Compact bargains with landowners’ rights
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Editor,
It’s important to stop and reflect on the blessings we receive in our lives, especially blessings we receive without knowing they even exist. Personally, I’d like to thank the Montana State Reserved Water Compact Commission; you know, the Chris Tweetens and the Jay Wieners and the Bill Schultzs.
In the recorded words of Mr. Chris Tweeten on Aug. 2, 2012, (at the DNRC in Helena): “the response is, to remind the tribes of the grand bargain and the fact that we agreed to do this extraordinary thing, frankly with respect to agreeing to subject, ah, or to remove, non-Indian rights on the reservation from the jurisdiction and control of the state and place them somewhere else, at the tribes’ request … in exchange for the unitary management program.”
I am humbled by their generosity with my constitutional rights. Remove me, a non-tribal member on private, fee-simple land, and place me under the control of the CSKT, of whom I have no rights nor voice and cannot join the “club” or become a member; beneficent blessings from the governor’s office and the legislature. Thanks, but no thanks.
In Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 564 (1981), it was decreed that “… the tribes have no regulatory interest over surplus water on reservation fee lands. Tribal power to regulate the conduct of non-Indians on land no longer owned by or held in trust for the tribes has been impliedly withdrawn as a necessary result of tribal dependent status.”
By what power of law can the Montana State Compact Commission (without my express permission) give my constitutional rights away as a “bargaining chip” – the grand bargain – to resolve the federal reserved water rights on the open Flathead Reservation? I’m sorry, but I still hold a full membership in the State of Montana, being property taxed to the gills and required to perform jury duty in exchange for my guaranteed constitutional rights under the Montana State Constitution. My constitutional rights are not for sale nor can they be “bargained” away.
Michael Gale
Ronan
