Legal and Voting Rights
Let the Shivwits people Vote! Uphold our Rights, Constitution, & Bylaws. Hold S. 1508 in Committee
The Red Mountain Land Preservers opposes discriminatory bills allowing Indian Country leases of 99 years and the transfer of legal power and authority to state courts without a vote of Indian people. Supporters of the RMLP oppose extraconstitutional band council dictates which negate the rights of the people and violate the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Constitution and Bylaws.
The Shivwits Jurisdictional Clarity Act (The Shivwits Jurisdictional Clarity Act (S. 1508) is currently on hold in the Senate Committee for Indian Affairs. The following information summarizes the bill and why supporters of the RMLP wrote emails and called legislators, resulting in the current bill-on-hold status.
I) RMLP OPPOSES S. 1508, a legislative vehicle intended to allow 99-year Indian land leases without allowing Native American people, including the Shivwits, from being able to vote yes or no on such developer “deals.” Any lease committing Indian trust land to a private developer for more than a half-century should be in accord with current federal law and require the consent of the general membership by majority vote after full disclosure of “deal” contents are provided.
The Shivwits Jurisdictional Clarity Act (SJCA) was presented as good governance legislation, giving the Shivwits Band access to state and federal courts. In reality, the bill would have imposed state civil jurisdiction on tribal trust land—bypassing the existing federal process that requires a tribal membership vote. Further, the bill would have authorized a 99-year land lease, nearly doubling the current 50-year maximum, all designed to fast-track a specific development deal without the tribal membership vote that existing federal law requires. Thankfully, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), the bill's Senate sponsor, has placed a hold on his own bill, to provide for further review.
1) Dangerous Precedent for all Indian Tribes: If Congress can override the tribal consent principle for one tribe, at the request of one developer, it can do so for any of the 574 federally recognized tribes. This bill was a direct threat to every tribe with valuable land, water, or mineral rights. The SJCA echoes the Termination Era approach of imposing jurisdictional changes without meaningful consent—an approach Congress repudiated in 1968.
2) Destruction of sacred lands and cultural heritage: The proposed development would transform 1,250 acres lying directly beneath Red Mountain into an elite golf resort. Red Mountain is a deeply spiritual site containing burial grounds and ancestral artifacts. Band elders Joel Bushhead and Lawrence Snow have spoken publicly about the desecration of these sites. During early survey work, developers have already disturbed cultural artifacts and human remains (Salt Lake Tribune, December 18, 2025). A 99-year commercial lease on this land would be effectively permanent and irreversible.
3) Western water crisis: Under a settlement ratified by Congress in 2000 (P.L. 106-263), the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah's Shivwits Band holds a perpetual right to 4,000 acre-feet of water per year—2,000 acre-feet of water respectively from the Washington County Water Conservancy District Reuse Project and from the Santa Clara River System and wells. The proposed legislation would foreclose the Shivwits' ability to use their own water for agricultural, or other economic development on the remaining 26,339 acres of their reservation for a century. In drought-stricken southwest Utah, these are among the most valuable water rights in the region, rights which over the next century would be extremely beneficial financially to the band when sold to Washington County or existing St. George area golf courses.
II) RMLP OPPOSE VIOLATIONS of the Legal and Constitutional Rights of the Shivwits people and Bylaw Infractions by band councilmembers.
1) The Shivwits Bylaws Art. VII, Sections 1, 2(b) require every member of the Band Council to consult frequently with the Band’s members to ensure their needs are considered by the council, and to act professionally at all times they are conducting Band business or otherwise representing the Band. The remaining band council members did not and still do not consult with members about the Black Desert/Reef plan, reveal the content of the development agreement, or heed member input on the unprecedented-in-the-history-of-the-band land and water leases. Member's needs have not been considered, or even their votes validated. Yelling at members at band meetings and calling elders after hours to intimidate and bully them because they signed Constitutionally approved petitions for recall, initiative, and referendum, and then refusing to accept those petitions or initiate the constitutionally mandated votes on them, is not professional, nor is repeatedly lying (and admitting publicly to lying) to band members at band meetings about Reef's sweetheart development deal.
2) The Shivwits Bylaws Shivwits Bylaws, Art. X, Section 1 requires the Band Council to hold a monthly meeting in the community building on the reservation where the Chairperson must report to the membership on all matters within his or her knowledge that may interest or require the attention of the members. Band council members secretly met with Black Desert/Reef far from the reservation, not reporting or accurately reporting on matters of the utmost interest and attention of members such as a massive golf course development on their most valuable and sacred land, an invaluable water rights lease for decades, or even an Act of Congress which would have removed member's federal right to vote against the lease and transferred legal power and authority to Utah Courts.
3) The Shivwits Bylaws Shivwits Bylaws, Art. VII, Section 4(d) dictate that Band Council can take official action only by resolution and ordinance at a duly called meeting. It would surely be interesting to see just how many resolutions and ordinances have been created out of thin air by council members and acted on without the context of a duly called meeting. If the answer is none, perhaps the band council would like to make the record public. If the answer is "too many to count," then that answer, and the resolutions, and ordinances, should also be made public. If the council's business and official actions are all above board, why not a shine a bright light on them and make them public? And logically, if "official actions" are taken in violation of the bylaws, in secret, and not at a duly called meeting, then such resolutions and ordinances must be considered invalid.
These are just a partial list of bylaw and rights violations by the unrepresentative band council.
