​Former County Council member, Bob Kelly, resigned his council seat a few years ago and returned to take leadership of his Nooksack Indian Tribe out near Deming. Since then, he has led an effort to disenfranchise over 300 tribal members - in the vernacular, to throw them out of the tribe as not being of pure enough Nooksack Indian blood. Or DNA, to use a better term. It is a very complicated legal case.

In January, Kelly and his tribal council filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government. This week the Feds responded. With perhaps the most forceful brief any of us have ever read. The brief calls the present tribal council “the Kelly Faction” and says it is not legal nor representing the Nooksack Indian Tribe.

The Seattle Times has a concise story online. We have posted the pdf of the Federal brief here at NW Citizen for easy access by readers. See link below this article.

What is next? The Federal Court will hand down a decision by late April. We will watch for it and post on it.