Catawba Nation urges repeal of federal membership constraint in 1993 settlement act

Chief William Harris of the Catawba Nation told the House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs that HR 4463 would restore tribal authority over membership decisions by striking a federal constraint from the Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina Land Claims Settlement Act of 1993.

Chief Harris said the 1993 law originally resolved land claims and restored recognition, but it also included a provision in section 7(d) that required future tribal enrollment to meet two conditions: lineal descent from individuals on the base roll and “continued political relations” with the tribe. Harris said that second requirement is “vague” and administratively difficult to apply. “That clause currently prevents the tribe from enrolling any member… unless that person is a linear descendant of an individual in the 1962 final roll and has maintained continued political relations with the tribe,” he told the committee.

Harris said the federal restriction’s original purpose was to enable federal agencies to identify individuals entitled to a one‑time distribution at the time of the settlement; those per capita distributions have been completed and the enrollment restriction now “serves only to constrain the tribe’s ability to manage its own citizenship.” He emphasized the tribe’s current constitution already requires leanal descent from the 1943 or 1962 rolls and uses DNA and documentation to verify claims. “This bill will restore to the tribe the authority to determine its own citizenship, criteria as outlined in the constitution,” Chief Harris said.

The Department of the Interior told the subcommittee it is “not aware of any opposition” to HR 4463 and told the committee it supports the principle that membership determinations generally rest with tribes. Brian Mercier, Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said neither the BIA nor its field offices are “in the business of making determinations about who should be allowed to be members of an Indian tribe.”

Discussion vs. decision: The hearing was informational; no committee vote occurred. Chief Harris said the change would be unlikely to produce a major enrollment surge — the tribe has admitted roughly 200 citizens per year recently and cited about 200–300 cases over five years connected to documentation and DNA issues — but argued the measure is a sovereignty restoration.

Ending note: The Catawba Nation urged the committee to remove an ‘‘outdated federal restriction’’ and to allow the tribe to administer membership under its constitution as an exercise of self‑determination.