under Federal jurisdiction” refers to a tribe that was under federal jurisdiction at the time of the statute’s enactment. As a result, §479 limits the Secretary’s authority to taking land into trust for the purpose of providing land to members of a tribe that was under federal jurisdiction when the IRA was enacted in June 1934. Because the record in this case establishes that the Narragansett Tribe was not under federal jurisdiction when the IRA was enacted, the Secretary does not have the authority to take the parcel at issue into trust. We reverse the judgment of the Court of ­Appeals. . . .

This case requires us to apply settled principles of statutory construction under which we must first determine whether the statutory text is plain and unambiguous. If it is, we must apply the statute according to its terms.

The Secretary may accept land into trust only for “the purpose of providing land for Indians.” §465. “Indian” is defined by statute as follows: “The term ‘Indian’ as used in this Act shall include all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction, and all persons who are descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation, and shall further include all other persons of one-half or more Indian blood. . . . The term ‘tribe’ wherever used in this Act shall be construed to refer to any Indian tribe, organized band, pueblo, or the Indians residing on one reservation. . . . ” §479 (emphasis added).

The parties are in agreement, as are we, that the Secretary’s authority to take the parcel in question into trust depends on whether the Narragansetts are members of a “recognized Indian Tribe now under Federal jurisdiction.” That question, in turn, requires us to decide whether the word “now under Federal jurisdiction” refers to 1998, when the Secretary accepted the 31-acre parcel into trust, or 1934, when Congress enacted the IRA.

We begin with the ordinary meaning of the word “now,” as understood when the IRA was enacted. At that time, the primary definition of “now” was “[a]t the present time; at this moment; at the time of speaking.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1671 (2d ed. 1934); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1262 (3d ed. 1933) (defining “now” to mean “[a]t this time, or at the present moment” and noting that “‘[n]ow’ as used in a statute ordinarily refers to the date of its taking effect. . . . ” This definition is consistent with interpretations given to the word “now” by this Court, both before and after passage of the IRA, with respect to its use in other statutes.

It also aligns with the natural reading of the word within the context of the IRA. For example, in the original version of §465, which provided the same authority to the Secretary to accept land into trust for “the purpose of providing land for Indians,” Congress explicitly referred to current events, stating “[t]hat no part of such funds shall be used to acquire additional land outside of the exterior boundaries of [the] Navajo Indian Reservation . . . in the event that the proposed Navajo boundary extension measures now pending in Congress . . . become law.” In addition, elsewhere in the IRA, Congress expressly drew into the statute contemporaneous and future events by using the phrase “now or hereafter.” Congress’ use of the word “now” in this provision, without the accompanying phrase “or hereafter,” thus provides further textual support for the conclusion that the term refers solely to events contemporaneous with the Act’s enactment.

Furthermore, the Secretary’s current interpretation is at odds with the Executive Branch’s construction of this provision at the time of enactment. In correspondence with those who would assist him in implementing the IRA, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier, explained that: “Section 19 of the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934, provides, in effect, that the term ‘Indian’ as used therein shall include—(1) all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized tribe that was under Federal jurisdiction at the date of the Act. . . . ”

Thus, although we do not defer to Commissioner Collier’s interpretation of this unambiguous statute, we agree with his conclusion that the word “now” in §479 limits the definition of “Indian,” and therefore limits the exercise of the Secretary’s trust authority under §465 to those members of tribes that were under federal jurisdiction at the time the IRA was enacted.

The Secretary makes two other arguments in support of his contention that the term “now” as used in §479 is ambiguous. We reject them both. First, the Secretary argues that although the “use of ‘now’ can refer to the time of enactment” in the abstract, “it can also refer to the time of the statute’s application.” But the susceptibility of the word “now” to alternative meanings “does not render the word . . . whenever it is used, ambiguous,” particularly where “all but one of the meanings is ordinarily eliminated by context.” Here, the statutory context makes clear that “now” does not mean “now or hereafter” or “at the time of application.” Had Congress intended to legislate such a definition, it could have done so explicitly, as it did in [elsewhere in the IRA] or it could have omitted the word “now” altogether. Instead, Congress limited the statute by the word “now” and “we are obliged to give effect, if possible, to every word Congress used.”

Second, the Secretary argues that §479 left a gap for the agency to fill by using the phrase “shall include” in its introductory clause. The Secretary, in turn, claims to have permissibly filled that gap by defining “‘Tribe’” and “‘Individual Indian’” without reference to the date of the statute’s enactment. But, as explained above, Congress left no gap in §479 for the agency to fill. Rather, it explicitly and comprehensively defined the term by including only three discrete definitions: “[1] members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction, and [2] all persons who are descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation, and . . . [3] all other persons of one-half or more Indian blood.” In other statutory provisions, Congress chose to expand the Secretary’s authority to particular Indian tribes not necessarily encompassed within the definitions of “Indian” set forth in §479. Had it understood the word “include” in §479 to encompass tribes other than those satisfying one of the three §479 definitions, Congress would have not needed to enact these additional statutory references to specific Tribes. . . .

We hold that the term “now under Federal jurisdiction” in §479 unambiguously refers to those tribes that were under the federal jurisdiction of the United States when the IRA was enacted in 1934. None of the parties or amici, including the Narragansett Tribe itself, has argued that the Tribe was under federal jurisdiction in 1934. And the evidence in the record is to the contrary. Moreover, the petition for writ of certiorari filed in this case specifically represented that “[i]n 1934, the Narragansett Indian Tribe . . . was neither federally recognized nor under the jurisdiction of the federal government.” The respondents’ brief in opposition declined to contest this assertion. Under our rules, that alone is reason to accept this as fact for purposes of our decision in this case. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion with three qualifications. First, I cannot say that the statute’s language by itself is determinative. Linguistically speaking, the word “now” in the phrase “now under Federal jurisdiction,” §479, may refer to a tribe’s jurisdictional status as of 1934. But one could also read it to refer to the time the Secretary of the Interior exercises his authority to take land “for Indians.” §465. I also concede that the Court owes the Interior Department the kind of interpretive respect that reflects an agency’s greater knowledge of the circumstances in which a statute was enacted. Yet because the Department then favored the Court’s present interpretation, that respect cannot help the Department here. . . .

Second, I am persuaded that “now” means “in 1934” not only for the reasons the Court gives but also because an examination of the provision’s legislative history convinces me that Congress so intended. As I read that history, it shows that Congress expected the phrase would make clear that the Secretary could employ §465’s power to take land into trust in favor only of those tribes in respect to which the Federal Government already had the kinds of obligations that the words “under Federal jurisdiction” imply. Indeed, the very Department official who suggested the phrase to Congress during the relevant legislative hearings subsequently explained its meaning in terms that the Court now adopts.

Third, an interpretation that reads “now” as meaning “in 1934” may prove somewhat less restrictive than it at first appears. That is because a tribe may have been “under Federal jurisdiction” in 1934 even though the Federal Government did not believe so at the time. We know, for example, that following the Indian Reorganization Act’s enactment, the Department compiled a list of 258 tribes covered by the Act; and we also know that it wrongly left certain tribes off the list. The Department later recognized some of those tribes on grounds that showed that it should have recognized them in 1934 even though it did not. And the Department has sometimes considered that circumstance sufficient to show that a tribe was “under Federal jurisdiction” in 1934—even though the Department did not know it at the time. . . .

Neither the Narragansett Tribe nor the Secretary has argued that the Tribe was under federal jurisdiction in 1934. Nor have they claimed that any member of the Narragansett Tribe satisfies the “one-half or more Indian blood” requirement. And I have found nothing in the briefs that suggests the Narragansett Tribe could prevail on either theory. . . . Because I see no realistic possibility that the Narragansett Tribe could prevail on the basis of a theory alternative to the theories argued here, I would not remand this case.

With the qualifications here expressed, I join the Court’s opinion and its judgment.

JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Save as to one point, I agree with JUSTICE BREYER’s concurring opinion, which in turn concurs with the opinion of the Court, subject to the three qualifications JUSTICE BREYER explains. I have, however, a further reservation that puts me in the dissenting column.

The disposition of the case turns on the construction of the language from §479, “any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction.” Nothing in the majority opinion forecloses the possibility that the two concepts, recognition and jurisdiction, may be given separate content. . . . During oral argument, however, respondents explained that the Secretary’s more recent interpretation of this statutory language had “understood recognition and under Federal jurisdiction at least with respect to tribes to be one and the same.” . . .

I can agree with JUSTICE BREYER that the current record raises no particular reason to expect that the Tribe might be shown to have been under federal jurisdiction in 1934, but I would not stop there. The very notion of jurisdiction as a distinct statutory condition was ignored in this litigation, and I know of no body of precedent or history of practice giving content to the condition sufficient for gauging the Tribe’s chances of satisfying it. So I see no reason to deny the Secretary and the Narragansett Tribe an opportunity to advocate a construction of the “jurisdiction” phrase that might favor their position here.

I would therefore reverse and remand with opportunity for respondents to pursue a “jurisdiction” claim and respectfully dissent from the Court’s straight reversal.

JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.

Congress has used the term “Indian” in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to describe those individuals who are entitled to special protections and benefits under federal Indian law. The Act specifies that benefits shall be available to individuals who qualify as Indian either as a result of blood quantum or as descendants of members of “any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction.” §479. In contesting the Secretary of the Interior’s acquisition of trust land for the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island, the parties have focused on the meaning of “now” in the Act’s definition of “Indian.” Yet to my mind, whether “now” means 1934 (as the Court holds) or the present time (as respondents would have it) sheds no light on the question whether the Secretary’s actions on behalf of the Narragansett were permitted under the statute. The plain text of the Act clearly authorizes the Secretary to take land into trust for Indian tribes as well as individual Indians, and it places no temporal limitation on the definition of “Indian tribe.” Because the Narragansett Tribe is an Indian tribe within the meaning of the Act, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. . . .

[P]etitioners’ arguments—and the Court’s conclusion—are based on a misreading of the statute. “[N]ow,” the temporal limitation in the definition of “Indian,” only affects an individual’s ability to qualify for federal benefits under the IRA. If this case were about the Secretary’s decision to take land into trust for an individual who was incapable of proving her eligibility by lineage or blood quantum, I would have no trouble concluding that such an action was contrary to the IRA. But that is not the case before us. By taking land into trust for a validly recognized Indian tribe, the Secretary acted well within his statutory authority. . . .

The Court today adopts a cramped reading of a statute Congress intended to be “sweeping” in scope. Morton v. Mancari (1974). In so doing, the Court ignores the “principle deeply rooted in [our] Indian jurisprudence” that “‘statutes are to be construed liberally in favor of the Indians.’” County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation (1992) see also Cohen[’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law]§2.02[1], p. 119 (“The basic Indian law canons of construction require that treaties, agreements, statutes, and executive orders be liberally construed in favor of the Indians”). Given that the IRA plainly authorizes the Secretary to take land into trust for an Indian tribe, and in light of the Narragansetts’ status as such, the Court’s decision can be best understood as protecting one sovereign (the State) from encroachment from another (the Tribe). Yet in matters of Indian law, the political branches have been entrusted to mark the proper boundaries between tribal and state jurisdiction. With the IRA, Congress drew the boundary in a manner that favors the Narragansett.

I respectfully dissent.