Pay attention: 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations'
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Montana Republican state Sen. Keith Regier (courtesy Montana Public Affairs Network)
Some light Sunday reading for you, courtesy of the Associated Press and local press reports (with my comment at the end — please share your own thoughts in the comments below, too): 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations.'
Republican Sen. Keith Regier is proposing asking Congress to study alternatives to reservations. The measure, submitted this week and riddled with racial stereotypes, is unlikely to pass and would have no practical effect if it did. But it’s causing tensions to surface at the Republican-controlled Montana Legislature that kicked off this week.
Native American lawmakers say they’re now spending time responding to the proposed resolution rather than focusing on their own legislative priorities, including extending the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force for another two years, creating a grant program to train community-based groups to search for missing people and encouraging the state to determine the economic impact of reservations on the state’s economy.
Language in the draft resolution, reportedly crafted by Mark Agather, who the AP says is a retired, conservative businessman who hails from near the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, says that reservations have “failed to positively enhance the lives and well-being” of Native Americans and are “not in the best interests of either the Indians inside our borders or for our common Montana Citizens.”
Agather describes himself in his LinkedIn profile as “[c]urrently semi-retired. Now deeply involved in political activism for States Rights in Montana. Specifically for a Convention of States, the Land's Council initiative and the Defend Rural America Initiative. Still providing the financial services of budgeting, advice re wills and estates including trusts plus analysis and advice relative to life, health, home and auto insurance. I have also started the States Rights Coalition in Kalispell which meets on usually every Wednesday evening.”
Important: The resolution reportedly treats tribal reservations as race-based classifications, while they are clearly political designations, per federal-tribal policy spanning throughout the nation’s history.
The AP says Reiger has shared the draft with some legislative staffers, “but he did not respond to an email Friday asking if he would formally introduce it.”
Native response:
Floyd Azure, chairman of the Fort Peck Tribe in northeastern Montana, said the draft resolution perpetuates racial stereotypes about life on the reservation when social ills, such as addiction, exist nationwide.
“Why exaggerate the reservations?” he said. He thinks some people “make themselves feel better” by attacking Native Americans.
And:
“I hate spending energy and time on this kind of stuff because I feel like it sidetracks us,” state Sen. Shane Morigeau, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Thursday. “But at the same time, it clearly signals to me that we have a lot of educational work to do in this state.”
“I’m tired of hearing what other people think is best for us,” Morigeau said. “Consult and seek the advice of Indian people,” rather than imposing on tribes.
The solution to any social issues on reservations, including addiction or disproportionate rates of health problems, is not to diminish reservations, Morigueau said. “We should be building tribal sovereignty up.”
Notably, the AP goes on to explain what reservations are to its readers, which is welcome and apparently necessary as Indians continue to face an onslaught of race-based legal and legislative challenges, including an ongoing U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
Comment: Will tribes see more race-based challenges, like this one coming out of Montana, in the years to come? Yes. They’ve seen these kinds of challenges many, many times before over hundreds of years — especially surrounding gaming since the 1980s — but they have maintained their unique sovereign, political status and have used it to grow economically over the last 50 years.
If the Supreme Court begins down the path of classifying Indian sovereignty as race-based in its decision within the ICWA case — expected this spring — a whole new era of negative tribal-federal relations could begin…where challenges like this new one in Montana could have much more weight than they do at present. That some state legislators like Regier are primed with harmful anti-tribal legislation is notable.
Pay attention.
Indigenous Wire is a Native-owned, reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Pay attention: 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations'
Pay attention: 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations'
Pay attention: 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations'
Some light Sunday reading for you, courtesy of the Associated Press and local press reports (with my comment at the end — please share your own thoughts in the comments below, too): 'Montana lawmaker wants to revisit idea of reservations.'
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Key points:
Language in the draft resolution, reportedly crafted by Mark Agather, who the AP says is a retired, conservative businessman who hails from near the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, says that reservations have “failed to positively enhance the lives and well-being” of Native Americans and are “not in the best interests of either the Indians inside our borders or for our common Montana Citizens.”
Agather describes himself in his LinkedIn profile as “[c]urrently semi-retired. Now deeply involved in political activism for States Rights in Montana. Specifically for a Convention of States, the Land's Council initiative and the Defend Rural America Initiative. Still providing the financial services of budgeting, advice re wills and estates including trusts plus analysis and advice relative to life, health, home and auto insurance. I have also started the States Rights Coalition in Kalispell which meets on usually every Wednesday evening.”
Important: The resolution reportedly treats tribal reservations as race-based classifications, while they are clearly political designations, per federal-tribal policy spanning throughout the nation’s history.
The AP says Reiger has shared the draft with some legislative staffers, “but he did not respond to an email Friday asking if he would formally introduce it.”
Native response:
And:
Notably, the AP goes on to explain what reservations are to its readers, which is welcome and apparently necessary as Indians continue to face an onslaught of race-based legal and legislative challenges, including an ongoing U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
EARLIER: The basics of ICWA and why the high court is reviewing it now
Comment: Will tribes see more race-based challenges, like this one coming out of Montana, in the years to come? Yes. They’ve seen these kinds of challenges many, many times before over hundreds of years — especially surrounding gaming since the 1980s — but they have maintained their unique sovereign, political status and have used it to grow economically over the last 50 years.
If the Supreme Court begins down the path of classifying Indian sovereignty as race-based in its decision within the ICWA case — expected this spring — a whole new era of negative tribal-federal relations could begin…where challenges like this new one in Montana could have much more weight than they do at present. That some state legislators like Regier are primed with harmful anti-tribal legislation is notable.
Pay attention.
Indigenous Wire is a Native-owned, reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.