Pataki blames U.S. in failed talks
April 7, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

State and federal politicians chimed in on the Oneida Indian land-claim case Thursday, firing off letters to President Clinton, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. District Court Judge Neal P. McCurn.

Gov. George Pataki wrote a letter to Clinton Thursday saying the federal government’s support of the Oneida Indians contributed to Tuesday’s breakdown of the land-claim talks. He asked Clinton to withdraw the Justice Department from the case.

The Justice Department’s involvement represents an “unfair attempt to rewrite the long history of the federal government’s mishandling of Indian affairs,” Pataki wrote.

“The historical sins of the federal government should not now be visited upon its innocent citizens who reside in Upstate New York,” the Republican governor wrote.

Oneida Indian Nation of New York spokesman Mark Emery called Pataki’s letter “a shameful attempt to avoid the state’s liability for its wrongdoing of the past 200 years.”

The New York and Wisconsin Oneidas and the Thames Band Oneidas of Canada are suing the state and Oneida and Madison counties over 250,000 acres taken from them in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In December 1998, the Oneidas asked the court to add property owners in the claim area as defendants in the lawsuit.

Thursday’s flurry of letters followed the breakdown this week of mediation talks aimed at finding an out-of-court settlement for the case.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, each asked Reno — who oversees the Justice Department — to help lift the legal cloud over the landowners of Oneida and Madison counties by ensuring they won’t be drawn into the Oneidas’ lawsuit.

“The innocent landowners should not be defendants,” Boehlert wrote.

Emery said the Oneida Nation leadership does not want to harm any individual landowner.

He noted, however, “If the Justice Department were to pull out of the case, the state would assert its sovereign immunity (from a lawsuit), which would get them out of the case but not anyone else.

“By trying to wiggle out of this case, the state would be leaving the landowners and the counties to fend for themselves,” Emery said.

Pataki said he wants the Justice Department out of the case because its involvement “emboldened” the Oneidas and contributed to the failure of the mediated land-claim talks.

He said the Oneidas clung to the status quo in the talks, while the state and counties negotiated in good faith.

Oneida Indian Nation Representative Raymond Halbritter said Wednesday the state and counties were the stubborn parties.

The only thing both sides agree on was that major obstacles to settlement were the Turning Stone Casino Resort gambling revenues and the size of an eventual Oneida Nation of New York reservation.

Boehlert’s letter also asked McCurn to reconvene the settlement talks. None of the parties rejected the idea out of hand, but there was little optimism that a new round of negotiations would produce a settlement.

“The Oneidas are willing to negotiate,” Emery said, “but they are not willing to be the only ones compromising or to settle this with profits from their own casino.”