NEW REPORT OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS:  Last Thursday, the Commission released a report entitled “Broken Promises:  Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans.”  As the title suggests, its main theme is that Native American tribes should receive more money.

Both Commissioner Peter Kirsanow and I dissented.  My dissent deals mainly with the Commission’s strange insertion of an endorsement of the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act in the report.  The Commission had taken no evidence on the issue.  As far as anyone can tell, the six-member majority just threw the endorsement in for the pure hell of it.  Kirsanow’s dissent (which can be found in the report) makes the point that throwing more money at tribal entities hasn’t done much to solve the problems of Native Americans in the past, and it really isn’t likely to do so in the future.