Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2003-04-18

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY
NEWS BRIEFS
2
3'
Not this 'sovereign
nation' blather again!
519 shelter closes,
more homeless
"criminals" created
Chris Burns
an outrage!
case-
Civil discourse can
lead to solving
serious problems
1 Commentary
1 Equity in gaming
I long overdue
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS
4
CLASSIFIEDS
7
page 4
page 4
page 4
page 4
1 page 4
Tribal/state casino bill takes 2 more hits, but still alive
By Bill Lawrence
Despite seeing his bill to establish
a state/tribal casino in the metro area
suffer its third defeat within a week,
House author Bill Haas, R-
Champlin, told the media during a
break in the hearing that, "he was
disappointed in the votes" but will
"look for other opportunities" to n>
vive it in the remaining four weeks
ofthe legislative session. Two of
those votes came on Tuesday
evening in the House Ways and
Means Committee 13-7 against the
bill and the House Finance Committees 6-5 to delete it as an amendment to a finance bill. The third occurred last week in the House Governmental Operations and Veterans
Affairs Committee by a vote of 10-
8.
Red Lake and White Earth tribal
leaders told Press/ON unmediatcly
after the Tuesday votes that although
disappointed, they praised Rep.
Haas for all his work on the bill, and
said they would continue to pursue it
until they were successful. Red Lake
tribal treasurer Darrell Seki told
Press/ON, "we know this is the right
thing to do, not only for the Red
Lake and White Earth people, but
also for the people of the state of
Minnesota."
Although support for the tribal/
state casino bill has primarily come
from Republicans, in spite of huge
contributions to their campaign coffers from the wealthy tribes there
have been a few notable Democratic
exceptions, such as Sen. Sandy
Pappas, St. Paul and Reps. Phyllis
Kahn, Mpls. and Keith Ellison,
Mpls.
In addition during deliberations on
the bill in the House Finance Committee, DFL Rep. JVlichael Paymar,
St. Paul, said that although he was
voting against the bill he thought it
was time that the tribal/state gaming
compacts be re-negotiated. Numer
ous other reps, from both sides of
the aisle expressed a liking for the
bill and said that something needed
to done to make Indian gaming
more equitable. Sen. John Marty,
D-Roseville, early in the session introduced a bill to renegotiate the    .
compacts.
Perhaps the most disturbing statement made by opponents of the
tribal/state casino bill was by Bill
Hilty, D-Finlayson, who said during
the House Finance Committee hearings that the bill "would only benefit
a few rich white guys." Noticeable
gasps were heard throughout the
hearing room, in addition to the
many who sat in obvious bewilderment. House Finance Committee
chair and bill author Bill Haas later
responded to Hilty that he was
deeply offended by the remark, and
he knew that would not be the case.
But to this author, the remark shows
BILL to page 6
Minnesota Releases Results of Basic Skills Tests:
Native Students Still Lag Behind
By Jean Pagano
The Minnesota Department of
Children, Families, and Learning
(CFL) released results from its Basic Skills Tests (BST) for the state's
eighth grade students on Wednesday, April 16"1. The statewide results
showed an overall passing rate of
81 % for the reading test and 72%
for the mathematics test Results for
Native children were lower than the
average statewide. Writing test results were reported in Press/ON earlier this month.
Basic Skills Tests are administered by the State of Minnesota to
Grade 8 children once a year. This
year's results are culled from tests
administered in February 2003. Ba
sic Skills tests of Grade 8 students,
according to CFL, "tell us if the student shows the basic reading and
math skills thought necessary to
function in our society." A total of
64,865 students took the reading
BSTs and 64,818 the math BSTs. A
passing score is described as 600 for
both the reading and math portions.
While students overall did well
on the tests, there remains a racial
disparity gap between white students and other ethnic groups. 78%
of white children passed the tests as
compared to Asian children at 61 %,
Hispanic and Native children at
43%, and African-America children
at 33%. Education Commissioner
Cheri Pierson Yecki stated, "I am
pleased that an overwhelming majority of our students are passing the
tests, but we continue to leave some
students behind."
Native students account for 2.1 %
of eighth grade children, up 0.1 %
from the last six years. Yet, scores
for these children, on the average,
remain behind the general school
population. Native children in Minnesota, on the average, scored 609.7
on the reading BST and 593.0 on
the math BST. Compare these numbers with the 647.3 averages for all
students in reading and 629.7 in
math and the disparity becomes obvious. It is encouraging to see that as
RESULTS to page 3
Minnesota Gaming: 'Racino' bill heads to House floor vote
By Patrick Sweeney
St. Paul Pioneer Press
A bill to establish a state-operated
casino at the Canterbury Park racetrack—once the longest of long-
shots to win passage in the Minnesota Legislature this year—was approved Tuesday by a third committee, and the proposal now is headed
toward a House floor vote.
With House Speaker Steve
Sviggum strongly backing the casino
legislation, its success or failure probably will be determined by an end-of-
session House-Senate conference
committee—or perhaps a decision
by Gov. Tim Pawlenty on whether to
sign or veto the legislation.
"It's alive and it's kicking,''
Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said after the casino bill survived a 13-12 vote in the
House Ways and Means Committee.
The proposal to put slot machines
at the thoroughbred track in
Shakopee has been introduced several times since 1997, when it was
first proposed as a way to pay for a
new baseball stadium, but it never
made it to a House floor vote.
"It's another nail-biter," Canterbury president Randy Sampson said
ofthe close vote. "But we made it to
the floor, which is obviously a lot
further than this proposal has gotten
in the past."
In previous years, the gambling
legislation has been defeated by a
coalition of conservative Republicans opposed to gambling on moral
grounds and liberal Democrats who
wanted to keep casino gaming as an
economic development asset for
Minnesota's Indian tribes.
This year, that coalition broke
down as Republicans who formerly
opposed any expansion of non-Indian gaming seized on the Canterbury proposal as a means of pumping $100 million into the deficit-
plagued state budget.
Sviggum, once an opponent, said
Tuesday that the prospect of that
$100 million over two years will
force many House members to think
twice before voting against a casino.
"This is one ofthe options, maybe
one ofthe only options, to provide
for our needs for nursing homes, local governments, higher education
additional to what the governor recommended," Sviggum said.
"I think it will pass on the House
floor," he said.
Rep. Ann Lenczewski, DFL-
Bloomington who voted against the
bill, agreed "Most people around here
think it's going to get off the House
floor."
In the Senate, the sponsor of a companion bill tabled the legislation rather
than allow it to be defeated in committee. But Sviggum said Tuesday it did
not matter whether the Canterbury bill
even comes up for a Senate floor vote.
He said he expects the proposal and
the $ 100 million will be in play in end-
of- session budget negotiations between the House and Senate.
The devolution of U.S. Federal Indian Law
By Jeff Armstrong
Exploiting the 1883 Supreme
Court finding in Ex Parte Crow
Dog that the U.S. government
lacked legal authority to prosecute
murder charges against Indians
within reservation boundaries, the
BIA took just two more years to
fulfill its "decade-long campaign to
get Congress to extend jurisdiction
over Indian Country." The 1885
Major Crimes Act constituted a serious encroachment on even the
fragile autonomy envisioned six
decades earlier by the Marshall
Court, usurping tribal jurisdiction
over an expanding number of felonious crimes in favor ofthe federal
government. This assault on indigenous sovereignty was followed in
short order by the expropriation of
the overwhelming majority of Indian land—much of which was reserved by international treaty—under the disastrous 1887 General Allotment Act. While the ideological
orientation of U.S. Indian policy
often fluctuated between paternalism and genocide, the Dawes Act
promoted by self-styled reformers
combined elements of both. The
1898 Curtis Act took the next logical step of terminating federal recognition of existing tribal governments.
It remained only for the judicial
system to construct a new legal
theory to legitimate the absolutism
of Congress. In 1886, the Supreme
Court in Kagama rejected the
"strained!' contention that the commerce clause ofthe constitution
granted Congress authority to enforce the Major Crimes Act on reservations, but held instead that the
supremacy of U.S. power endowed
it with legislative fiat over all but
state sovereignty within its asserted
national boundaries. From
Marshall's domestic dependent nationhood, tribes were rhetorically
relegated to a dependent wardship
under which they were to be subject to exploitation and abuse at the
whim of their superiors. Facing the
potentially daunting obstacle of establishing a basis for congressional
authority to contravene treaty pro-
LAW to page 2
Community relieved after BIA takes
over troubled Blackfeet police
By Angie Wagner
Associated Press
BROWNING Mont.— When
she sleeps now, both eyes are
closed. Two BB guns and a broken
hammer are still by her bed, but
Dlena Marceau doesn't reach for
them in the night. The noises don't
draw her to the window anymore,
and the darkness outside no longer
holds fear.
Life on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation has changed for the 72-
year-old ever since the Bureau of
Indian Affairs began policing the
area. The tribe's own police department, the BIA said, had simply
ceased to enforce the law.
In one case, an allegation of
sexual abuse wasn't investigated
because "the mother didn't believe
her boyfriend would do something
like that to her child," a BIA report
quoted an investigator as saying.
An inmate allowed to leave jail
for an Alcoholics Anonymous
meeting instead went to his
girlfriend's house and raped and assaulted her, the BIA said. An escaped inmate stabbed a man to
death. A police investigator failed
to even respond to a report of a
child's rape.
"There were things that were go
ing on that shouldn't be going on,"
said Ed Naranjo, BIA special agent
in charge of a six-state region that
includes Montana. "A lot of it was
that the police are untrained. Police
were abusing their power, being
heavy-handed."
JVIismanagement, incompetence,
dysfunction. The BIA had seen it
before, only not as bad. Across the
country, only a handful ofthe 177
Indian law enforcement programs
the BIA either runs or contracts to
tribes face such serious problems.
But in Browning, it was a way of
life.
Marceau often heard teenagers
carousing outside her home and
feared they would break into her
home. She said she knew the police
wouldn't do anything, so she slept
with her guns and her hammer and
kept watch on the night herself.
"I get up in the dark. I look
around, see if anybody's outside,"
she said. "I just never complained."
For 27 years, Tribal Police Lt.
Richard Rutherford patrolled the
streets of this depressed town in
northern Montana, where the
boarded-up buildings almost seem
to match the number of open busi-
BIA to page 6
Former Cherokee
chief ready to tackle
Indian trust
By Kelly Kurt
Associated Press
TULSA, Okla.—Aformer
Cherokee chief assigned to untangle the management of American Indian trust funds said Friday
his Indian country experience will
prove invaluable.
The U.S. Senate confirmed Ross
Swimmer, 59, on Thursday as special trustee ofthe funds.
Swimmer, a Tulsa businessman
and practicing attorney, headed the
Bureau of Indian Affairs during the
TRUST to page 6
Ralph Joseph "Bill"
Thunder, Jr. charged
with sexual abuse
Minneapolis - Ralph Joseph
Thunder, a.ka. Bill Thunder, 37, a
Red Lake enrollee, was charged by
a federal grand jury with five counts
of aggravated sexual abuse and one
count of abusive sexual contact.
The grand jury alleged in the indictment that between 1997 and
ABUSE to page 6
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Volume 15 Issue 45
April 18,2003
Business booming for American Indian-owned armor plant
Fort Totten, North Dakota -
Frances Halsey doesn't think of
herself as a factory worker.
She's in the business of saving
lives.
Halsey is one of about 110
people who work at Sioux
Manufacturing Corp., an American Indian-owned company that
makes protective armor for soldiers, tanks, ships and aircraft.
Business is booming at the
plant, which added a third shift
to keep up with orders since the
war in Iraq began.
Halsey spends her shift in a
250,000-square-foot building,
molding Kevlar and ceramic
breast plates for ballistic vests,
or flak jackets. She also makes
composite tiles that are pieced
together in a mosaic to line the
inside of military vehicles and
aircraft.
"I'm proud of what I do,"
Halsey said. "I think I may be
saving someone's life."
The factory is owned by the
Spirit Lake Sioux tribe, on the
Spirit Lake reservation in northeastern North Dakota.
The tribe, which numbers
about 5,000, has about 20 members serving in the military. Ten
are fighting in Iraq.
Nearly all employees at the
plant are American Indians, like
Halsey. And most know the soldiers and their families. "It feels
good knowing we're serving our
country," Halsey said. "We're
helping, even though we're not
over there with them. But spiritually, we are."
The tribe also owns a casino
and other manufacturing businesses on the reservation.
Phillip Longie, whose father
is the tribal chairman, said profits from the tribe's businesses
are used to "repurchase our own
land back."
The tribe owns only a fourth
of the 250,000 acres within the
reservation's boundaries, Longie
said.
Lori Brown, the controller at
the plant, said all but 3 percent
ofthe plant's business comes
from government contracts. The
huge spike in orders during a
time of war is bittersweet, she
AP Photo/James MacPherson
Burton "Joe" Jackson holds up Kevlar pieces made at Sioux Manufacturing Corp in Fort Totten, N.D., on Thursday, April 10, 2003. The Kevlar is
used to make protective armor for the military. Jackson is a Member of
the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe. Business at the tribal owned company is
booming since the war in Iraq began.
said.
The 30-year-old company is
looking to branch out into other
areas, Brown said.
"There is still a big commercial
market out there that we need to
tap into," she said.
Sioux Manufacturing has developed eveiything from bicycle
wheels to car parts, said David
Steffen, the company's marketing
director. Currently, work is being
done on blast-proof floorboards
for VIP vehicles.
In the meantime, the tribal
company is doing ah it can to
keep up with military contracts,
running 24 hours a day, everyday.
Burton "Joe" Jackson cuts and
packs Kevlar helmet material at
the factory, which he says provides much-needed jobs on the
reservation.
For him, it's not just a job, he
said. "I do the best job I can do
with this stuff. I know peoples'
hves are on the line. I put 110
percent in this job."
Joel Teel said the plant pays
better than about any other employer in the region.
The former Marine has been
with the company 23 years. He
said helmets and flak jackets
made by the company are head
and shoulders above what he was
issued in Vietnam. "We used to
cut the armor out of our flak jackets thinking it was too heavy.
These are better — way better,"
Teel said.
A blanket made by the company to line the inside of
Humvees probably saved the
lives of some Marines during the
Gulf War, Teel said.
An explosion blew the front
end off a Humvee, but the Marines inside were unhurt. The Marines sent a thank-you letter to the
company and a picture of their
destroyed vehicle. "All it did to
them was made their ears ring,"
Teel said ofthe explosion.
"That's what we do this for."
Court rulings on
tribal jurisdiction
are in conflict
Indainz,Com
Tribes in five Plains states do
not possess inherent jurisdiction
over American Indians, a divided
federal appeals court has concluded.
In a March 24 decision the 8th
Circuit Court of Appeals struck
down dual tribal and federal prosecution of an American Indian
man convicted by the Spirit Lake
Nation of North Dakota By a vote
of 7-4, a full panel of the court said
the tribe's prosecution stemmed
from Congress—not its own sovereignty.
"The Spirit Lake Nation exercises authority over external relations only to the extent that such a
power has been delegated to it by
Congress," Judge Roger L
Wollman wrote for the majority.
The holding conflicts with a
separate one issued by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals just four
days earlier. In a unanimous
March 20 decision, a three-judge
panel said the Menominee Nation
of Wisconsin—whose federal
status was terminated, then restored by Congress — exercised
its inherent authority by prosecuting a tribal member.
"The Menominee Tribe's criminal jurisdiction over certain reservation crimes existed before and
exists again as a function of the
tribe's inherent sovereign powers,"
wrote Judge Diane P. Wood
And the 8th Circuit ruling also
contradicts an 11-0 decision cover-
RULING to page 6
Wisconsin one of handful of states getting
Indian gaming money
By Robert Imrie
Associated Press
WAUSAU,Wis.-The
governor's proposed new gambling
agreements with Wisconsin's Indian
tribes would provide the state more
Indian gambling revenue than most
states receive. But one, Connecticut,
gets far more money from its tribal
casinos, an Associated Press review
found.
In fact, Wisconsin would get less
than one-third the money Connecticut receives from its two tribes with
casinos under the deals Gov. Jim
Doyle is negotiating, even though
Wisconsin tribes operate more slot
machines and video gambling devices, the AP review found.
"Connecticut is really a very unusual situation," Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary
Mark Marotta said. "Nobody else
has ever been able to come close to
the deal they negotiated."
Two dozen states have gaming
compacts with tribes, said Judy
Zelio, who monitors state-tribal issues for the National Conference of
State Legislatures.
Only seven - Arizona, California,
Connecticut, Michigan, New
Mexico, New York and Wisconsin -
now get revenue sharing payments
from the tribes in the millions of dollars annually.
Connecticut received $368 million from casinos operated by the
Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan
tribes in 2002. The state is home to
the world's largest casino.
Doyle expects to get at least $ 118
million from Wisconsin's 11 tribes
in each ofthe next two years under
new compacts he's willing to sign
with them.
GAMING to page 6
Judge dismisses complaint over tribal
leadership
By Todd Dvorak
Associated Press Writer
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A federal judge on Tuesday denied a
temporary restraining order sought
by elected leaders of the Meskwaki
Tribe after a new council appointed
by the hereditary chief took control
last month.
U.S. District Judge Linda Reade
dismissed the lawsuit filed last
week by Alex Walker Jr., chairman
ofthe tribal council, and six other
council members who were elected
four years ago.
In her mling, Reade said the
plaintiffs failed to show that the
federal government had jurisdiction
and should step in to help resolve
the dispute.
"This is an intratribal dispute
over which this court has no subject matter jurisdiction," Reade
said. "The plaintiffs have failed to
carry their burden of establishing
the court's" need to intervene.
Reade dismissed the case and
denied all pending motions.
Dennis Johnson, the attorney for
the elected council, said the ruling
DISMISS to page 6