The Hill News

Today, the Senate will be asked to approve by unanimous consent settlement of the proposed Cobell lawsuit (Cobell v. Salazar). Senators are not being advised that the proposed settlement is constitutionally dubious and greatly expands the original litigation. It authorizes a mandatory class of plaintiff with no regard to the due-process rights of individuals to opt. It creates a new class to settle land and natural resource mismanagement claims which were never part of the original litigation and not been part of the 14-year-long Cobell lawsuit which, we have been told, sought only an accounting of individual Indian money (IIM) accounts.

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