Domination Chronicles: Supreme Court Justices Attack Plenary Power over Native Peoples

Plenary power is one of the central fictions of federal Indian law: the claim that Congress possesses broad, nearly total authority over Native nations. In this episode, Newcomb and d’Errico discuss a Supreme Court dissent by Justices Gorsuch and Thomas that questions that doctrine and suggests the possibility of significant legal change.

The hosts do not treat the dissent as a simple victory. Instead, they ask what it means for the Court to criticize plenary power while still operating within a legal system built from discovery and domination. The episode helps listeners understand why plenary power is not merely a technical doctrine. It is a vocabulary for converting Native nations’ original free existence into dependence under U.S. authority. The discussion is valuable because it holds open both possibilities at once: the importance of cracks in federal doctrine and the danger of mistaking those cracks for liberation.

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