To amend the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Alabama and Coushatta Indian Tribes of Texas Restoration Act to allow the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe to determine blood quantum requirement for membership in that Tribe.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for the immediate consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 1696) to amend the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Alabama and Coushatta Indian Tribes of Texas Restoration Act to allow the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe to determine blood quantum requirement for membership in that Tribe.

Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest exercises of tribal sovereignty is the ability of a tribe to determine their tribal membership. This measure would allow a Texas Tribe to determine the blood quantum requirement for membership in that tribe.

Congressman Reyes of Texas introduced H.R. 1696 to restore the Tribe's right to determine its own membership requirements by deleting a blood quantum requirement specified in a 1987 law. Passage of this legislation would extend to the Tribe the same sovereign right possessed by all other Indian tribes--the ability to determine who is and is not a member of the Tribe.

This measure is long overdue. Similar legislation has been introduced every Congress since the 106th Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.