ABSTRACT
The self-determination policy proposed by President Nixon and implemented by Congress in the 1970s worked to give more authority to tribal governments. This chapter examines how tribal governments govern in the midst of contradictory forces and what roles tribal territorial and membership sovereignty play in the process of governance. The Nixon policy of self-determination sought self-government more than it sought the international legal concept of self-determination. State governments wanted control over resources, zoning, and environmental regulation within reservations. The United States Supreme Court had to decide whether the tribe had the authority to zone the entire reservation. Long after tribes established the first tribal governments, the United States wrote its Constitution. Because of that chronology, the United States Supreme Court has held that the United States Constitution does not apply to tribes. Tribes stand with varying levels of tribal territorial sovereignty. Those tribes with diminished reservations also have diminished tribal territorial sovereignty.
