Gov. Hochul again vetoes bill to restore state recognition for Montauketts

Gov. Kathy Hochul again has vetoed legislation that would have reinstated the Montaukett Indian Nation’s state recognition, drawing the wrath of tribal leaders and the bill's sponsor who criticized the governor as "on the wrong side of history once again." 

One Montaukett leader said the governor's staff in recent days had raised concerns about potential land claims by the nation, even though the Montauketts have never broached such claims and the issue hadn't been raised through months of negotiations. 

"I'm extremely disappointed in how this matter was handled by the governor's office," said Sandi Brewster-walker, the nation's executive director. "It's hard for me to believe anything that the governor says. They have disrespected the nation and seem to be looking for reasons not to recognize us."  

Hochul in a veto statement Saturday night said she was "constrained" to veto the bill because the Montaukett Nation has "not yet demonstrated that they meet the requirements necessary for recognition." That's a different reason than Hochul's staff previously gave to the tribe, saying as of Friday night that officials had concerns about the potential for Montaukett land claims.

The State Legislature earlier this year unanimously approved the bill, which asserts that the nation’s prior state recognition was “improperly removed” in a widely criticized 1910 court decision by a state judge who did not have the authority to remove it.

Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), who has sponsored iterations of the bill under Hochul and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over the past decade, said he was notified of the veto by Hochul's office Saturday morning, after meetings with her staff late this week. Hochul and Cuomo have vetoed the legislation three times each.

“In some ways this was the worst veto of them all,” Thiele said, “because the governor’s office engaged with the Montauketts” through 2024 and up until Friday night. Tribal leaders spent "tens, maybe hundreds of hours" providing Hochul’s office with requested documentation and information, he said, "all for naught." 

“The tribe had been given a lot of encouragement to work with them [Hochul’s office] and at the very end they [Hochul] just pulled the rug out,” Thiele said. “I can’t emphasize how badly the governor’s office has treated the Montauketts this past year.”

Thiele, who did not seek reelection and leaves the Assembly at year's end, called the veto a particularly "disappointing" note on which to "end my career. This was something I thought was really important." Last month, the Town of East Hampton issued a proclamation recognizing the Montaukett Indian Nation and the tribe's "significant contributions to our community." 

Thiele called Hochul staff's citing of potential land claims by the Montauketts “so speculative as to be ridiculous." In his years of interactions with Long Island developers and real estate interests as part of the Community Preservation Fund, Thiele said he’s never heard anyone bring up the prospect of Montaukett claims, or concerns about them. In the end, the land claim concern did not make it into Hochul's veto message. 

Hochul offered a "pledge to continue to work with the Montauketts regarding this issue, and to treat this historic community with the respect it deserves." 

Montaukett members who had been among the last to live on the tribal settlement at what is now Big Reed Pond in Montauk filed suit in state Supreme Court more than 114 years ago, alleging their land was improperly taken by developer Arthur Benson. The suit ended not only in a victory for Benson and the Long Island Rail Road, but also the judicial obliteration of the tribe’s formal status. 

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 the interests that had claimed the tribe's land should be “forever” restrained from taking the tribal land.

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

Hochul in last year’s veto message cited Blackmar’s decision that the “historic Montaukett community in New York no longer functioned as a government unit in the state,” even as her office continued negotiations with Brewster-walker and other tribal leaders. Montaukett Chief Robert Pharaoh of Sag Harbor is a direct descendant of tribal members who lived at the settlement and filed the lawsuit.

Thiele last year blasted Hochul's veto statement citing Blackmar as “outrageous,” saying, “I am ashamed of our state government.”

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

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