By Ruth Callahan
WASHINGTON — For more than two decades, the question of who gets a voice in organizing the California Valley Miwok Tribe has been fought out in federal agencies and courtrooms, far from the one-acre parcel in the Sierra Nevada foothills that anchors the tribe’s history. On Friday, a federal appeals court gave a clear answer to one piece of that question: the descendants of Miwok people listed on a 1929 census of Calaveras County Indians belong in the process.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld a 2022 Interior Department decision that widened the group of people eligible to take part in the tribe’s first formal organization under the Indian Reorganization Act. Without that change, the court found, only about 11 people would have remained eligible to shape the governing documents of a tribe that courts and federal officials had long described as numbering roughly 250.
The ruling in California Valley Miwok Tribe v. Burgum, No. 24-5231, was written by Circuit Judge Justin Walker and joined by Judges Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs. It affirms a district court judgment for the government, and it carries large stakes for the community. According to the opinion, California’s Gambling Revenue Sharing Trust Fund is holding more than $27 million that may be disbursed to the tribe. The opinion cites a California Gambling Control Commission report listing $27,411,089.02 in distributions to the tribe as of Sept. 30, 2026.
“The outcome of this case will determine the future of tribal governance for the California Valley Miwok Tribe,” Walker wrote.
A small parcel and a large community
The opinion lays out a history drawn from census rolls, Bureau of Indian Affairs files and genealogical records, and it is a history in which the federal government’s own record-keeping repeatedly shaped, and sometimes distorted, who was counted as Miwok.
In 1915, Special Indian Agent John Terrell counted the Indians “at and near Sheepranch in Calaveras Co[unty].” He listed 12 people in three apparent family groups: the Hodge, Davis and Tecumchey families. But Terrell also wrote that the Sheep Ranch Indians were “[t]o some extent . . . interchangeable in their relations” with Indians in the nearby communities of “Murphys, Six-Mile, Avery and Angles.”
In 1916, the Interior Department bought an approximately one-acre parcel at Sheep Ranch for the benefit of the Indians identified on that census. It became the Sheep Ranch Rancheria. The land, the court noted, “was not large enough for all members of the band [of Indians] to take up residence.”
In 1929, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took another census of Calaveras County Indians and found a much broader community: 147 people, most described as “Mewuk,” along with some Tuolumne people, one person described as “Laclumne,” some children of mixed descent and 10 non-Indians. That census included family names that had not appeared on Terrell’s list, among them the Carsoner, Dixie and Jeff families.
By 1935, Jeff Davis, who appears on both censuses, was the only eligible adult Indian living on the Rancheria for Indian Reorganization Act voting purposes. A 1937 photograph of Davis in a doorway, captioned “Jeff Davis of Sheep Ranch rancheria,” survives in the National Archives.
The people who kept the Rancheria occupied after that, the court found, came largely from the 1929 census families. Tillie Jeff, the widow of John Jeff, was living there in 1943, and the BIA recorded that she could stay “as long as she desire[d].” Antone Azevedo, a great-grandchild of John and Tillie Jeff, lived there from 1950 to 1959. Velma Whitebear and Don Carsoner lived there from 1950. Mabel Dixie, a granddaughter of John and Tillie Jeff, lived there from about 1957 until her death in 1971; the BIA transferred title to her in 1967. Her son, Yakima Dixie, was the Rancheria’s sole Indian resident from 1971 until his death in 2017.
“So the 1929 Census group and their descendants have had someone living on the Rancheria for over 70 years — sometimes the only person living on the Rancheria,” the court wrote.
Nearly 30 years of trying to organize
The Indian Reorganization Act allows a tribe to “organize for its common welfare” by adopting a constitution and bylaws, ratified by “the adult members of the tribe” in an election called by the Secretary of the Interior. When a tribe already has a recognized government or membership roll, that process is routine. The California Valley Miwok Tribe has neither, and the court said it “has been unable to organize, despite nearly 30 years of trying, because of disputes about who may participate in the organizing process.”
That forced Interior to identify the community eligible to take part, a federal role the D.C. Circuit had already endorsed in 2008. In that earlier round, the court held that Interior could refuse to approve a constitution submitted by a small faction because organization under the act “must reflect majoritarian values,” and because the government has a responsibility to ensure “that the will of tribal members is not thwarted by rogue leaders.”
In 2013, a district judge threw out a 2011 BIA conclusion that the tribe consisted of only five people, finding the record “replete with evidence that the Tribe’s membership is potentially significantly larger than just these five individuals.”
The Washburn decision and a genealogical error
In 2015, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn defined three eligible groups: people listed on the 1915 Terrell census and their descendants; the descendants of Jeff Davis; and the heirs of Mabel Dixie and their descendants. He did not automatically include the 1929 census descendants, but he wrote that including them “may be proper,” and he left that question to the eligible groups as an “internal tribal decision.” Washburn also concluded that “there are far more than five people eligible to take part in the organization of the Tribe.”
Interior authorized a Secretarial election on Dec. 21, 2018. The BIA identified 289 eligible voters. On April 15, 2019, voters ratified a proposed constitution 143 to 12, out of 183 registered voters. That constitution identified 1929 census descendants as “eligible for membership in the Tribe.”
The result did not stand. Nearly all of the voters had qualified as descendants of Jeff Davis by tracing their lineage through John Jeff, whom Interior had understood to be Davis’s son. In May 2019, Interior’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment concluded after reviewing new genealogical evidence that John Jeff’s father was a man known as “Indian Jeff,” not Jeff Davis. The same day, the BIA invalidated the April election, explaining that “most of the participating individuals” no longer met the eligibility requirements.
That finding left only 11 or so people eligible under Washburn’s criteria, according to the opinion: the nine individual plaintiffs in the case, all 1915 census descendants; one other claimed 1915 census descendant; and Dequita Boire, who appears to be the only person eligible through Mabel Dixie’s heirs.
Newland’s fix
On May 31, 2022, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland revised Washburn’s decision to add a fourth eligible group: the descendants of Miwok Indians listed on the 1929 census. Newland reasoned that Washburn had drawn his lines on a mistaken genealogical premise.
“Excluding John Jeff’s descendants severely reduces who can take part in the organizational process,” Newland wrote, according to the court. He said the revision was necessary “to include those individuals that [Assistant Secretary] Washburn understood to be eligible voters in the Tribe’s Organizational Process.”
The plaintiffs, nine individuals who also sued in the tribe’s name, challenged the revision under the Administrative Procedure Act. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld the Newland decision and granted summary judgment to the government. The plaintiffs appealed. Elizabeth T. Walker argued for them on Nov. 3, 2025; Mary G. Sprague of the Justice Department argued for the government.
“Quite a lot like five”
The appeals court’s review was deferential: it asked only whether Interior’s line was “reasonable and reasonably explained.” The panel found three reasons that it was.
First, every prior decision had agreed the organizing community could not be limited to a handful of people. The district court in 2006 said the government estimated the greater tribal community “may exceed 250 members,” and the D.C. Circuit said in 2008 that the tribe “has a potential membership of 250.”
In the opinion’s most quotable passage, Walker explained why 11 people did not satisfy Washburn’s own premise.
“Eleven is sometimes ‘far more than five.’ An 11-year prison sentence is ‘far more than five.’ Same for an 11-percent interest rate. Same for 11 over the speed limit, at least when you see lights flashing behind you,” the court wrote. “But when the constant comparator is 250, eleven is not ‘far more than five.’ It is instead quite a lot like five.”
The court also pointed to what it called a reversal by the plaintiffs. In their brief, they argued that “A group of 10 people is not inconsistent with the intent of Washburn” because “it does not take many people to establish future member criteria, it takes the right people with the historic connection to the tribe.”
But the panel noted that the plaintiffs’ reply brief conceded they had “advocated in prior court decisions, that a larger community existed.” The district court had found that “for years prior to this litigation, Mr. Mendibles and several other Plaintiffs recognized, welcomed, and defended [1929 Census descendants] as part of the CVMT.” Plaintiff Michael Mendibles had proposed a 2013 constitution extending membership to 1929 census descendants, and in 2018 he and six other plaintiffs supported a constitution recognizing them as members. The district judge called the current position an “unequivocal aboutface.”
“In all, they say Washburn got it right while asking us to exclude more than 96% of the people Washburn thought his decision included,” the appeals court wrote.
Second, Washburn himself had said including the 1929 descendants “may be proper,” so Newland “did not choose that group out of thin air.” The court added in a footnote that Washburn’s deference to an “internal tribal decision” rested on his understanding that the eligible groups numbered about 250, and that Newland “could reasonably conclude that Washburn did not contemplate leaving that question to an ‘internal tribal decision’ by a group consisting of only 11 people.”
Third, the Rancheria’s history. Washburn had treated the land’s history as central, and the 1929 census families had kept people on it for seven decades.
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ remaining arguments, including claims of unreasonable delay, a statute-of-limitations bar and issue preclusion, as not properly preserved in the district court.
What the ruling does not decide
The opinion is careful to limit its reach, and that limit matters to tribal sovereignty. The court said the only question before it was who may participate in organizing the tribe, not who is a member.
“We do not address who has a legitimate claim to membership in the Tribe,” Walker wrote. “Under established law, it is the prerogative of the Tribe itself to set membership criteria for tribal membership. See Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 72 n.32 (1978). Nothing in this decision suggests otherwise.”
That distinction is the heart of the matter for Native communities everywhere. The federal government’s role, as the D.C. Circuit described it, is to make sure an organizing election reflects the community the land was set aside for, not to decide for a tribe who its citizens are. Once the tribe has a lawful government, membership becomes its own decision.
The ruling is also a reminder of how heavily tribal futures can depend on federal paperwork. A 1915 agent’s count of 12 people, a 1929 count of 147, and a genealogical conclusion about a man named John Jeff have each, in turn, determined who could vote. The 2019 election, in which voters approved a constitution 143 to 12, was voided because of a federal error about one man’s parentage.
Echoes in New York
Questions about how Washington decides whom to deal with when a Native nation’s leadership is disputed are not confined to California. In New York’s Finger Lakes region, the Cayuga Nation went through its own fight over federal recognition of its leadership. On Dec. 15, 2016, BIA Eastern Regional Director Bruce Maytubby recognized the council led by Clint Halftown for federal contracting purposes after a mail-in survey of Cayuga citizens, writing that the survey “would be a viable way of involving the Cayuga people” in resolving the dispute. An acting assistant secretary later denied an appeal, and opponents sued in federal court in Washington in 2017, in a case in which the court cited the earlier California Valley Miwok rulings, according to a copy of the decision posted by the Native American Rights Fund’s National Indian Law Library.
The Cayuga dispute and the Miwok dispute differ in their facts and law. But both show the same pressure point: when the government steps in to identify who may speak for a nation, the method it uses can decide the outcome.
What comes next
Friday’s decision clears the way for Interior to proceed with a Secretarial election using Newland’s four eligible groups, unless the plaintiffs seek rehearing by the full D.C. Circuit or review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The opinion did not set a timetable, and The Buffalo Chronicle could not immediately confirm whether the plaintiffs plan to seek further review.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the Interior Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs about next steps for an election. Any responses will be added to this story.
For the descendants of the 1929 census families, whose relatives lived on the Rancheria when almost no one else did, the ruling is a recognition the court put plainly: a group with that “long historical connection” could not reasonably be shut out of building their tribe’s government.
Featured image: “Jeff Davis of Sheep Ranch rancheria,” 1937, from the Old Age Security Survey, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Leave a Reply