December 8, 2023 — The Biden administration could jump into a high-profile lawsuit involving a Southeast Alaska Native community that’s fighting with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration about its fishing rights.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a filing late Tuesday that it’s considering submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in the dispute between the state and the Metlakatla Indian Community, a tribal government.
The three-year-old Metlakatla lawsuit, filed by the tribal government against Dunleavy’s administration, centers on the extent of fishing rights granted to the community’s members.
The Justice Department didn’t say which side it would take in the suit.
But the Biden administration has already filed a lawsuit against the state that it says is aimed at protecting the rights of rural subsistence fishermen in Southwest Alaska. And its filing Tuesday describes the federal government as having a stake in the Metlakatla lawsuit because it is the “trustee of the community’s federally reserved tribal fishing rights, with a general trust responsibility to preserve and protect those rights.”