Argued April 16, 2013.Decided June 25, 2013.

Justices Matthew L. M. FLETCHER and Kathryn E. FORT delivered the opinion of the Court.*

This case is about a little girl (Baby Girl) who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, like her father, grandparents, and a multitude of generations before her. American Indian tribal citizenship with a federally recognized tribe is a unique concept in American law. See, e.g., Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 55 (1978) (“[Indian tribes] have power to make their own substantive law in internal matters… .”). Tribal citizens are beneficiaries of the federal government’s trust relationship with Indian tribes, and the federal government has promised to tribal citizens for centuries to assist in the maintenance of tribal governments, cultures, and sovereignty.

Argued October 6, 1999.Decided February 23, 2000.

ROLNICK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.1

Petitioner Harold Rice seeks the right to vote in an election for trustees of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (“OHA”). Hawai’i law provides that only “Hawaiians,” a term defined in the statute as anyone who descends from an ancestor who was present in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778,2 may vote in this election. Petitioner Rice, who was born and raised and still resides in Hawai’i, descends from ranchers and missionaries who migrated to the islands in the mid-1800s. Rice v. Cayetano, 963 F. Supp. 1547, 1548 (D. Haw. 1997).