Episode 6: Supreme Court Justices Attack 'plenary power' over Native Peoples
On • Duration 55:56
A dramatic Dissent by Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Thomas Opens a Path to Tectonic Changes in US Law
Description
Dramatic Dissent by Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Thomas Opens a Path to Tectonic Changes in US Law
Episode 6: When Supreme Court Justices Question Plenary Power
Episode 6 marks a turning point in the long debate over federal domination of Native Nations. Steve Newcomb and Peter d'Errico walk through a recent Supreme Court dissent from Justices Thomas and Gorsuch that challenges the very foundation of plenary power---the claim that Congress holds total authority over Native Peoples. This power has shaped U.S. Indian law since the nineteenth century and rests on old racial assumptions and the so-called Doctrine of Discovery.
The conversation moves from the details of the domestic-violence case that triggered the dissent to the larger architecture of domination. The Court refused to hear the case, but the dissent calls for what it names "a day of reckoning." It questions the legal logic behind Kagama, the Major Crimes Act, and the trust doctrine itself. The episode shows how narrow legal disputes open up deeper questions about sovereignty, free existence, and the long reach of Christian imperial ideas embedded in U.S. law.
Newcomb and d'Errico also note the silence of the federal Indian law establishment. While legal communities in places like Guam reacted quickly, major Native-focused law organizations have not. The episode invites listeners to think past "settled law" and ask harder questions: What does freedom look like outside structures of domination? And what happens when even the Supreme Court begins to see the cracks?
Transcript
Resources
- Gorsuch and Thomas Attack the US Claim of "Plenary Power" over "Tribes"
- The case is QUENTIN VENENO, JR. v. UNITED STATES
Citation
Newcomb, Steven T., and Peter d'Errico, cohosts. "Supreme Court Justices Attack 'plenary power' over Native Peoples." The Domination Chronicles Podcast, November 18, 2025. https://dominationchronicles.com/episodes/e006-plenary-power/.
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Play EpsiodeAbout Host
Domination Chronicles Host
Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. He was an attorney at Dinébe’iiná Náhiiłna be Agha’diit’ahii, Navajo Legal Services, in Shiprock, 1968-1970.
Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) has been researching the history of U.S. federal Indian law and policy for four decades.
