Montana’s anti-Indigenous politics aren’t going away — High Country News – Know the West

It was neither the beginning nor the end of the now-dead idea of ​​’investigating’ the fighting attitudes of tribal peoples in the state.

In early January, the 2023 session of the Montana State Legislature began with a bang. That first week, Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell; He brought a draft resolution Using language laden with misinformation and stereotypes common to anti-Native groups, he called on Congress to “explore alternatives to the reservation system.” After pushback from the state’s bipartisan American Indian Caucus, tribal nations and his own constituents, Regier said he would not promote. The lawThe local electoral body (Regier) did not respond to a request for comment HCN).

The incident — the latest episode in the history of anti-tribal sovereignty in Montana — underscored the closeness between anti-Native organizers and state lawmakers. Montana has a history of Native state legislatures and political freedom in the political sphere. But with Republicans holding historic superpowers in the House and Senate, as well as controlling the governor’s and state executive offices, activists are concerned. The dance‘A hard-right faction is growing. It may adopt further iterations of the anti-tribal sovereignty positions represented in the draft resolution.

“I’ve never seen anything so blatantly anti-Indian in my time working on Montana legislative issues,” said Tajin Perez (a Totonac native), deputy director of Native Voice for the West. “Indigenous people who have faced untold challenges and traumas for generations do not deserve this kind of treatment from their elected representatives.”

“I have never seen anything so anti-Indian…”

Organized anti-Native activism in Montana and beyond has undergone many changes over the past half century. In the year In the 1970s, Flathead Valley resident Dale Palmer, a non-Native, started a group called Flathead Residents to Get Equality in response to paying the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes $5 for recreational permits. A newspaper profile detailed Palmer’s racist ideology, believing that “the reservation system has outlived its lifespan” — the same argument that appears in Regier’s draft resolution. Picking up the language of civil rights and equality, the group joined Montanans’ anti-discrimination movement in the 1970s, then All Citizens Equal, before moving into its current iteration, the Citizens’ Equal Rights Alliance (CERA).

Now a national group, CERA’s stated goal is to eliminate federal Indian policy altogether. The group, however, insists that it is not “anti-India”. He called tribal sovereignty a “myth”. And the legal branch has recently filed amicus briefs in U.S. Supreme Court cases challenging tribal sovereignty interests. Oklahoma v. Castro-HuertaA Opposition to India’s Child Welfare Act and the Navajo Nation Water Rights Case. In Montana alone, CERA has helped organize political, community, and legal opposition to tribal land restitution, water rights, tribal governance, Native voting rights, and more, discrediting assertions of tribal sovereignty as “acceptable” and routinely filing allegations of voter fraud.

“There’s a narrative that the anti-Native movement has perpetuated vote rigging on reservations,” said Travis McAdam, project director of the Montana Human Rights Network. That played out well with conservative paranoia around voter fraud during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

The Montana Human Rights Network has detailed CERA’s strategy, showing how it seeks out legislators to influence policy. In the year In 2014, for example, Regier and two other state legislators spoke at a meeting with CERA board member Elaine Willman. Flat water compactA controversial treaty that ratified water rights for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes, settled water claims and provided funding for water infrastructure and other things. The next year’s CERA conference in Kalispell featured then-Montana State Senator Jennifer Fielder as a speaker. And the 2018 conference, which included right-wing activists, CERA members and Sagebrush Rebels, including the Bundys, also drew lawmakers from Montana and Washington state. One of the speakers argued that it was part of the effort to return ancestral lands to tribal peoples. A conspiracy by the “international elite”. To control more land. Generally, groups like CERA seek to systematically reduce the political power of tribal nations in the US through policy, legal systems, or public opinion. And they succeeded: anti-Native prejudice was rampant at the time. Return of the National Bison Range And the Flathead water compact negotiations, both efforts have been delayed for years by misinformation and anti-Native talking points.

A similar sentiment appeared in Regier’s January draft resolution. This ideology and those who share it “try to weaken Indian peoples and tribes and make them look like they’re messed up, and that’s just trying and taking away a lot of resources, in my opinion,” said Sen. Shane Morigew, D-Missoula, a tribal member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and a bipartisan American Indian Caucus. A member. “In my opinion, it’s still based on the thought processes of the merger and acquisition era here.”

The draft resolution may not be introduced as legislation, but to Morigeau it represents the views of some Montana lawmakers on tribes and indigenous peoples. For example, in 2021 Rep. Linda Rexton, R-Paulson; He repeated the old legend well That tribes and indigenous peoples are not taxed to allow licensed tribal governments or businesses to participate in the state’s legalized recreational cannabis market. The Act supports tribal mental health and substance abuse programs; among other things. And, as The Associated Press reported That same year, the American Indian Caucus continued to introduce Native American initiatives in legislatures, including bills that would establish Indigenous peoples day and a Missing Persons Response Team Training Grant Program. Native communities have criticized the reduced Native representation on the Montana Human Rights Commission and two state-level public health positions.

“In my opinion, it still depends on the processes of integration and end-of-life thinking that are here.”

This session, Native rights advocates will pursue a number of bills, including those to revise the Flathead Water Compact and allow big game hunting on tribal lands, as well as voting restrictions that could affect Native voters. The American Indian Caucus has introduced its own bills on wage transparency, Indigenous Peoples Day and Indigenous language programs. Last Friday, Morigeau introduced the expansion of Indian Education for All, which provides training to lawmakers on Native issues.

Perez said his organization, Western Indigenous Voices, will throw its full support behind the legislation. “There is a serious lack of understanding about how sovereignty works and interacts between tribes and states to deliberately misunderstand — and in some cases I’m trying to deliberately misunderstand.

Anna V. Smith is associate editor Top country news. She has been named three times in the category of Best Native American Coverage in the Native Journalists’ Association’s Native Media Awards. email Top country news as if [email protected] or submit Letter to the editor. See ours Letters to the editor policy.

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