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Gabe Galanda will discuss career opportunities in federal Indian and tribal law, with students at the Seattle University School of Law, on November 6, 2014. Gabe is a member of the Seattle University Indian Law/Policy Center's Advisory Board.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
Galanda Broadman, PLLC, has been named a “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News - Best Lawyers in the arena of Native American Law, for the third year in a row.
According to U.S. News - Best Lawyers, the firm's national ranking was determined through the firm's overall evaluation, which was derived from a combination of Galanda Broadman’s “clients' impressive feedback” and “the high regard that lawyers in other firms in the same practice area have for [the] firm.”
Galanda Broadman, “An Indian Country Law Firm,” is dedicated to advancing tribal legal rights and Indian business interests. The firm, with offices in Seattle, Washington and Bend, Oregon, represents tribal governments, businesses and members in critical litigation, business and regulatory matters, especially in matters of Indian Treaty rights, tribal sovereignty and taxation.
Gabe Galanda will deliver a lecture to Boeing executives and lawyers on November 13, 2014. The event commemorates national Native American History Month, and will highlight notions of tribal governance and jurisdiction and collaborative efforts between Boeing and Northwest Indian tribes.
Gabe is honored to address Boeing, a pillar in the aerospace industry and the Greater Seattle economy.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
In a lecture at Lewis & Clark Law School on October 27, Gabe Galanda preliminarily proposed several cures to the disenrollment epidemic that is now sweeping Native America. Gabe lecture (slides here) was a lead up towards his and Ryan Dreveskracht's publication of a law review article on those topics, in Arizona Law Review next summer. They will soon publish a manuscript.
The Galanda Broadman firm has identified several acute causes to the epidemic and resultant self-termination, about which Gabe lectured, including: Indian gaming and other tribal per capita distributions; tribal political favoritism and nepotism; silence by the tribal and academic establishment; a century of federal assimilationist policy that extends to self-determination funding; the Supreme Court's Santa Clara v. Martinez decision; immoral and unethical behavior by non-Indian lawyers, contractors and other bad actors; and a self-fulfilling prophecy of tribal violence in reaction to disenrollment-related human rights violations.
Gabe's lecture was attended by Lewis & Clark NALSA members, and a couple dozen American Indians from the Pacific Northwest who are plagued with disenrollment, including the Nooksack 306 and Grand Ronde descendants of Chief Tumulth.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
By Anthony Broadman
Thanks to Tim Eyman, recent Washington State Indian tax legislation is subject to a non-binding advisory vote. This year, an Eyman advisory vote dealing with “a leasehold excise tax on certain leasehold interests in tribal property,” per HB 1287, has caused much voter confusion. 
Governor Inslee signed HB 1287 this spring. According to the published bill summary, the new law:
HB 1287 Bill Analysis. Eyman’s advisory only, and deceivingly, contemplates the second bullet.
In all, the new law puts tribes on equal footing with other governments as to land used for economic development. The new law exempts such tribally owned fee land from state taxation, yet with the potential for in-lieu payments or leasehold excise taxes between tribes and the state. The new law is good for the State of Washington.
These Eyman “push polls” that are aimed at influencing, if not outright manipulating, voters are a waste of ballot space and election-related taxpayer dollars. 
Advisory Vote No. 9 deliberately mixes two perennially controversial issues in Washington: Indians and taxes. Although its description on the ballot leads our state’s voters—be they pro- or anti-tribal, or card-carrying liberals or Tea Partiers—to guess their vote, the outcome could be construed as a referendum on Indian tax policy in Washington State.
HB 1287 encourages tribal economic development and job creation and should be “maintained.”
Check the “maintain” box on Advisory Vote No. 9.
Anthony Broadman is a partner at Galanda Broadman PLLC. He can be reached at 206.321.2672, anthony@galandabroadman.com, or via www.galandabroadman.com.
By Anthony Broadman
The Second Circuit’s recent body-slam of tribal online lenders in Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians v. New York State Department of Financial Services unnecessarily confused an already bad situation. Faced with state regulation, Midwestern tribal payday lenders sued to halt New York’s interference with their operations. Setting aside the wisdom of bringing the suit in the first place, the case provided the opportunity for the Second Circuit to incorrectly employ an inapplicable legal test. If this decision on a preliminary injunction were ever imported into a substantive ruling, tribes operating in the Second Circuit would face an incredibly difficult standard when protecting on-Reservation economic development from state attack. 
Critically, Otoe dealt with attempted state regulation of Indian Tribes. The Tribes were attempting to halt that regulation through a preliminary injunction. There were real, legal questions about the “where” of regulation: whether lending occurred in New York or on Midwestern Indian reservations. But the “who” wasn’t in question. The Second Circuit partially accepted the plaintiff-tribes’ invitation to err, and entertained the possibility that the test announced in White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136 (1980), could apply.
As problematic as the Bracker balancing test has become, we know a few things for sure. First, it doesn’t apply when the “who” is an Indian tribe, tribal member, or tribal business. Ever. There are plenty of examples when courts have gotten this wrong, but Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, 546 U.S. 95, 99 (2005) provided as much clarity as one can have. Second, if Bracker applies only to non-Indians, then it must only apply in Indian Country. We don’t need any authority for the proposition that non-Indians are subject to non-Indian regulation outside Indian Country. Finally, Bracker doesn’t apply to anyone outside of Indian Country. Absent a treaty or other federal law, tribes, their members, and their tribal business are subject to state regulation outside of Indian Country. See Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145, 148–49 (1973).
Not surprisingly, the state relied on each of these hornbook tenets of Indian law. But the Second Circuit appears to have partially indulged the tribes’ argument that “this case falls squarely under the analytical framework required under Bracker and Cabazon,” (Plaintiff-Tribes’ Brief at 19)—even though it does not. The tribes clearly conceded that the state was attempting to regulate “the Tribes’ on-reservation businesses[.]” Id. at 16. The fact that these businesses happened to work with non-Indians is irrelevant unless the state is targeting those non-Indians. The stronger argument (if one exists) here would have been that states were either illegally regulating on-Reservation non-Indian conduct (Bracker) or illegally regulating on-Reservation Indian conduct (Chickasaw).
There may be silver linings to this smackdown. First, the Second Circuit thankfully refused to firmly determine the “where” of online tribal lending because of a dearth of competent proof. The lower court had determined the loans occurred in New York. A bad decision here could have had far-reaching implications, particularly in the mobile and Internet tribal gaming context. Second, the arguments below regarding the “who” of New York’s regulation were so convoluted, that even a bad decision on substance could have been distinguished. Even the tribes were not clear whether New York was regulating lenders, borrowers, or business partners.
In the often-formalistic sphere of tribal regulatory disputes, tribes should expect federal courts to require cogent proof and clear arguments surrounding the “who” and “where” of state regulation. Here, the lack of either may have stayed the execution of tribal payday lending to borrowers in Connecticut, New York, and Vermont – for now.
Anthony Broadman is a partner at Galanda Broadman PLLC. He can be reached at 206.321.2672, anthony@galandabroadman.com, or via galandabroadman.com.
On Monday, October 27, Gabe Galanda will deliver a lecture, "The American Indian Disenrollment Epidemic: Finding A Cure," at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. 
Gabe has previously spoken out against tribal disenrollment during talks at UC Berkeley and the University of Arizona College of Law, and also published several articles and blogs exposing and decrying that mode of self-termination. For example:
Since 2013, Galanda Broadman has defended nearly 500 American Indians from disenrollment, in Washington, Oregon and California.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
“Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in . . . international human rights law.”
Article 1, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Image designed by firm client Louie Gong (Nooksack), artist, educator, activist, Eighth Generation entrepreneur, and founder of the Inspired Natives Project, an indigenous intellectual/cultural property protection initiative.
Plays #1-4 have been exposed (here, here and here). Here are #5 and #6, with new plays already in design by the bad guys. Play #5—Make Political Rounds. The bad guys rush to visit officials at all levels of government, starting at nearby towns and counties, and extending to state and national capitols. Aided by the first four scripted plays, the bad guys spin their talking points into the minds of anybody who innocently gives them a meeting, and further cause folks to either pick their side or “stay neutral.” They especially lobby BIA superintendents and career staff to delay the agency’s recognition of the last undisputed Tribal officials, knowing that all other government officials will await that determination before they might be inclined to do anything.
Play #6—Exploit National Tribal Silence. The bad guys know that Tribal leadership and disenrollment disputes are taboo in forums like the National Congress of American Indians and National Indian Gaming Association. They leverage this silence to further advance their cause.
Even worse, the bad guy-lawyers write large checks on behalf of their firms or other affiliates, even other inter-tribal trade associations, to sponsor large inter-tribal meetings. National Indian groups unknowingly accept that dirty money and promote those sponsorships, which allows the bad guys to infiltrate the groups’ most inner circles, where they spread their message to ensure continued inaction.
With their most powerful potential critics—other Tribes’ leaders—hushed, it becomes even easier for the bad guys to persuade federal officials to either do nothing or tread slowly.
***
This is really happening, and these are only the first six scripted plays. Today’s Abramoffs are already tweaking and perfecting new plays, without any shame or repercussion. Nobody formidable is standing in their way.
Unless there is a dramatic change of mind and heart within Indian Country and its extended federal family, it is only a question of time before the bad guys hit another Indian community. And absent a change in the status quo, the good guys may soon be left with no other choice but to preemptively call plays from the Abramoff Playbook in self-defense of what is right—and what is truly Tribal.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
Some colleagues have reacted negatively to my posts about Nike's N7 Fund (here and here), mostly saying that N7 has done a lot of good in Indian Country and thus shouldn't be criticized. Indeed, N7 has done some great work for Native communities. I appreciate the constructive feedback and respectful difference of opinion. To be clear, my criticisms are not intended to detract from that nobility, or to be made personal to anybody, or to encourage others to do so by any means.
But here's my point: We are not on the outside of the Redskins debate, looking in. By way of Nike N7 and Indian gaming's multi-billion dollar relationship with Bank of America (which nobody has defended to me), we are on the inside, looking out; staring ourselves in the mirror.
We now have the political relationships and buying power to help change the name from within The Establishment; to challenge Nike and BofA's silence and stance on the sidelines from within The Establishment. Because we are now part of The Establishment. Potentially game-changing Tribal alliances with N7 and BofA bear that out.
And with that Tribal power comes responsibility, particularly for those Indian ambassadors of The Establishment. In each our own way, whether in private circles or public forums, from behind the scenes or center stage, we are obliged to help, and not hinder, the name change. And especially from within, yes, we can change the name.
Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.
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