From every corner of the United States, Tribal authorities are clamoring about the loss of sovereignty in one form or another.  In California on Dec. 21, the state Supreme Court filed an opinion that the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla lack immunity from lawsuit over noncompliance with state regulation of its political and electoral processes.  The Tribe was contesting the State of California's right to place regulations onto them when it came to donating money to political campaigns. 

''Tribal sovereign immunity from suit is not synonymous with tribal sovereignty. Rather, it is merely one attribute of the status of Indian tribes as domestic dependant [sic] nations. That tribal sovereign immunity included immunity from suit was a concept developed 'almost by accident' in Turner v. United States (1919) 248 U.S. 354. ... There, 'for the sake of argument,' ... the high court made a 'passing reference to immunity.'... The concept of tribal immunity was elevated from dictum to holding [in 1940] ... 'Later cases, albeit with little analysis, reiterated the doctrine.'''

And, in a case that revisited the legal status of race relations going all the way back to the Civil War, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Dec. 19 that the Cherokee Tribe and its officials are not immune from lawsuit from a group of their members known as the Freedman.  The Tribe had attempted to change their Constitution without the input of these members and at the same time tried to write them off the membership rolls.

The issue stems from a treaty signed by the Cherokee at the end of the Civil War.  The treaty reads, in part: ''all freedmen who have been liberated ... as well as all free colored persons ... and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees.''  Congress also has made clear that the Freedman are entitled to the same rights as any other Cherokee citizen.

Does the fact that a Tribe makes an effort to play outside the rules mean that they have lost some of their sovereign power?  In both of these cases, the Tribal governments acted as if they were not accountable to any authority other than their own.  However, their actions placed them squarely at odds with standing laws of another sovereign: the State or the federal governments.

In the case of the campaign donation issue, the State Supreme Court makes an important distinction when it notes that the Tribal Members are also U.S. Citizens and as such are subject to the laws of the United States, at least in this case.  Why would the Tribe believe that they are not subject to the campaign laws when everyone else is?

In the case of the Freedman, the Cherokee are doing them a disservice by trying to oust them from the Tribe with a new Constitution.  These folks and their descendants have been with the Tribe for 140+ years and deserve better treatment.  Once again, why would the Tribe believe that it isn't subject to the laws of not only the Tribe but of the United States?  Why would a Tribal member not be allowed to sue the Tribal government?  It is their government after all isn't it?

When a Tribe wants to be free from legal accountability from its own membership, from their state of residence and from the laws of the United States, the red flags should go up.  The Congress and the Courts have made sovereign immunity something that it should never have become in the first place by allowing Tribes to be placed above the law on many issues.  Now, they are reaping what they sow, Tribes are demanding more and more immunity from everything regardless of whether this immunity will harm many others in its wake.

If the U.S. government, specifically Congress doesn't take some actions to secure the rights of the members of a Tribe, secure the rights of the States that interact with the Tribes and finalize what exactly a Tribe is entitled to be immune against, there will be losses on all sides of the issue as the Courts once again try to straighten things out with no clear idea of where they will be heading in the future.