Some Justice After All These Years

Elouise Cobell: Endurance, Grit and Right Finally Win

By Amy Linn, 12-10-09

Call her woman of the year.

Elouise Cobell, a banker, Browning resident, and member of the Blackfeet tribe, decided 13 years ago to take on the federal government, seeking to win back billions of dollars in royalties that were owed to tribal members for oil, gas and other leases on their properties, held in trust by the government. For generations, the 122-year-old trust program was in disarray, and payments were never made.

This week, the United States agreed to pay $3.4 billion to Native Americans to settle what Attorney General Eric Holder described as “the largest case of fiscal mismanagement on behalf of citizens in U.S. history.”

Reporter Todd Wilkinson’s nice story in the Christian Science Monitor summarizes Cobell’s victory with this quote from her attorney:

“Elouise represents the best in all of us. We’re talking about a single individual from rural Browning, Montana, who took on the full power of the U.S. government and won,” Dennis Gingold said. “It is a story of epic proportions, and in my 35 years as a lawyer, her demand for justice is unparalleled.”

Cobell, the 68-year-old lead plaintiff in the case, had hoped she could win more money for the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans who had been cheated out of as much as $47 billion. At least one federal judge was on her side: According to Wilkinson’s story, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said about the matter that “I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government.” (Lamberth was so incensed that he put a contempt order on then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton; the Bush administration proceeded to remove Lamberth from the case.)

Egregious or not, the White House did not right the wrongs, which included gross mismanagement, shoddy bookkeeping and a cover up. The Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations did nothing. A federal judge last year proposed a paltry $455 million settlement. (Check out the original complaint here.)

Finally, the Obama administration made the matter a priority. The president said in a statement that it was “an important step toward reconciliation.”

Cobell told reporters that time was of the essence. “We are compelled to settle by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each day as our elders die and are forever prevented from receiving just compensation,” she said in Washington.

Although the total dollar amount sounds large, the settlement will for the most part provide only modest payouts, at least in Montana. About 18,000 Native Americans in the state stand to receive about $27 million, according to a story by Lorna Thackeray in the Billings Gazette. The typical payment will be $500 to $1,500, Thackeray reports.

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