Resolution #ECWS-14-004
TITLE: Urging an Amendment to the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization to Ensure Its Applicability to All Tribes
WHEREAS, we, the members of the National Congress of American Indians of the United States, invoking the divine blessing of the Creator upon our efforts and purposes, in order to preserve for ourselves and our descendants the inherent sovereign rights of our Indian nations, rights secured under Indian treaties and agreements with the United States, and all other rights and benefits to which we are entitled under the laws and Constitution of the United States, to enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the Indian people, to preserve Indian cultural values, and otherwise promote the health, safety and welfare of the Indian people, do hereby establish and submit the following resolution; and
WHEREAS, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was established in 1944 and is the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments; and
WHEREAS, NCAI recognizes that domestic and dating violence within all American Indian and Alaska Native communities damages and impacts all those within the community; and NCAI has a compelling interest in promoting and maintaining the well-being of all victims of domestic and dating violence—including tribes that were left out of—or excluded from—the recent legislation as it impacts all sovereign American Indian and Alaska Native tribes; and
WHEREAS, the United States Congress passed legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in March 2013, with very important provisions that recognized the inherent sovereign authority of tribal governments to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian domestic violence offenders; and
WHEREAS, this legislative accomplishment was hailed as a major step forward for tribes in their efforts to address the existing jurisdictional gap on tribal lands; and
WHEREAS, certain tribes in the United States are subject to restrictive settlement acts that their respective states interpret as preventing the application of many federal Indian laws unless Congress has specifically authorized the application of such laws to those tribes;
WHEREAS, if these States succeed at advancing their interpretation, these tribes would be excluded from the benefit of these laws in general, and of the jurisdictional provisions in VAWA 2013 in particular; and
WHEREAS, it is fundamentally wrong that important federal legislation intended to address the tragic circumstances of domestic violence victims in Indian Country is not applicable to all federally recognized tribes; and
WHEREAS, in December 2010, the United States recognized the rights of its First Peoples through its support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), whose provisions and principles support and promote the purposes of this resolution; and
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that NCAI calls upon Congress to amend the Violence Against Women Act or otherwise clarify that “notwithstanding any law to the contrary” including any language in restrictive settlement acts, that all the tribal provisions of the Violence Against Women Act apply to all federally recognized tribes; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NCAI calls upon Congress to clarify that laws of general applicability to Indian tribes adopted after the passage of a restrictive settlement act apply to all federally recognized tribes—including those tribes subject to restrictive settlement acts; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this resolution supplements NCAI Resolutions # SAC-12-038 and REN-13-006; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that this resolution shall be the policy of NCAI until it is withdrawn or modified by subsequent resolution.
CERTIFICATION
The foregoing resolution was adopted by the General Assembly at the 2014 Executive Council Winter Session of the National Congress of American Indians, held at the Westin Washington City Center March 11 -13, 2014, in Washington, DC with a quorum present.