Whereas, since time immemorial, fish have been an integral part of Native American cultural, spiritual, and economic life in the Northwest; Whereas, between 1854 and 1859, the United States Government signed a series of treaties with Indian Tribes across the Northwest, reserving to the Indian Tribes the right to fish in their usual and accustomed places, in common with the citizens of the Washington Territory; Whereas article VI of the Constitution of the United States recognizes treaties as the supreme law of the land, including those with Indian Tribes; Whereas, after the Indian Tribes signed these treaties, their right to fish in accordance with these treaties was not upheld, leading to more than 100 years of litigation; Whereas, following decades of arrests and fish-ins during which Billy Frank Jr. and other Tribal members exercised their treaty-protected fishing rights, Indian Tribes won a historic legal victory protecting those rights; Whereas, on February 12, 1974, United States District Court Judge George Boldt ruled in United States v. State of Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974), that— (1) Indian Tribes that were parties to treaties which reserved their right to fish could take up to 50 percent of the fish harvest that passed through their recognized fishing grounds, to be calculated on a river-by-river, run-by-run basis; (2) State law could not regulate treaty-based tribal fishing rights; and (3) Treaty Tribes would co-manage fisheries in Washington State; Whereas the decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in United States v. State of Washington, 520 F.2d 676 (9th Cir. 1976); Whereas Tribal co-management of Washington fisheries led to the creation of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission