October 17, 1984
I am withholding my approval from S. 1967, a bill ``To compensate the Gros Ventre and
Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community for irrigation construction
expenditures.''
S. 1967 would reimburse the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian
Community for $107,759.58 in tribal funds expended under applicable law for the construction of
irrigation projects on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation from 1895 to 1913. In addition,
interest would be paid at 4 percent from the date of expenditure of the tribal funds until the date
of payment of the principal pursuant to the bill.
On November 20, 1962, the Indian Claims Commission, after due deliberation, issued a detailed
opinion carefully considering and dismissing (among other claims) a claim for the same
reimbursement that would be provided by the bill. Fort Belknap Indian Community v. United
States, 11 Ind. Cl. Comm. 479, 510 - 518, 543 - 549 (1962). The Commission found that
construction of the irrigation system was ``requested by the members of the Fort Belknap
Community,'' that it has been of great and continuing benefit to the tribes, and ``that its
construction and maintenance have been consonant with the fair and honorable dealings clause
within the meaning of the Indian Claims Commission Act.'' 11 Ind. Cl. Comm. 518 - 519. The
tribes took no appeal from that decision.
The fair and impartial administration of justice and the protection of public resources from
meritless special appropriations both require that those who have availed themselves of judicial
remedies in asserting claims against the United States, and have had their claims fully and fairly
adjudicated under our Constitution and laws, receive no more or less than that to which they have
been adjudged to be entitled. Twenty-two years after the claims of these two tribes were
dismissed by an impartial tribunal established by the Congress specifically to adjudicate such
claims, this bill would authorize and appropriate to them all that they were previously found not
to be entitled to.
Under the circumstances, the enactment of the bill would set aside established principles of justice
and thereby encourage other and future efforts to obtain by legislation that which has been denied
by a just adjudication.
For these reasons, I find the bill unacceptable.
Ronald Reagan
The White House,
October 17, 1984.