Senate Passes Padilla Bills to Support the Restoration of Tribal Homelands
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) spoke on the Senate floor following Senate passage of a pair of bills to support the restoration of tribal lands for the Jamul Indian Village and the Lytton Rancheria of California. The Jamul Indian Village Land Transfer Act would establish over 170 acres as trust lands for the benefit of the Jamul Tribe. The second bill would provide clarity that the Lytton Rancheria of California can place land into trust, which is essential to tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Both bills now head to the House of Representatives.
“The Jamul Indian Village and Lytton Rancheria of California have a right to restore their homelands by placing their land into trust,” said Senator Padilla. “After enduring centuries of federal policies aimed at undermining tribal sovereignty, passage of these bills will enable Jamul and Lytton to preserve their sacred histories and rebuild their communities. I am honored to have worked alongside the leaders of these Tribes to pass these critical land preservation efforts.”
“The Jamul Indian Village has endeavored for years to facilitate the best ways for tribal members to move onto reservation land in order to raise their families, preserve their native culture, and honor tribal customs and practices,” said Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.-48). “This fee-to-trust bill grants this historic tribe an opportunity to do just that. By placing Jamul’s land into trust, our legislation safeguards the reservation, its sacred sites, and Kumeyaay traditions so they will endure far into the future.”
Jamul Indian Village
The Jamul Tribe’s ancestral lands have diminished over time from over 640 acres to just six acres, which now comprise the Tribe’s trust land base, making it one of the smallest reservations in the country. In 2005, Jamul Tribal members voluntarily moved off of the reservation to allow the Tribe to pursue economic development to become self-sufficient and less reliant on the federal government. In order to build a true homeland for its members, the Jamul Indian Village has purchased four parcels of land, comprising 172 acres of land in San Diego County, which are covered by this legislation.
The Jamul Indian Village Land Transfer Act would establish these lands as trust lands in order to bring their Tribal members back to live on their reservation and develop a permanent and proper homeland. Representative Darrell Issa leads companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
The legislation is endorsed by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Full text of the bill is available is here.
A map of the lands is available here.
Lytton Rancheria of California
This legislation would explicitly reaffirm the Lytton Rancheria of California’s ability to place land into trust via the Department of the Interior’s standard land-to-trust process.
The Lytton Rancheria, located in Sonoma County, would like to place additional land into trust in order to build a proper homeland and provide housing for their members. The bill is necessary to clarify that Lytton Rancheria is subject to the Indian Reorganization Act, and, just like other tribal governments, is able to put land into trust through the administrative process. The Indian Reorganization Act was a landmark bill that provided critical tools for rebuilding sovereignty and community following decades of wrongful assimilation policies.
Full text of the bill is available here. Senator Padilla is a strong advocate for restoring tribal ownership of their ancestral lands. Last year, President Biden signed into law a series of Padilla’s bills to restore tribal stewardship of sacred lands and ensure that our federal land management laws respect tribal sovereignty. The package included laws to take more than 2,500 acres of land in the San Jacinto Mountains into trust for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, to place roughly 1,000 acres of federal land located in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties into trust for the Karuk Tribe, and to permit the Bureau of Land Management to sell and lease certain public lands to tribes below market value if used for recreational or public purposes. The first tribal land transfer under the Bureau of Land Management program occurred last year when 88 acres of land were transferred back to Susanville Indian Rancheria. Furthermore, earlier this year, Padilla and Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced similar bipartisan legislation to strengthen tribal parity for the transfer of surplus federal property to tribes if used for specified public purposes.
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