Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter (567 U.S. 182)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 18, 2012 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 567 U.S. 182 · 132 S. Ct. 2181
- Decided
- June 18, 2012
- Term
- October Term 2011
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA or Act), 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq., directs the Secretary of the Interior to enter into contracts with willing tribes, pursuant to which those tribes will provide services such as education and law enforcement that otherwise would have been provided by the Federal Government. ISDA mandates that the Secretary shall pay the full amount of “contract support costs” incurred by tribes in performing their contracts. At issue in this case is whether the Government must pay those costs when Congress appropriates sufficient funds to pay in full any individual contractor’s contract support costs, but not enough funds to cover the aggregate amount due every contractor. Consistent with longstanding principles of Government contracting law, we hold that the Government must pay each tribe’s contract support costs in full. I A Congress enacted ISDA in 1975 in order to achieve “maximum Indian participation in the direction of educational as well as other Federal services to Indian communities so as to render such services more responsive to the needs and desires of those communities.” 25 U. S. C. § 450a(a). To that end, the Act directá the Secretary of the Interior, “upon the request of any Indian tribe . . . , to enter into a self-determination contract... to plan, conduct,…
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