Jay Daniels: Sen. Feinstein holds land-into-trust fix hostage

It’s a little early, but California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein is already running around the country dressed up for Halloween as Frankenstein and attempting to scare everyone into submission to her ideas.

Feinstein is using the Carcieri v. Salazar, 555 U.S. 379 (2009), ruling focused on the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress’ use of the word “now” in the act, only applied to those tribes under federal jurisdiction in that year or earlier. These are supposed to be the brightest and smartest minds who are the only ones who know what Congress meant when they said “now.” Does that mean that Thomas Jefferson’s insertion into the U.S. Constitution that “All men are created equal” only applied to non-slaves, or other people of color? The United States Supreme Court’s lesson to Indian country in elementary grammar is absurd.

Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell said that Feinstein is “willing to hold hostage the nationally needed Carcieri fix, and willing to throw newly recognized and disadvantaged tribes from all across the United States under the bus.”