South Dakota v. United States Department of the Interior

The court in this ease unnecessarily reaches a constitutional issue and bases its conclusions on speculation rather than the record. Its decision that a portion of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 25 U.S.C. § 465, is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power is not supported by the statute or its legislative history. The court invalidates today a congressional enactment designed to acquire land in trust for Indians that has been in place for over sixty years and, in the process, places in doubt the status of all Indian trust land. I must therefore dissent.

I

The primary focus of…