page_title: Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter
section_title: Dissent
hierarchical_section_title: Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter / Supreme Court / Dissent
caption_attribution_description: English: John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States of America (cropped version of official photo)
context_page_description: Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, 567 U.S. 182, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the United States government, when it enters into a contract with a Native American tribe for services, must pay contracts in full, even if Congress has not appropriated enough money to pay all tribal contractors. The case was litigated over a period of 22 years, beginning in 1990, until it was decided in 2012.
context_section_description: Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts dissented from the majority opinion.  Roberts asserted that the Court's decision would cause the BIA to exceed the monetary limits for the IDEAA contracts, which were set by Congress under its appropriation authority.  In addition, Roberts noted that Congress expressly forbade the BIA from reducing payments to other tribes and programs to pay an IDEAA contract.  Roberts would have distinguished Cherokee Nation from this case because Cherokee Nation did not have a similar restriction on reducing other payments.  Consequently, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that he would have reversed the decision of the Tenth Circuit Court.  Roberts was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito.
caption: Chief Justice John Roberts, author of the dissent
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