Under the leadership of Howard Tommie, the Seminole Tribe of Florida built a large high-stakes bingo building on their reservation near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Within a few years, enterprising Natives and tribes began to operate Indian bingo operations in numerous different locations around the United States. The Supreme Court granted review, and in a sweeping and unanimous decision authored by Justice Brennan, the Supreme Court held not only that states do not have authority to tax Natives on their reservations, but that they also lack the authority to regulate Native activities on their reservations.
They then sought review at the Supreme Court of the United States. The Bryans lost their case in the state district court, and they lost again on appeal in a unanimous decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Unwilling to pay it, they took the tax notice to local legal aid attorneys at Leech Lake Legal Services, who brought suit to challenge the tax in the state courts. The Bryans had never received a property tax bill from the county before.
In the early 1970s, Russell and Helen Bryan, a married Chippewa couple living in a mobile home on Indian lands in northern Minnesota, received a property tax bill from the local county, Itasca County. Further information: Tribal sovereignty in the United States
