HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A $3.4 billion government settlement with hundreds of thousands of American Indians has been caught in a Senate filibuster.
Congress must authorize the Obama administration’s settlement with Indians who have land held in trust by the Interior Department. The 14-year-old lawsuit claims the government mismanaged those accounts for more than a century.
The settlement is part of the Democrats’ jobs-agenda bill that fell short of breaking a Republican filibuster on Thursday. Now the future of the agreement in doubt.
The lead plaintiff, Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont., says the settlement should not fall victim to an unrelated partisan fight.
She says she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but she’s not going to give up the fight.
