Tribal courts can now get phone and email records like federal courts.
S. 1574 — Tribal Access to Electronic Evidence Act · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced May 1, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill lets Tribal courts issue warrants for phone calls and emails. Phone and email firms must give Tribal courts access to customer data. Tribal courts must follow the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 when they issue warrants.
Who it affects
Tribal courts and law enforcement in Indian Country can now investigate crimes. They can use phone and email records as proof. People in Tribal court get the same protections as people in other courts.
One thing to notice
The bill does not give money to Tribal courts for equipment or training.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 3 Republicans, 1 Democrats.
- May 1, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 1, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
- Sep 29, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Senate Committee on the Judiciary discharged by Unanimous Consent”
- Sep 29, 2026 — Passed the Senate · Congress.gov: “Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. (text: CR S5184)”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $60,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 6 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Catherine Cortez Masto, who sponsored the bill, received $298,634 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes — $60,000 in 2 reports
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Tribal courts — Courts run by Native American tribes that handle legal cases in Indian Country.
- warrant — A court order that lets law enforcement get private information or records.
- Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 — A federal law that sets rules for how Tribal courts must protect people's rights.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,277 characters) on Sep 30, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 13, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Tribal courts can now get phone and email records like federal courts.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1574/simple Report an error
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