Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoes bill to give Montaukett Indian Nation state recognition

Gov. Kathy Hochul once again vetoed a bill that would have restored state recognition for the Montaukett Indian Nation, drawing quick rebuke from tribal leaders who called her decision "inhumane and cruel."

The veto, Hochul's fourth and released late Friday night, once again cited court decisions from the early 1900s that held the Montaukett tribe "no longer functioned as a governmental unit in the state." Montaukett leaders, legislators and historians have described those court decisions as racist and lacking authority.

Sandi Brewster-walker, executive director of the Montaukett Nation, said Saturday that she stayed up past midnight hoping for word the bill might pass but never received notice from the governor's office about the veto. After Newsday sent her the veto statement, she said, "I just feel really hurt, and I feel like I've wasted seven years."

Hochul said while she "pledged to work with the Montaukett community" on its recognition efforts, "there are still outstanding questions and issues concerning the Montaukett's eligibility for recognition according to traditional criteria."

Brewster-walker, a historian who has spent years drafting, organizing and supplying information to various state offices, denied Hochul's claim, pointing to last-minute requests for information that suggested her office had misplaced or never read long-supplied documentation. She called Hochul and her staff "clueless."

"They just don't get it," Brewster-walker said. "They just want to uphold a racist decision."

Hochul's office on Saturday declined to respond to the tribe's statements but reiterated its assertion that the Montauketts had not provided all the necessary data.

Documents filed with the Montaukett bill note it would have no revenue impact on the state, although restoring the tribe's recognition would confer certain health and education benefits to tribal members. The bill provides no land-claim rights, even though the Montauketts occupied vast tracks of what is now state and Suffolk County parkland at the time it was annexed in the early 1900s.  Brewster-walker said the tribe lost 17,000 acres during that period. 

In a formal release Saturday morning, Montaukett leaders wrote that Hochul's staff "claimed they could not find our submitted information from 2018 to 2025" in the final days leading up to the governor's veto. The tribe said it has supplied all requested documentation and answered all questions, but noted much of that information had not been reviewed by an expert employed by Hochul's administration, according to correspondence.

"After submitting the answers over a year and a half ago, our Nation still has not been told if there are still questions," the Montaukett statement said.

"The governor's team continues to lack a knowledge of the history, and an understanding of the Long Island Native people," the Montauketts wrote. 

Earlier this year, Hochul at an appearance on Long Island said the Montauk Nation was trying to "circumvent" the recognition process through legislation rather than a formal state recognition review. At the time, Montaukett leaders noted they had been told the state confirmed it had all necessary documentation for the review.

The latest veto means the effects of a 1910 state court ruling that declared the tribe "disintegrated" and effectively extinct will stand for now.

In that decision, Judge Abel Blackmar ruled the Montauketts were so dispersed as to be "disintegrated," ignoring a July 7, 1906, memorandum filed in the case by C.F. Larrabee, acting commissioner of Indian Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior, who wrote that the Montauketts were "an existing Indian tribe" with land rights in Montauk. Larrabee wrote that those attempting to annex the tribe's land, including businessman-developer Arthur Benson, should be "forever" restrained.

Newsday in a 1998 investigation found that the process by which developers and the Long Island Rail Road annexed Montaukett and Shinnecock Indian Nation lands over the past 200 years was rife with "deceit, lies and possibly forgery."

Katherine Sorrell, a lawyer for the Montauketts, in a letter to Karen Keogh, secretary to the governor, on Thursday noted that what the tribe sought was a "correction of [a] historical error" that would restore "a relationship that was illegally and unjustly severed" between New York and the Montauketts.

The restoration would act as a "formal admission that the Nation's sovereign status has been continuous and that the state will henceforth respect the Nation's internal jurisdiction, including its right to determine its own leadership and criteria for citizenship," Sorrell wrote. 

Hochul’s staff on Saturday said the tribe hasn’t provided a membership roll “to determine who will be getting health benefits,” a copy of its bylaws or a “resolution about two leaders who claim they are chief.”

Brewster-walker said the information has either previously been provided, was never properly explained or the requests came just days ago. In any case, she said, the state has no role in tribal bylaws or leadership disputes. Robert Pharaoh has been the Montaukett chief for decades.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.