Tribal governments

Summary

Tribal governments issued a body of orders that ran longer and cut deeper than the orders of the States that surround them, and the statute reaches every one of them: an Indian tribe exercising its inherent sovereign power over its territory is an appropriate governmental authority, and its orders limited commerce, travel and group meetings in terms. The record assembled here is dominated by four regimes with continuous primary texts. First, the Navajo Nation: the Navajo Department of Health, under Council Resolution CO-50-14 and the Commission on Emergency Management's Mar. 11, 2020 declaration (CEM-20-03-11), issued a numbered chain of Public Health Emergency Orders from the Mar. 20, 2020 stay-at-home order (AZ-063) through the Oct. 18, 2021 continuation of Orange Status (AGY-TRIBAL-022). The States/AZ file holds twenty-two of them; this folder adds twenty-two more, so the chain is now complete from PHEO 2020-003 to 2021-020 except for nine early or minor numbers (2020-001, -002, -008, -009, -010, -012, -013, -014; 2021-021). The regime by quarter: in 2020 Q2 a stay-at-home order, a nightly curfew (8 p.m.-5 a.m.) and eight 57-hour weekend lockdowns closing every store, gas station, restaurant and vendor (AGY-TRIBAL-001 to -003; AZ-063 to -066); in 2020 Q3 the stay-at-home order re-issued July 5 (AZ-067), weekend lockdowns July 3-13 and July 24-Aug. 3 (AGY-TRIBAL-004, -005), a 9 p.m. curfew with business-hours limits and four August and four September 32-hour weekend lockdowns (AGY-TRIBAL-006, -008), the Reopening Plan and Orange Status of Aug. 13 (AGY-TRIBAL-007) and the stay-at-home order re-issued Sept. 22 (AZ-069); in 2020 Q4 57-hour and 56-hour weekend lockdowns through Nov. 16 (AGY-TRIBAL-009, -010, -012), Red Status for businesses from Nov. 13 (AZ-071) and a full stay-at-home lockdown from Nov. 16 that ran, by successive orders (AGY-TRIBAL-013, -014; AZ-072, -073), to Mar. 15, 2021; in 2021 Q1 that lockdown with a 9 p.m. curfew and all non-exempt businesses closed to Mar. 15 (AGY-TRIBAL-015 to -017), then Safer at Home with gatherings of ten and Orange Status (AGY-TRIBAL-018; AZ-074); in 2021 Q2 the stay-at-home order re-issued Apr. 9 to June 18 (AZ-076, -078), Yellow Status (50 percent occupancy) from Apr. 26 (AZ-077; AGY-TRIBAL-020), an 11 p.m. curfew and gatherings of fifteen (AGY-TRIBAL-019); in 2021 Q3 Yellow Status continued July 8 (AZ-079), the Safe Schools Framework binding on every school from July 8 (AGY-TRIBAL-021), the curfew discontinued Aug. 4 (AZ-081), the mask mandate in force throughout and clarified Aug. 4 (AZ-066, AZ-080), and Orange Status for businesses and schools from Aug. 12 (AZ-082, -083) still being continued on Oct. 18, 2021 (AGY-TRIBAL-022). The Nation's roads remained closed to visitors and tourists under Council Resolution CMA-16-20 through at least May 2021 (AGY-TRIBAL-020 para. IV). Second, the Mescalero Apache Tribe: President Gabe Aguilar, under Tribal Code section 10-16-10 and Council Resolution 20-32, proclaimed an emergency Mar. 19, 2020 (AGY-TRIBAL-023) and issued eighteen executive orders whose texts are in this folder: reservation closure to outside visitors, tribal roads closed to non-members, gatherings of five prohibited, restaurants carry-out only and a 10 p.m. curfew from Mar. 24, 2020 (-024); masks on every employee, contractor and customer of every entity conducting business on the Reservation from May 12, 2020 (-025); a stay-at-home order with two six-hour shopping windows a week (May 25-June 7, 2020, -026); gatherings of ten, dining at 50 percent and governmental offices closed to the public from Aug. 7, 2020 (-027 to -030); a weekday travel restriction, weekend lockdowns, a remote-work mandate on every entity headquartered on the Reservation and a contractor-approval regime in Oct.-Nov. 2020 (-031 to -033); the omnibus EO 20-15 of Nov. 23, 2020 (necessary travel only, indoor worship prohibited, offices closed to the public, dining at 50 percent, roads closed to outside visitors, masks) carried by EOs 20-16, 21-01, 21-02 and 21-03 into 2021 Q2 (-034 to -038); offices reopened to the public only on July 6, 2021 with screening (-039); and masks re-imposed on the entire enterprise and contractor workforce regardless of vaccination status on Aug. 20, 2021 (-040), with every earlier provision not inconsistent continued. Third, the Yakama Nation: the Tribal Council Executive Committee, under Resolutions T-10-61 and T-064-20, ordered every resident of the 1.3-million-acre Reservation and off-reservation trust allotments, Indian or non-Indian, to stay home from Mar. 23, 2020 (AGY-TRIBAL-052), directed longhouses and churches to stop services (-053), imposed a mask order on every business whether licensed by the Nation or the State of Washington with a $500-per-violation fine from June 26, 2020 (-054), prohibited every gathering outside the household and closed governmental offices, gyms and sports from Dec. 11, 2020 (-055), and administered a four-phase Reopening Plan through 2021 under which non-essential businesses, schools and day cares were closed in Phase 1, reopened by sector in Phase 2 and capped in Phase 3 (-057, -058), with a Communicable Disease Code (Title XX, T-086-20) supplying quarantine powers (-059). Fourth, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe's Coronavirus Protection Ordinance (Ord. 26-20 as amended by Ord. 29-20) imposed a stay-at-home order, a 10 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew, closure of parks and cultural and church grounds and a ban on gatherings from May 27, 2020 until the Council lifted them on May 26, 2021 (-077, -061), a continuous instrument spanning 2020 Q2 through 2021 Q2 inside the Tucson metropolitan area. Around these four sit the Ho-Chunk Nation's closure of six Wisconsin casinos from Mar. 20 to May 26, 2020 by presidential administrative order (-041 to -048), the Tohono O'odham Nation's stay-at-home order and 9 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew of Mar. 30, 2020 continued until further notice with police citations (-050, -051; AZ-095), the Pueblo of Laguna's closure of the Pueblo to non-residents, of the Route 66 and Dancing Eagle casinos and of every non-essential business with a curfew from Apr. 8, 2020 (-087), the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians' emergency proclamations, court suspension, bank-lobby closure and reduced government operations to July 13, 2020 (-062 to -067), the Poarch Band's emergency resolution and Wind Creek casino closures (-068 to -072), the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Gaming Commission's PPE conditions on the casino workforce (-079), the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community's nightly curfew and gathering ban from July 24, 2020 inside metropolitan Phoenix (-080), the Warm Springs government shutdown and curfew of Dec. 10-27, 2020 (-081), the Oglala Sioux Tribe's ordinance proving an eleven-month reservation-wide curfew on all persons and businesses (Mar. 31, 2020 to Mar. 4, 2021) (-082), the Umatilla Board of Trustees' reinstated public health emergency of Sept. 24, 2021 (-083), the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's early stay-home order and casino shutdown (-084) and the Hopi Tribe's own account of its stay-at-home orders from Mar. 23 to the end of Aug. 2020 and its June 2020 curfew and travel halt (-086). Cross-referenced State-file exhibits add the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's highway checkpoints and 14-day quarantines from Apr. 1 and Apr. 8, 2020 (SD-044), the Blackfeet Nation's stay-at-home order and closure of Glacier National Park's east entrances for the 2020 season (MT-086), the White Mountain Apache lockdown of Dec. 4-7, 2020 (AZ-099), the Havasupai tourism closure from Mar. 16, 2020 to Feb. 1, 2023 (AZ-096) and the Cherokee Nation's vaccination mandate for executive-branch employees from May 25, 2021 (OK-090). Every instrument in this folder is tribal law with its own enforcement clause (criminal penalty under Mescalero Code section 10-16-10(D); civil fines of $50 and $500 under Yakama T-064-20; Tohono O'odham police citations; Navajo Nation Police; Pueblo Law sanctions), and none of it depended on, or yielded to, any State order: the Ho-Chunk Nation's May 26, 2020 order says in terms that the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision striking the State's order had no jurisdiction over the Nation, and New Mexico's orders exempted tribal casinos that the Pueblo of Laguna and the Mescalero Apache Tribe closed themselves.