Ann Tucker, chairman of the tribal council of Muscogee Nation of Florida, said, “I’ve been working on the issue of tribal recognition for 15 years and my mother started working on it in 1947. My mother is 85 and I would really like to see something happen in her lifetime,” she said. Two weeks ago Tucker got a little assistance from a bill sponsored by Florida Senators Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson, seeking to allow the Muscogee Nation a sovereign relationship with the U.S. Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Sen. Nelson, said the bill was sent to the senate committee on Indian Affairs, which is chaired by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who discussed the issue of federal recognition with the Secretary of the Interior. “At that meeting, Dorgan expressed his disgust and the disgust of many other senators at how long it has taken for this tribe and others to be recognized. It has been 30 years since they first filed. Federal recognition should not take an act of Congress if the Department of the Interior is doing its job. Dorgan has decided to hold hearings on the tribal recognition process,” Gulley said.