The Quinault Indian Nation will receive $22.8 million from the federal government as its share of a 25-year-old class action lawsuit over Congress’ failure to fully fund tribal programs.
The full settlement of $940 million is split between 699 tribes and tribal organizations around the country. The Quinault portion is the second largest. The Navajo Nation’s share, $57.89 million, is the largest.
In addition to the Quinault’s share, locally, the Chehalis Tribe will receive $2.15 million; Shoalwater Bay, $1.5 million; Hoh, $1.63 million, Quileute, $5.7 million and Makah, $7.7 million.
At the heart of the matter is the Indian Self Determination Act of 1975 that empowers tribes — as opposed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs — to manage programs such as law enforcement, forest management, housing, road maintenance and federal education under federal contracts.
Although the government agreed to contracts to pay tribal authorities to perform those functions, Congress would sometimes fail to provide full funding, resulting in a gap, according to a Justice Department news release describing the settlement.
The class action suit, Ramah Navajo v. Jewell, was filed in 1990. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that the government should pay, regardless of whether Congress appropriated the money. Since then, the government and the tribes have been negotiating the amount and distribution of the settlement.
Some underfunded federal contracts in the case reportedly dated back to the 1970s.
The $940 million settlement was announced in September, pending lower court approval. On Tuesday, Feb. 23, Federal Judge James Parker in New Mexico approved the final settlement plan.
“As the judge said in issuing his ruling, this settlement comes as a result of decades of underpayments to tribes, which forced us to take funds from other cash-strapped budgets to pay for critical programs. This settlement is intended to help right those wrongs,” Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation, said in a news release.
In September, when the settlement was announced, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said, “Tribal self-governance will continue to be our North Star as we navigate a new chapter in this important relationship and we are committed to fully funding contract support costs so that tribal contracting can be more successful.”