The Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor, held that while ANCs are not federally recognized tribes in a sovereign political sense, they are “Indian tribes” under plain definition in Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA), and thus, they are eligible to receive monetary relief under the CARES Act.
In defense of its implausibility argument, the Court submits any other reading would yield a redundancy. Unless ANCs are exempt from the recognition clause, the Court suggests, Congress had no reason to mention them in the statute’s opening clause because they already “fit into one of the pre-existing ISDA categories,” like “ ‘tribe[s], band[s], nation[s], or other organized group[s] or communit[ies],’ ” ante, at 2448 – 2449 (quoting 25 U.S. C § 5304(e)).But this much is hard to see too. Admittedly, illustrative examples of more general terms are in some sense always redundant. See Chickasaw Nation v. United States, 534 U.S. 84, 89, 122 S.Ct. 528, 151 L.Ed.2d 474 (2001) (“[That] is meant simply to be illustrative, hence redundant”). But Congress often uses illustrative examples in its statutory work, and the practice is not entirely pointless. As this Court has explained, illustrative examples can help orient affected parties and courts to Congress’s thinking, and often they serve to “remove any doubt” about whether a particular listed entity is captured within broader definitional terms. Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 552 U.S. 214, 226, 128 S.Ct. 831, 169 L.Ed.2d 680 (2008); see also Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U.S. 95, 99–100, 62 S.Ct. 1, 86 L.Ed. 65 (1941); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 176–177 (2012). That much is certainly true here. If Congress had failed to list ANCs in ISDA’s first clause, a dispute could have arisen over whether these corporate entities even qualify as “Indian … organized group[s] or communit[ies].” See Brief for Petitioners in No. 20544, p. 5; supra, at 2457 (citing 43 U.S.C. § 1601(b)).Having said all this, my disagreement with the Court’s “implausibility” argument is a relatively modest one. We agree that linguistic and historical context may provide useful interpretive guidance, and no one today seeks to suggest that judges may sanitize statutes in service of their own sensibilities about the rational and harmonious.[3] Instead, our disagreement is simply about applying the plain meaning, grammar, context, and canons of construction to the particular statutory terms before us. As I see it, an ordinary reader would understand that the recognition clause applies the same way to all Indian groups. And if that’s true, there’s just no way to read the text to include ANCs as “Tribal governments” for purposes of the CARES Act.
Defines where disputes must be litigated (state vs. federal), which affects cost, leverage, and practical enforceability for shareholders.