Haaland and Warren battle for tribes in Congress

Deb Haaland and Elizabeth Warren. Photo courtesy Indianz.com

RAPID CITY— In December, 2018, the United States Commission on Civil Rights released a 300-plus page report entitled “Broken Promises: Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans.” Broken Promises was a comprehensive study that began with explaining the Federal Trust Relationship, and the structure of the federal budget in regard to Native American programs. Five chapters dealt with Criminal Justice and Public Safety, Health Care, Education, Housing, and Economic Development.
Since that time, tribes have been curiously indifferent to Broken Promises, and the media, including this newspaper, have dropped the ball in adequately addressing the study and explaining the implications.
Rapid City’s Gay Kingman, an enrolled member at Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and Director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association, has been the exception to that rule, touting the recent legislative proposal by Representative Deb Haaland and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The Haaland-Warren proposal was released on August 16, 2019. Haaland explained that, “We are developing legislation that will aim to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility to Indian Country, and address the chronic underfunding of federal programs critical to the success and well-being of all Native American communities.”
The United States Civil Rights Commission is an independent, bipartisan agency established by Congress in 1957. The Commission has a six-part mission statement, all six missions at one time or another applying to Indian tribes, but especially the fifth mission, which is to “submit reports, findings, and recommendations to the President and Congress.”
Originally, Indian tribes had no civil rights, as they were designated “Indians not taxed,” and there can be no representation without taxation. Tribes had a treaty based relationship with the federal government, guided, in principle, by the federal trust responsibility. The Indian Freedom Citizenship Suffrage Act of 1924, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to issue certificates of citizenship for Native Americans, but also allowed them to keep their tribal membership.
Scholars and legal experts can debate how much this has influenced the subsequent interaction between tribes and the federal government, but in the main, Broken Promises determined that there has been ongoing federal funding shortfall for Native Americans, that they have not met, and are not meeting, their federal trust responsibility. Although a debatable topic for Congress, this underfunding is the harsh reality for tribes and tribal members. Jefferson Keel, President of the National Congress of American Indians, wasted no time in issuing a statement on the very day the Broken Promises report was released, stating: “This report confirms what Indian Country knows all too well— federal programs designed to support the social and economic wellbeing of American Indians and Alaska Natives remain chronically underfunded, leaving many basic needs unmet.”
If the American public has any indifference or hostility to the federal trust relationship with tribes, it is generally based upon the idea that Indians are being regularly given things, things hard working Americans are seldom given, and that nanny state support of tribes only leads to dependence and sloth.
This attitude is summed up by Senior Editor Jay Nordlinger, writing in the National Review in 2016: “…I wonder whether Indians would be better off if reservations were simply abolished. Broken up. Dissolved. For too long they have been incubators of misery, emasculation, and perversity.” He continues: “…let the Indians get on with their lives, without this charade of sovereign nations within a big sovereign nation.”
While President Trump has never said anything openly racist about Indians, beyond his Pocahontas slurs of Elizabeth Warren, he has a contentious casino and gaming history in opposition to tribes, and it is reasonable to assume attitudes like Nordlinger’s are no strangers to White House discourse.
In June, 2019, Washington state Representative Derek Kilmer, hosted a congressional panel discussion involving tribal leaders and federal officials. Panel participant Kirk Francis, President of the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty and Protection Fund, summed up the counter to Nordlinger’s position: “Tribal nations ceded millions of acres of land and natural resources to the United States, often involuntarily. As part of this exchange, promises were made that exist in perpetuity.”
Even Nordlinger concedes that the tribes were historically wronged by the federal government, but the argument from the right is that, even so, the relationship cannot be one of perpetuity, and must end, for the good of the tribes. This, then, will be the battleground on the floor of Congress.
What should be noted is that Broken Promises is an update of a previous Civil Rights Commission report from 2003: “A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet Needs in Indian Country.” Apparently, what that report did was prompt the 2018 Broken Promises report, but it took 15 years. Chair of the Broken Promises report, Catherine E. Lhamon said, “The harrowing inequities documented in this report, across every issue area the Commission examined, cry out for immediate federal action…”
When it comes to this issue, “immediate” is not a word associated with federal action.
Representative Haaland, one of the first Native American women to ever serve in Congress, clearly intends to change that.
“It’s time to take bold action,” Haaland said, “to finally fulfill the promises our government has made, live up to our trust and treaty responsibilities, and deliver the investments that the U.S. government owes to Native peoples in exchange for all the land and resources…”
She described her proposed legislation as addressing “budgetary uncertainty for programs affecting tribal governments, so that sequestration, government shutdowns, and the whims of a divided Congress never imperil the fulfillment of the government’s trust and treaty responsibilities again.”
A key factor, often overlooked, is the abuse of mandatory consultation by the government with tribes, in that this consultation has devolved into a process of the government hearing tribal concerns, and then doing what they had already decided to do before the consultation.
“Our legislation will also ensure that Native American communities have a permanent voice at the highest levels of government,” Haaland said. “And it will make meaningful and timely tribal consultation the norm.”
What was not addressed in Haaland’s August 16 statement, is what happens to funding, even ideal funding, once it reaches the reservations, and tribes are expected to administer these funds. Corruption and incompetence at that level is rampant, and whether the answer is comprehensive tribal restructuring or increased federal supervision, this dissenting counter reality will heat up floor debate, and have a critical influence on the success or failure of any proposed legislation.