Oneidas’ tax dispute reaches high court
Sides ready arguments for hearing today
Jan. 11, 2005

R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

CASE AT A GLANCE The city of Sherrill has sued the Oneida Indian Nation for back property taxes on land owned by the Nation within the city. The Oneidas argue that land they purchase becomes reservation land and is therefore sovereign and free from taxation. Legal teams from both sides will present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was the night before what could be the most important legal proceeding in the history of Oneida and Madison counties.

This morning at 10 o’clock sharp, the U.S. Supreme Court conducts a hearing on the tax dispute between the city of Sherrill and the Oneida Indian Nation of New York.

Despite the butterflies flitting around their collective stomachs, delegations from both counties planned hearty dinners Monday with the lawyers representing them in the Oneida land claim.

“We’re going to watch Syracuse-Notre Dame on TV,” Oneida County Executive Joseph Griffo said.

Madison County sent 10 observers, one of the biggest delegations that will be in the audience for today’s hearing in the hallowed Supreme Court chambers. Oneida County and the city of Sherrill have five people each here.

Lawyers for the city and for the Oneida Nation will have no more than a half hour each to sell their relative positions to the justices today. They also will be prepared to answer questions from any of the nine justices.

Sherrill Mayor Joseph Shay said there were no nerves in the city’s camp Monday night. The planning was done and legal
strategies set, he said from his hotel. Now, he said, “We’re just here for a historic event.”

Madison County Attorney S. John Campanie said while the exchange between the attorneys and the court will be brief, it will give county leaders “a better understanding of how the court is responding to the case.”

The parties ended up before the Supreme Court when Sherrill foreclosed on property owned by the Oneidas — including the Oneidas’ textile plant — because the tribe refused to pay taxes on the land. Two lower federal courts ruled in favor of the Oneidas, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case itself.

Sherrill is located in western Oneida County. Madison County also has commenced foreclosures against Oneida Nation land within its boundaries, actions that could benefit from a favorable ruling for Sherrill in neighboring Oneida County, Campanie said.

Lawyers for the Oneidas argue that the land is defined as Indian land by federal treaties, making it exempt from local property taxes and regulations.

The Oneida Nation itself brought a case to the Supreme Court 20 years ago over its claim for payment on what it claims is the illegal taking of 250,000 acres of its traditional, treaty-protected lands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. That ruling went in the Oneidas’ favor, but the land claim remains unresolved.

Campanie said it’s not reasonable to speculate how the Supreme Court will decide on the Sherrill tax case, but, he said, “The fact we’re here is incredible.”

He said it may be a sign that the justices are poised to address federal laws on Indian relations, laws that, Campanie says, “are a mess and have to be straightened out.”

Griffo is a relative newcomer to the Oneida land-claim universe.

He said he has toured the empty Supreme Court chambers on several of his many trips to the nation’s capital and is eager to see the court in action.

“I’ve never heard arguments in the court or the questions of the justices. I want to hear the ebb and flow,” he said.

Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Rocco DiVeronica has traveled the length of the East Coast following the Indian question in the past decade, but like his Oneida County counterpart, he, too, has never seen the nation’s highest court in action.

After his first, historic brush with the justices today, DiVeronica said, “we’re going to go look at the new Indian cultural center.”

The Oneida Nation contributed $10 million to the building of the recently opened National Museum of the American Indian.

Contact R. Patrick Corbett at pcorbett@utica.gannett.com