The payment in Cobell v. Kempthorne or the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) Account Case could exceed $20 billion. Two US Secretaries of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt and Gail Norton, were held in contempt of court. The case plagued Norton's tenure. Yet, when she resigned a few months ago none but the American Indian press even mentioned Cobell v. Norton or suggested that it might have played a roll in her resignation.
Why is it getting so little coverage? Probably the same reason the issue arose in the first place: Native American issues--outside of gaming--receive scant attention from the general public so the government assumes it can sweep it under the rug. Only that rug will need to be pretty big if even half of what Elouise Cobell and 500,000 other plaintiffs are willing to settle for ends up being paid out.
What are Individual Indian Money Accounts (IIMs)
Under the Dawes Act American Indian reservations were divided into individual allotments. The allotments, however, were held in trust by the federal government. Also held in trust was any income from leases on the property. These might include potentially lucrative leases for timber, mining, or grazing rights. This income was held in IIMs and paid out as annuities or, in the early days of Indian agencies, drawn on to buy goods.
Cobell v. Kempthorne
Cobell v. Kempthorne recently Cobell v. Norton began in 1996 when key plaintiff Elouise Cobell and 500,000 American Indians filed a suit against the federal government. The plaintiffs maintain that the Interior Department did not keep an accurate accounting of what went into and out of these accounts and that hundreds of thousands of American Indians and their heirs did not receive their due. The dual purpose of Cobell v. Kempthorne was to force the government to conduct an accurate accounting of IIMs and to reform the recordkeeping system going forward. Total estimates for the discrepancies have gone as high as a $100 billion, but $27 billion is what plaintiffs now say they would settle for in order to bring the decade-long case to a close and expedite payments to deserving plaintiffs.
Not surprisingly, the US federal government claims that the net discrepancy adding together some under and overpayments is minor, perhaps less than $10,000. However, currently their accounting has gone back only to 1986, about 100 years after the first IIMs were set up.
Indian Trust Case presents the two sides of Cobell v Kempthorne.
Nannette Croce - Nannette Croce is a writer and editor who has worked with online publications for more than ten years, most recently as Co-Managing Editor ...
