Ute PAC on YouTube: Indian Land Grab by Rob Bishop
The Ute Tribe of Utah has launched a campaign to defeat a Republican lawmaker who is pushing a "modern day Indian land grab" through Congress. The target of the Ute Indian Tribe Political Action Committee is H.R.5780, the Utah Public Lands Initiative Act. The bill takes 100,000 acres from the tribe's reservation and transfers it to the state of Utah. But Ute PAC is also taking aim at Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), the sponsor of the bill. The tribe says the Republican incumbent has used his position as chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources to advance policies that are dangerous to Indian Country. "Rob Bishop’s era of broken promises and violation of treaties with Indian tribes must come to an end," Ute PAC said in an announcement on Monday.
Chairman Shaun Chapoose of the Ute Tribe of Utah. Photo by Indianz.Com / Available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The tribe has funded Ute PAC with $100,000, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. About $40,000 of that will be used to air ads on Utah television, the paper said. The ads urge voters to support Democrat Peter Clemens in the November election. The tribe's committee, however, is not connected in any way to his campaign. Bishop has rejected any suggestion that he has excluded the Utes from his legislative efforts. But he has refused to remove the provisions affecting the tribe's reservation from his bill, which is moving quickly in the 114th Congress. Bishop's committee has advanced numerous pro-tribal bill since he became chairman in January 2015. But he's also pushed for some questionable measures, including one that strips the Bureau of Indian Affairs of its authority to recognize tribes. Read More on the Story:
Ute Tribe declares political war with Rep. Rob Bishop (The Salt Lake Tribune 10/18) House Committee on Natural Resources Notices:
Markup on 5 Bills (September 22, 2016)
Markup on 5 Bills (September 21, 2016)
Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5780 “Utah Public Lands Initiative Act” (September 14, 2016) 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Decisions:
Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe [Amended] (August 29, 2016)
Ute Tribe v. Utah (June 16, 2015)
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