End of Cobell bittersweet for Diné leader
By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi' Bureau
CHINLE, July 2, 2011
The news that a federal judge had approved the $3.4 billion settlement of Cobell v. Salazar was bittersweet news for the leader of a Navajo group that has been fighting for individual Indian federal account holders' rights for the better part of three decades.
On one hand, the settlement is "a huge relief," said Ervin Chavez of Bloomfield, N.M., president of Shi Shi Kéyah.
On the other, he said, "I can't stop thinking about all the elders we've lost over the years as this litigation has dragged on," including Shi Shi Kéyah founder Henry Hesuse and Chavez' own father.
Chavez said he would have to check with the group's attorneys to find out where the settlement leaves an independent lawsuit Shi Shi K‚yah filed over rights of way through individually allocated trust land. The Cobell settlement stipulates that class action participants drop any further claims against the federal government, but the Navajo suit may be grandfathered in.
Chavez said his phone has been ringing off the hook since the settlement hit the news last week, mostly with elders congratulating him and asking when their checks will come. He said the Cobell attorneys have assured him claimants could start receiving their portion of the money in as little as three months.
For most, it won't be much. The base rate is $1,000, and once all 300,000 individual Indian account holders are paid, the remainder will be divvied up according to individual circumstances.
Blackfeet tribal member Eloise Cobell, who filed the lawsuit in 1996, will receive $2 million and three other named plaintiffs will get between $150,000 and $200,000 each. Another $1.9 billion will be used to buy back and consolidate tribal land holdings and $60 million will go into a scholarship fund for Native students.
Cobell's legal team, many of whom have been working on the case for decades, will split $99 million.
Participating by telephone in the hearing, Cobell defended the amount of the legal fees although some class members had criticized it as being too high even for the 15 years of work the legal team had put in.
"Please let the message be that lawyers who represent Native people will be treated no worse or compensated no less than those who represent people who are not Indians," Cobell told the judge.
Cobell's attorneys said Cobell's $2 million piece of the pie will mostly go to defray the expenses she herself has incurred working on the case all these years.
She also gave more than $390,000 of the MacArthur Genius Grant she received years ago to fund the lawsuit, her attorneys said.
While even Cobell admits the settlement "isn't perfect" and doesn't compensate individual account holders for all they have suffered at the hands of government, she called it "fair and reasonable."
But Chavez said the real value of the suit will be to tighten up the federal government's lax stewardship of Indian assets, which federal Judge Thomas Hogan said in his ruling have been mismanaged on a "staggering scale."
"Hopefully, this marks a turning point in the way (the Department of) Interior accounts for our lands and our resources," Chavez said.
Interior Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes promised that reform would occur.
"The Cobell settlement is the beginning of true trust reform," he was quoted as saying in a press release, noting that Interior is establishing a Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform.
"Interior needs to be more transparent and customer-friendly," Hayes said. "The status quo is not acceptable."
Cobell filed the suit when she discovered numerous discrepancies and missing records in the books for Blackfeet members' individual trust accounts. Further research revealed similar lapses all over the country.
According to Chavez, Cobell is presently recuperating from cancer surgery, which is why she didn't attend the hearing in person. "I hear she's doing well," he said.