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In The Hoop
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2002

Welcome to In The Hoop, Indianz.Com's occasional column about assorted Indian issues.

Campbell Immunity Faces Challenge
Two Congressmen don't want Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) -- or any other lawmaker for that matter -- to have sovereign immunity from an age discrimination lawsuit. So they've asked the House leadership to intervene in an appeal of the case, Roll Call reports.

Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) last week wrote a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "We ask you to review this case and direct House counsel to file an amicus brief and request other appropriate authorities to undertake similar action on this matter," they wrote, according to the letter quoted by Roll Call.

They responded to a federal judge's decision which held Campbell immune from a suit by a former employee who said she was fired and treated differently due to her age. The merits have never been argued.

Off the Front Page...and Back Onto It
Last week's meeting of the federal-tribal trust reform task force was certainly a heavy affair. Bush administration officials and tribal leaders clashed on the future path of efforts to fix the broken system.

But not all was serious. Plenty of jokes were made throughout the day-long meeting, including Ron Allen's reference to an unflattering Washington Post "profile" (to put it mildly) of Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles.

"He got trust reform off the fornt page," the chairman of Washington's Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe said. "He put himself on there."

Griles, needless to say, didn't look amused.

Mark My Words!
Speaking of the task force developments, one reader pegged the rift in a startingly accurate e-mail sent to us in advance of the meeting.

"Personally I think it's all a farce," the reader wrote. "I think the Interior in the end will tell the task force members, 'We'll do it our way. Thanks for all the travel and you have got to see a lot of new places that you would have never saw.' And just a few words on their time and effort and nothing about their time away from home and their duties as elected officials to their tribes."

"The IIM account holders will get some accounting but not what their really owed," the note continued. "In the end the Interior will protect their own..."

In Your Hoop
Did you predict the task force fall-out too? Email In the Hoop and let us know.