constitutional reform
University of South Dakota Professor of Law Frank Pommersheim discusses the fundamental difference between a plenary power constitution and a reserved or enumerated powers constitution, and recommends that Native nations think very carefully about constitutional implementation and interpretation...
American Indian communities are often offered up as the gold standard of dysfunction in America. With our high rates of entrenched poverty, we top the lists of addiction, suicide and other social ills. It’s platitude that, frankly, gets tiring to hear. We in the media like to describe the best and...
Chiefs, Administrators and Advisors discuss the importance of constitutions and the work involved in developing their own nation's constitution.
People of the Nisga'a Nation discuss custom and tradition before the Indian Act. They tell how they made the move back to traditional ways through strategic planning and abandoned oppressive ways of the Indian Act.
In 2011, the Cherokee Nation created an iPhone app that provides app users the opportunity to peruse the Nation's current constitution, which was drafted in 1999 and ratified in 2006. Below is some background about the constitution: The 1999 [Cherokee Nation] constitution convention created this...
Frank Ettawageshik, former chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBBO), discusses the critical role that intergovernmental relationship building plays in the practical exercise of sovereignty and the rebuilding of Native nations. He shares several compelling examples of how...
White Earth Nation Chairwoman Erma Vizenor discusses some of the historical factors that eventually compelled her and her nation to undertake constitutional reform, and the issues her nation has encountered as they work to ratify a new constitution and governance system.
Greg Gilham, Former Chair of the Blackfeet Nation's Constitution Reform Committee, discusses the process the committee developed to move constitutional reform forward.
In this in-depth interview with NNI's Ian Record, Donald “Del” Laverdure, citizen of the Apsáalooke Nation (Crow Tribe) and former Chief Justice of the Crow Tribe Court of Appeals, discusses his nation's monumental effort to discard a constitution and system of governance that were not working and...
Frank Ettawageshik, former chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBBO), discusses how LTBBO has set a solid foundation upon which to engage in nation rebuilding through its development and ratification of a new constitution and governance system that is culturally appropriate...
