Shown verbatim: the complete text as captured from the official source posted by the New York State Senate, fetched 2026-08-11. Nothing is edited or removed. Where this bill amends existing law, language marked for deletion in the official source appears here in brackets. The official bill page.
S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K
________________________________________________________________________
5295
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
I N A S S E M B L Y
February 12, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. SCHIAVONI -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Judiciary
AN ACT to amend the Indian law, in relation to the reinstatement of
state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Legislative findings. The Montaukett Indian Nation seeks
reinstatement of its recognition and acknowledgment by the state of New
York. Such recognition and acknowledgment was improperly removed from
the Montaukett Indian Nation in 1910 in the case of Pharaoh v. Benson,
69 Misc. Rep. 241(Supreme, Suffolk Co., 1910) affirmed 164 App. Div. 51,
affirmed 222 N.Y. 665, when the Montaukett Indian Nation was declared to
be "extinct".
The court ruled that "the tribe has disintegrated and been absorbed
into the mass of citizens and at the time of commencement of this action
there was no tribe of Montaukett Indians". This arbitrary ruling
ignored earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions defining Indian Nations
according to criteria under which the Montaukett Indian Nation qualified
as an existing sovereign tribe and giving Congress, rather than the
courts, power to decide the status of an Indian.
In the first of these U.S. Supreme Court decisions, United States v.
Roger, 45 U.S. 567 (1848), the court ruled that the primary criteria for
Indian identity was evidence that an Indian had to have some genealogi-
cal connection with a recognized group that had existed before the
arrival of the European white explorers, traders, and settlers. Veri-
fied evidence demonstrates that the Montaukett Indian Nation existed
prior to the Doctrine of Discovery and, as a sovereign tribe, ruled from
the end of the Island to what is today the town of Hempstead.
Subsequently, a decade before the Montaukett decision, in Montoya v.
U.S., 180 U.S. 261 (1901), the U.S. Supreme Court further defined an
Indian tribe as "a body of Indians of the same or similar race, united
EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07499-01-5
A. 5295 2
in a community under one leadership or government, and inhabiting a
particular though sometimes well-defined territory". The Montaukett
Indian Nation also met this criteria.
Further, at the time of Pharaoh v. Benson decision, the judicial
branches of state and federal governments had no authority to determine
the status of an Indian tribe. Only the U.S. Congress had such power. In
1903, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the United States v. Rickert, 188
U.S. 432 (1903) that only Congress can determine when changes in customs
are sufficient to invalidate tribal status.
The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled in Butts v. Northern Pacific Rail-
road (1911), that neither the lapse of time, allotment of a portion of
the tribal lands in severalty, immigration of a majority of the tribe,
nor the fact that the habits and customs of the tribe have changed by
intercourse with whites authorize the courts to disregard tribal status.
That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court again spoke to the question of
judicial authority in cases involving tribal existence, holding in Tiger
v. Western Investment Company, 221 U.S. 286 (1911) that only the U.S.
Congress had the authority to determine changes in tribal status.
In 1994, the State Supreme Court, in the case of Breakers Motel, Inc.
v. Sunbeach Montauk Two, Inc., subsequently described the Pharaoh case
as being of "questionable propriety", a recognition by the State Supreme
Court that the decision removing recognition and acknowledgment from the
Montaukett Indian Nation was dubious.
This legislature finds that in Pharaoh v. Benson, the Court improperly
ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent and lacked jurisdiction to judge
the status of the Montaukett Indian Nation. It is the purpose of this
legislation to reverse this improper and illegal result by the rein-
statement of acknowledgment and recognition by the State of New York to
the Montaukett Indian Nation.
§ 2. Section 2 of the Indian law, as added by chapter 174 of the laws
of 2013, is amended to read as follows:
§ 2. New York state Indian nations and tribes. The term "Indian nation
or tribe" means one of the following New York state Indian nations or
tribes: Cayuga Nation, Oneida Nation of New York, Onondaga Nation, Poos-
patuck or Unkechauge Nation, Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Seneca Nation of
Indians, Shinnecock Indian Nation, Tonawanda Band of Seneca, THE
MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION, and Tuscarora Nation.
§ 3. The Indian law is amended by adding a new article 11 to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 11
THE MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION
SECTION 170. REINSTATEMENT OF STATE RECOGNITION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
171. LEADERSHIP OF MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION; ELECTIONS; TERMS OF
OFFICE.
172. QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS.
173. QUALIFICATIONS FOR OFFICE.
§ 170. REINSTATEMENT OF STATE RECOGNITION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT. RECOGNI-
TION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION BY THE STATE OF
NEW YORK IS HEREBY REINSTATED.
§ 171. LEADERSHIP OF MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION; ELECTIONS; TERMS OF
OFFICE. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TRIBAL GOVERNANCE RULES, CUSTOMS AND
REGULATIONS OF THE MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION, A SOVEREIGN NATION, THE
TRIBE SHALL HAVE A CHIEF OR SACHEM, THREE TRIBAL TRUSTEES, AND A TRIBAL
SECRETARY. THE TRUSTEES SHALL BE ELECTED BY A MAJORITY VOTE BY BALLOT OF
LINEAL MEMBERS OF THE NATION ELIGIBLE TO VOTE AT AN ANNUAL TRIBAL MEET-
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ING WHICH SHALL BE HELD ON THE FIRST TUESDAY IN APRIL. ALL OFFICERS
SHALL HOLD OFFICE FOR A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS.
§ 172. QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS. NO PERSON SHALL VOTE AT THE ELECTION
PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE OF THIS ARTICLE UNLESS
SUCH PERSON IS AT LEAST EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE AND IS CERTIFIED AS A
LINEAL MEMBER OF THE MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE
NATION'S GOVERNANCE RULES, CUSTOMS AND REGULATIONS.
§ 173. QUALIFICATIONS FOR OFFICE. ALL OFFICERS SHALL QUALIFY FOR
OFFICE AND PERFORM THEIR RESPECTIVE DUTIES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE GOVER-
NANCE RULES, CUSTOMS AND REGULATIONS OF THE MONTAUKETT INDIAN NATION.
§ 4. This act shall take effect immediately.Every fact on this page links to its source, starting with the official bill record.