Last week, Montana's U.S. senators seized the first day of the new congressional session to introduce a bill granting the tribe federal recognition at long last. U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Jon Tester, both members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, ought to be applauded for recognizing the importance of this legislation and for working together to get a bill on the table right away.

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, on the other hand, ought to be roundly chastised for failing to recognize the Little Shell for more than 35 years. The tribe, based in Great Falls and counting more than 4,000 members, first sought recognition from the agency in 1978.

Yet the Interior Department has put up one roadblock after another, dragging its heels for years and then rejecting the tribe's bid for recognition on the most dubious of bases. Federal officials claimed it took so long to issue the rejection because they lack the resources to verify the tribe's documents. Then, in 2009, the department claimed that the Little Shell lacked sufficient recognition from other sources — despite the fact that the state of Montana formally recognized the tribe in 2000.

Last year, the agency announced that it had approved a new administrative process that would make the Little Shell eligible for reconsideration. Of course, given their history with this department, the tribe is not holding its breath for an immediate, favorable response. As gridlocked as Congress can sometimes be, it apparently offers a more hopeful path to federal recognition for the Little Shell.