South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 U.S. 329, 27 (1998)

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Cite as: 522 U. S. 329 (1998)

Opinion of the Court

We have often observed, however, that "the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one." United States v. Philadelphia Nat. Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 348-349 (1963). Likewise, the scores of administrative documents and maps marshaled by the parties to support or contradict diminishment have limited interpretive value.6 We need not linger over whether the many references to the Yankton Reservation in legislative

according to the record, at the Fort Randall Casino Hotel on the "Yankton Sioux Reservation"); see, e. g., 143 Cong. Rec. S9616 (Sept. 18, 1997) (discussion of the Marty Indian School "located on the Yankton Sioux Reservation"); 135 Cong. Rec. 1656 (1989) (description of the Lake Andes-Wagner project, which irrigates "Indian-owned land located on the Yankton Sioux Reservation"). But see 35 Stat. 808 (referring to land "on the former Yankton Reservation").

6 See, e. g., Exec. Order No. 5173 (Aug. 9, 1929) (extending the trust period on the allotted lands "on the Yankton Sioux Reservation"); Exec. Order No. 2363 (Apr. 30, 1916) (same); Letter to Chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs, from Secretary of the Interior (Feb. 1, 1921), reprinted in App. 480 (stating that "Lake Andes is within the former Yankton-Sioux Indian Reservation"); Letter to Yankton Agency from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Aug. 20, 1930), reprinted in App. 481 (discussing lands "heretofore constituting a part of the reservation"); Bureau of the Census, U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Pub. No. 1990 CPH-1-43, p. 175 (1991), reprinted in App. 527 (listing population figures for the Yankton Reservation).

The Tribe also highlights a 1941 opinion letter issued by Felix Cohen, then-acting Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, in which he concluded that the Yankton Reservation had not been altered by the 1894 Act because allotments were "scattered over all the reservation," and the Act was thus distinguishable from statutes that "ceded a definite part of the reservation and treated the remaining areas as a diminished reservation." See Letter of Aug. 7, 1941, reprinted in 1 U. S. Dept. of Interior, Opinions of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior Relating to Indian Affairs 1063, 1064 (1979). The letter has not been disavowed but was apparently ignored in subsequent determinations by the agency. A 1969 memorandum on tribal courts, for example, plainly stated that the 1894 Act "diminish[ed] the area over which the [Yankton] tribe might exercise its authority." Memorandum M-36783 from Associate Solicitor, Indian Affairs, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1 (Sept. 10, 1969), reprinted in App. 518.

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