When the Senate get back to work next week, our federal lawmakers will once again resume deliberations on the Cobell settlement. One man in particular, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, has emerged as an opponent to settling the case. For more background information on the Cobell case, Indianz.com provides a long list of articles on the class-action suit.
Here is a letter to the editor from Elouise Cobell to Barrasso:
Editor:
After more than 14 years of acrimonious litigation, 500,000 individual Indians and the government agreed to settle the Cobell case in December and to turn the page on this sad chapter in our nation’s history. But the settlement needs congressional approval by Oct. 15, or the parties will return to court and this singular opportunity will be irretrievably lost. Sen. John Barrasso is the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and his views are important. To this point he has opposed the settlement.
The settlement is not perfect (no settlement ever is) and Sen. Barrasso has raised important issues that the parties have worked to address When the Senate resumes deliberations next week, I hope that Sen. Barrasso will remember what he has told his fellow senators about the lawsuit.
He has made clear with his statements on the Senate floor that he wants this lawsuit settled. Continuing to spend millions of dollars defending a trust system that has not worked makes no sense, he has stated.
As the lead plaintiff in the Cobell versus Salazar lawsuit, I fully agree and I urge Sen. Barrasso to follow through on his statements and work with both parties to achieve Senate approval of the settlement. It is time to focus on helping Wyoming’s first citizens recover monies that have always belonged to them.
This is not a partisan effort. It is a worthy goal that John Barrasso needs to be an energetic leader on in the Senate. Some of his state’s most-deserving people merit nothing less from their senator.
ELOUISE COBELL, Browning, Mont.
Jodi Rave