Dems suddenly care about Navajo Nation again after lauding DOI land grab

Democrats who backed Joe Biden’s U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Deb Haaland encroaching on the Navajo Nation’s sovereignty by putting in place a 10-mile buffer to ban all natural resource extractive activity are now manufacturing outrage over the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Navajo Nation’s access to the drying Colorado River.

The Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the 1868 treaty in question did not include the government’s duty for it to help secure water. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who is from Colorado, sided with the minority, which included all three Democrat-appointed justices.

“The 1868 treaty reserved necessary water to accomplish the purpose of the Navajo Reservation,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “But the treaty did not require the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.”

“Today’s ruling is disappointing and I am encouraged that the ruling was 5-4,” said Navajo Nation president Buu Nygren in a statement. “It is reassuring that four justices understood our case and our arguments. As our lawyers continue to analyze the opinion and determine what it means for this particular lawsuit, I remain undeterred in obtaining quantified water rights for the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The Navajo Nation established a water rights negotiation team earlier this year and we are working very hard to settle our water rights in Arizona.” 

When the DOI snatched the land around Chaco Canyon from the Navajo Nation for supposed “conservation” purposes, Democrats lauded the decision to infringe upon the Navajos’ sovereignty. 

Now, they are claiming to care about the tribal nation. 

“This SHAMEFUL decision upends more than a hundred years of legal precedent at the expense of Tribal water rights and the Trust Responsibility,” asserted far-left Democrat Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury (NM-CD-01) in a melodramatic tweet.

Far-left U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich wrote, “A 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court just denied the Navajo Nation’s right to life sustaining water. This is an extremely disappointing decision that fails all Tribal Nations.”

However, the radical Democrats previously sent out a joint statement applauding the Chaco Canyon ban, disregarding the tribe’s sovereignty. They wrote at the time, “We applaud this historic step to protect Chaco’s irreplaceable resources for future generations.”