Indian-fighter
Joe Larisa uses town retainer to watch for a “Carcieri Fix”
By Will Collette
Charlestown town government, controlled by the Charlestown
Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), continues to treat the Narragansett Indian Tribe
as an enemy, rather than a neighbor. If you need proof, all you need to do is
read the invoices submitted for payment by Charlestown’s “Special Counsel for
Indian Affairs” Joseph
Larisa. Click here to read his November
bill; click here for December.
During those two months, Larisa spent a total of three hours and
forty-five minutes working on Charlestown’s Narragansett “issues” for which
Charlestown paid him $4,100 or the equivalent of $1,093 an hour.
Nearly all of that time, all but one hour spent on Charlestown’s
strategy to block the transfer of Camp
Davis by the state to the Tribe, was spent looking at an old, moribund
issue, the “Carcieri
Fix.”
Ridiculous. I could have done the same in fifteen minutes and for
a lot cheaper. But I guess Charlestown’s CCA Party majority likes the feeling
of spending the big bucks to get the opinion of Rhode Island’s foremost Indian
fighter.
For the uninitiated, the “Carcieri
Fix” is the label for an effort to restore tribal sovereignty rights to
more than 500 tribes across the US that were hurt by the US Supreme Court’s
Carcieri v. Salazar decision. This case arose from Charlestown’s dispute with
the Tribe over its long-planned, but hopelessly stalled low-income elderly
housing proposal that was to be built on land adjacent to what used to be the
Whalerock land (now called the Charlestown Moraine Preserve).
The Tribe wanted to place the land under federal trust under the
Interior Department. Charlestown, and the state of Rhode Island, did not want
the Tribe to be allowed to place any land outside of the jurisdiction and
control of state and local law.
A deep distrust toward the Narragansetts and suspicion against
anything the Tribe tries to do became a founding principle of the RI Shoreline
Coalition, later the RI Statewide Coalition, which spawned the Charlestown
Citizens Alliance.
The case careened back and forth through the courts until finally
arriving in front of the Supremes who issued their unexpected and expansive
decision based on what they said were ambiguities in the 1934 Indian
Reorganization Act.
The Court's majority said Congress was not clear about saying that this law
applied to all Indian nations such as those who received federal recognition
after the law was passed. So all tribes who, like the Narragansetts, became
federally recognized after 1934 found themselves no longer covered by the
Indian Reorganization Act.
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| The warm welcome extended to Roger Williams by the Narragansetts has not been reciprocated |
The tribes argued that this created an unfair, two-class kind of
citizenship and some members of Congress agreed. These supporters of Indian
sovereignty introduced “Carcieri Fix” legislation which, in the simplest terms,
said that it was Congress’s intent that all tribes should be protected under
the Indian Reorganization Act.
As in Rhode Island, the issue of sovereignty was overshadowed by
the issue of Indian gaming, and Congressional opponents, led by Senator Diane
Feinstein (D-CA) killed the Carcieri Fix year after year.
The leading champion of the Carcieri Fix, Senator Daniel Akaka
(D-Hawaii) hoped to get the Carcieri Fix enacted as his last achievement before
he retired last year, but failed.
Without a prestigious champion like Akaka, according to Indian Country Today (the New York Times
among Native Americans), the Carcieri Fix is hopelessly stalled. Indeed, even
the chairmanship of Akaka’s former committee, the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs, has been subject to a leadership shuffle. They are about to get their
third committee chairperson in the year since Akaka’s retirement.
All of which begs the question: why is Joe Larisa spending most of
his Charlestown retainer time on a dead issue? And to our CCA Party town
leaders, who tout their prudent fiscal management, why are we paying so much to
get so little?