Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

NCAI Forum: Protecting Tribal Lands and Sacred Places: Current Threats Across Indian Country

Year

The latest in NCAI’s ongoing series of virtual events featuring tribal leaders, this forum shares the stories of five tribal nations working to protect their tribal homelands in the face of baseless attacks by the federal government, and discussed how the federal government must recommit to its trust and treaty obligations to all tribal nations in this critical area. Forum panelists included:

  • Cedric Cromwell, Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
  • Mark Fox, Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation
  • Harold Frazier, Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
  • Ned Norris, Jr., Chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation
  • Terry Rambler, Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe
Resource Type
Citation

National Congress of American Indians. "NCAI Forum: Protecting Tribal Lands and Sacred Places: Current Threats Across Indian Country". NCAI. June 29, 2020. Retreived on July 23, 2020 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_DGzzlgkGo

Wayne Ducheneaux: Working with Indigenous Governance

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Wayne Ducheneaux II (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) sits down with Native Nations Institute to discuss his array of experiences working for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and in the work toward helping other Native Nations efforts with indigenous governance. A former Tribal Administrative Officer, serving as a District 4 Council Representative, as well as a two-year term as Vice-Chairman of the Tribe from 2012-2014, Wayne is currently the Exective Director of Naive Governance Center. His valued perespectives share light on what is invloved to engage self-governance for Native communities.

Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Wayne Ducheneaux: Working with Indigenous Governance Interview," Leading Native Nations interview series, Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ,  April 21, 2016

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance , and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States

Year

Data about Indigenous populations in the United States are inconsistent and irrelevant. Federal and state governments and researchers direct most collection, analysis, and use of data about U.S. Indigenous populations. Indigenous Peoples’ justified mistrust further complicates the collection and use of these data. Nonetheless, tribal leaders and communities depend on these data to inform decision making. Reliance on data that do not reflect tribal needs, priorities, and self-conceptions threatens tribal self-determination. Tribal data sovereignty through governance of data on Indigenous populations is long overdue. This article provides two case studies of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and their demographic and socioeconomic data initiatives to create locally and culturally relevant data for decision making.

Resource Type
Topics
Citation
Rainie, S. C. , Schultz, J. L. , Briggs, E. , Riggs, P. , Palmanteer-Holder, N. L. (2017). Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance, and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States.The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 8(2) .Retrieved from: https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/iipj/article/view/7511/6155
 

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes: Terms of Office Excerpt

Year

ARTICLE VI - LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

Section 3. Terms. District Legislator's shall serve four year staggered terms of office. A Legislator shall be eligible to serve three consecutive terms under this Constitution. Upon the completion of the third consecutive term, the Legislator shall not be eligible to serve on the Legislature until a period of two years has elapsed. A partial term shall be considered a term.

 

Topics
Citation

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. 2007. "Constitution of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes." Concho, OK.

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes: Legislative Functions Excerpt

Year

ARTICLE VI - LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

Section 1. Composition. The Legislative Branch shall be comprised of one Legislature. The Legislature shall consist of four Cheyenne Districts and four Arapaho Districts. Each Cheyenne District shall have one Cheyenne Legislator and each Arapaho District shall have one Arapaho Legislator, for a total of eight District Legislators. The Legislature shall select a Speaker from among its members.

Section 5. Powers. (a) Legislative power shall be vested in the Legislature. The Legislature shall have the power to make laws and resolutions in accordance with the Constitution which are necessary and proper for the good of the Tribes. All actions by the Legislature shall be embodied in a written law or resolution. All actions by the Legislature shall be made by a majority vote of the Legislators present unless otherwise specifically indicated by this Constitution. Tie votes in the Legislature shall be decided by the Governor. Laws and resolutions which have been enacted shall remain valid until amended or repealed. 

Topics
Citation

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. 2007. "Constitution of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes." Concho, OK.

Pte Hca Ka, Inc. (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe)

Year

This tribally chartered corporation developed a culturally compatible management system for reestablishing buffalo as a focal point for socio-economic development, community cohesion, and self-determination. Pte Hca Ka, Inc. operates a mobile meat processing facility, and is currently seeking acquisition of 22,000 acres for a buffalo habitat that would become the first tribal national park. By integrating Lakota traditions into an economic development strategy, Pte Hca Ka, Inc. not only operates a profitable enterprise, but is also restoring cultural values into the Tribal economy and fostering pride and dignity among Tribal citizens. Pte Hca Ka, Inc. has been featured in numerous documentaries and has won widespread praise as a culturally appropriate development effort.

Resource Type
Citation

"Pte Hca Ka, Inc.". Honoring Nations: 1999 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2000. Report. 

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Eileen Briggs: The Importance of Data and Community Engagement

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Eileen Briggs is a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and is the Executive Director of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures. She is also the Principal Investigator on "Cheyenne River Voices Research" — a reservation-wide research project including a household survey of over 800 families that has created a historic set of baseline data for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and others serving the reservation population. In collaboration with researchers at NNI, Eileen is creating a series of papers on Tribal Data Sovereignty & Governance.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Eileen Briggs, "The Importance of Data and Community Engagement," Interview, Leading Native Nations interview series, Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ,  March 03, 2015

Verónica Hirsch:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host Verónica Hirsch. On today's program we are honored to have with us Eileen Briggs. Eileen is a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Program in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Eileen is also certified as an economic development finance professional, is President of the tribally owned energy corporation and is a small business owner. Eileen, welcome. Good to have you with us today. I've shared a little bit about who you are but why don't you start by telling us a bit more about yourself. What did I leave out?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I grew up on the reservation. I lived my young life there and then moved away and got some great experience living in other states working with other tribes in Wisconsin and Minnesota and then back in South Dakota working with other Lakota tribes in the region and it's just...it's great to be back working for my tribe, for my people and I think that I have been very fortunate to along my journey to have a lot of tools in my toolbox added as I've went along and to be able to bring them back home and gain so many more. So I just...I live there in the Eagle Butte community, our tribal headquarters and make my home there with my extended family."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Eileen, could you please describe the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Program? What prompted its creation and what brought about the partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Ventures Project is really the kind of project that I think a lot of our reservation communities sort of are in a way working towards without that kind of a title and for us it's really a larger strategic planning process that came to us through our partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation. And it's a project that's focused on poverty reduction and of course in Indian communities, our communities in particular we have very high rates of poverty for the nation and so we really had this opportunity with the 10 year poverty reduction plan to look at poverty and to stand around it together and determine what strategies and initiatives that we think would make an impact. And so what brought it about was the opportunity that the Northwest Area Foundation was bringing to the region that they serve and the Northwest Area Foundation selected Cheyenne River along with two other tribal communities in this round that we were invited in 2003 to participate in. And so we went through a process of strategic planning with an investment from the Northwest Area Foundation. That process was phenomenal in and of itself to give our reservation leadership, community members and organizations across the reservation a chance to talk to one another and to develop a strategic effort to address poverty."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Can you please describe what the Tribal Ventures Project's purpose is?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Our purpose is specifically focused on this 10 year effort that began in 2006 to address poverty on the reservation and implement the strategies that came from the people and that the tribal council ultimately endorsed and made the focus of the plan and our efforts for the next 10 years. So our work and the mission of Tribal Ventures is to implement that plan, to take the ideas and make them into reality, to try them out. Some of them were brand new things that never existed on the reservation. All of the projects are focused on long term results and impact for our communities and were projects that weren't there on the reservation before. And it's really given us a chance to look at the kinds of ideas that came from the people and the kind of responses and designs that we would want to create for our own people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned how the people really helped direct the Tribal Ventures Project strategies and focus. How were their opinions and their insights solicited and the incorporated into the project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"It was a very intense and really rewarding...I was able to be a part of that rewarding experience and a very focused engagement and a focus on inclusiveness. So it was a strategic effort to reach out to all of our communities. We have a very large land base, 2.3 million acres of land. And we have 19 communities on our reservation, small. 20, 25 houses to a larger city of 5,000 to 7,000 people. And we visited each of these communities and visited with our people. We sat with them over kitchen tables, had conversation, posed questions about what did they think poverty meant, talked about what ideas, what were the issues that were facing them. It really was a very...very thoughtful process of 18 months of not only going to the people in the communities and having conversation numerous times but we also engaged with tribal leadership following each round of community meetings and would share the themes that were emerging, have conversation with them and then we would return to the communities and have further conversations as well as meet with tribal organizations and programs of the reservation. And we also realized that our young population of 19 to say 30 were not really engaging in these community meetings and so we made a decision to survey them in a different way and so we conducted what was called the Young Voices Survey and we surveyed 704 young people, men and women throughout our reservation in their communities and in the larger city to get their ideas and thoughts around workforce development, education and future focus for the young people. So it was really a phenomenal process of engagement on numerous occasions over an 18 month period filtering that through systems and ultimately a core group of around 80 people participated in a...I think we were about six weeks of intensive meeting. We met every week for three hours. We had put in thousands of hours of meetings where people would basically distill this sort of idea into a tangible vision and strategic thought around what that program or that initiative would focus on. For instance, there was very much an effort around financial literacy. That wasn't the words that people said. What our people said were things like, "˜Our young people, our kids are getting taken by this money. They're getting taken,' they'd say. Like they would have a car and then they would make payments and then not be able to keep the payments up "˜cause they lost their job or some change had happened and they wanted to turn that car back. Well, obviously it affected their credit but the families were saying, "˜they're getting taken.' Or even if they're getting, they're paying really high interest rates. So we took statements like that and then a core group of people engaged in a process of saying, "˜Well, how would we...what would we design a program around to address that issue?' And that emerged financial literacy and youth development, an individual development account project. So those are the sorts of engagement that we were able to give and bring to our people to really include them in the process of creating this plan."

Verónica Hirsch:

"With the Tribal Venture Project's focus upon citizen engagement, how does that ultimately support or to what extent does that support the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's nation building efforts?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think it's a core foundation. I think it...this project was a project of the tribal council, the tribal leadership and very intentionally focused on engaging its citizens in a process of thoughtfulness and ideas and seeing their ideas actually come together in a plan.

I don't think that we were really calling it nation building efforts in any way, shape or form at that time but it really has as I've come to understand the nation building process it really was the kind of project that people felt included obviously. It also was a process that was transparent. It was the kind of project that wasn't...had an intention of trying to rebuild trust with community members from the tribal council and so oftentimes there's sometimes contentious situations or relationships sometimes between the tribal citizens and tribal government in public meetings and these opportunities dissipated that a little bit and demonstrated to ourselves as tribal citizens and us also just within that dynamic of tribal governance and government that things could be done in a good and appropriate way. And we're really proud of our people who participated in this opportunity because they're really...it is very much indicative of our culture to come together as extended families or tiyospaye and speak about and talk about an issue and then be able to take that, send somebody with that information to the tribal leadership or whomever and this was a component of that. And I think as a foundation of our nation and our culture that I think that created a bedrock for the nation building for our people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Who led the Tribal Ventures Project development?"

Eileen Briggs:

"The tribal council and the tribal chairman, Harold Frazier at that time, was the lead person to ensure that this happened. He was very much in support and understood the opportunity that was brought to us by the Northwest Area Foundation and he selected a long time tribal administrator and tribal citizen who has worked with many years, her name was Sharon Vogel and she really took on the project as the opportunity of a lifetime really for our people. The chance to...a once in a lifetime opportunity to really go out and talk with our people and have a process. So Sharon Vogel was the project administrator and then I worked as a project researcher and coordinator to help with sort of the logistics and then the development of the plan itself."

Verónica Hirsch:

"To what extent did the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council, tribal citizens and/or tribal department staff influence the project's development?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think they were crucial. The tribal council met in with us along with the tribal chairman regularly and we had probably four to seven I think retreats with them where we would basically walk through the input that was coming from the people and then get their feedback and then as things got more refined ultimately they would provide input about the design of different programs but also the intent of the initiatives. The same for the program directors. They were all...those that were interested and obviously had a fit with this initiative, any of our workforce development efforts and our education systems, they were engaged to give their input and they were...when I talk about those thousands...thousand hours one July that we worked together on this, many, many people donated their time to be a part of designing the wording for the description for each initiative and strategy area which really is the focus of the effort."

Eileen Briggs:

"I think our tribal constitution sets the bedrock for the way the governance system works and the administration of the tribal efforts work and I think that this constitution provided for the proper oversight of the project. It also provided for just the development of the project. The tribal council was the final say to the plan. We talked about that with our tribal citizens that tribal council would have the final say but they could see where so many of our people's ideas had come into the plan that it wasn't the sort of thing where tribal council was just going to go into a side room and decide how would this investment be utilized. The constitution has a lot of challenges but I really felt like we used the...our respect for our tribal leadership and our tribal government appropriately throughout this process and I think that that reinforced the leadership and the governance structures that were...that are in place that work really well. But I also think just in general this process was so much really a self-determination type of effort. We were determining ourselves and I don't know if I mentioned this in the previous comments but we ended up with a $9.5 million investment from this Northwest Area Foundation to implement the ideas that came from our people and so this has really been a process that has been a part of trying to engage in a different way, try to self...design our own efforts and work collaboratively. So as far as policy specifically and the kind of constitutional sort of underpinnings, we really used what we had well and I think exercised the sovereignty to do things the way we wanted to do ultimately in the plan. And I just would make a last note that the way the tribal government made the decision about who would govern this project in order to ensure its sustainability and continuity was they determined to create a...delegate an authority board which they as a tribal council could do and they seated one of their tribal council members continuously on the project so they were always engaged fully in the project through their tribal council representative but they seated a board of partners who really focused on ensuring that project's success long term because we had continuity and focus."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. On that aspect of the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board, could you please describe the role of that board?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, the board's role was really to ensure that the project was implemented throughout the 10 year project as well as to ensure that we had designed partnership and oversee the funds that...there was of course the accountability of funds but also to ensure that we had an opportunity then policies that were fair and were not...were free of sort of political influence or situation, had some autonomy to make decisions, they were given that. And so I think that their role has been crucial to be able to focus on this and steer this course...keep it on course I should say, to move this project forward and to step back and do the reflecting about what have we learned, what has this process taught us and to have those opportunities together. And I think one of, it's not so much what their role was or their mission but I think you...we saw in our community many of our organizations, tribal organizations and nonprofits sort of sometimes working in silos and not connecting and I think this Tribal Ventures Plan in its...because it was a partnership board was to build the understanding and communication between those entities and organizations so that we can address these issues more collectively."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned that the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council created the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board. I would like you to perhaps address what criteria were specified to create the board? You mentioned that a tribal council member remained a permanent part of the board. What other criteria were in place?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, there...it's a unique situation. We have a tribal council member as I mentioned. We also have two members of the community that are...well, we have members, I shouldn't say just two. But we have members of the community on the board that are living in poverty that have struggled with some of the challenges related to that. We also have partners that were key entities or stakeholders that were carrying out components of the plan that were actually sitting with the partnership...on the partnership board to help design and continue to ensure this participation. So the criteria included stakeholders as well as tribal leadership and community members."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Realizing that the board included such a wide range of citizens who had various areas of responsibilities, can you please address how the board's creation ultimately promoted broader citizen inclusion and engagement?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think that having our community members seated on the board who had the real life experience with the challenges that our families are facing really helped us to always have that lens constantly on everything we were doing from our communications to the approaches that we were taking, the policies that were being implemented and then the kind of broader learnings that we're applying because this challenges around poverty and the struggle day to day around survival make it difficult to sort of be thinking long term so we not only got to kind of because when you're thinking and you've got a project and you're managing something, you're thinking this longer term effort and sometimes it's...sometimes you have a disconnect from the lived experience and when we have these continuous conversations and meetings, and I don't think we're so...any of our families are...when we live on the rez or with our communities we're not so far removed but you can get...you can lose sight of that and I think having that engagement together did support this project's success so far that we've seen that input available but also vice versa. Giving families and our community members that were on the board the opportunity to see a perspective longer range that maybe they wouldn't have had access to. And so when it got to the communities, when we'd do our community meetings, we would very much sort of speak to that perspective because we're rooted in it, we're right next to it, it's our friends and relatives who have informed how we approach talking about these issues, the ways and the methods that we describe, the efforts and the impact and outcomes of our work."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. What institutional support does the Tribal Ventures Project need and have?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think that we have seen over time, again, we've had a 10 year...we're running towards a 10 year, very close to that timeframe, of institution of the government, the organization, knowing what Tribal Ventures is, that we have a grant from this private foundation, we have these initiatives and I think that we've had a lot of support because people have seen the ideas that came from the people come to life, they have seen real change in their families; people getting their GED, financial education, jobs being created. We've seen the kind of policies and activities that we want to see happening in our communities, some adjustments. Sometimes they don't know that Tribal Ventures is...the investment from Tribal Ventures has helped to make that happen so I think that's one of the things that we do need is more of our story to be told and understood, the sort of what's behind the scenes. But I also think that we are very much accustomed in our tribal communities and we're no different to different federal funding sources or governmental funding and so we sort of get to look like another program–that program. And this has been more than just a program. This is really about a process and a movement towards moving our families forward collectively in a strategic effort and I think that that's a little hard to get your head around because people are just looking, "˜Well, what is your program and what can it do for me or my family or our community,' and when we're dealing with such larger issues, we...I think that's one of the things of the institution's understanding their role, the opportunity of engagement and it's sort of a living, breathing entity or organization. It's a process. I always say, "˜Well, we're not really a program, we're a project,' and it's a project that came from the people and a plan that we're seeing the results of over time."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. I want to return a bit to the role of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council and its...I believe you mentioned previously that ultimately the tribal council decided what would be really the major focus areas for the Tribal Ventures Project. I'd like to ask what role does the council play in the day to day operation or the day to day governance of the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, in our day to day operations the tribal government as a whole, the council doesn't play a role specifically. Because they set the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board with delegated authority on their behalf to manage this project for the duration of the funding it's really been able to create a little bit of that autonomy but also the trust and respect. So a number of things happen that do engage with tribal council. One, all of our reports go of course to our Board but they go...the same reports go to the Council and to the Northwest Area Foundation so there's a lot of transparency and communication through myself as the executive director as sort of the conduit of information and sharing but we do have a tribal council member who serves on our board. We've had three different tribal council members serve during the time period that we've been operating and our tribal council member–for instance, when we are drawing money down from our accounts into the operating, they're a signer on that so they do see every time we're drawing down, they know what we're going to use the money for so we have that accountability and transparency as far as this isn't just running its own program over there. Tribal council has some awareness and knowledge of course through...that tribal council member knows the detail of the activities and the goals and the intentions for that year and then now with this funding source. So we have some of that accountability that I see that they are involved in day to day through that tribal council representative."

Eileen Briggs:

"I think what we've needed for... I think that we've needed for the last seven or eight years is the opportunity to try these new ideas out, sort of the trust. We've needed the trust, we've needed the encouragement and the...I guess we have some level of autonomy but the understanding of what Tribal Venture's role is, what our project is and to let us do what we said we would do without distracting from that work. And we've had that and I think that that has been very remarkable. And we look for...as we look forward I think the work is really about what we need, it's really about again more conversation collectively in order for us to determine now what will we...what have we learned from this 10 years of poverty reduction efforts, what have we learned about ourselves, about our families and what direction does it give us about a future that we need to create and the kind of strategic thinking that is useful for our people. And I guess the last thing I would say about that is that I think that we have shown that strategic thinking has really been beneficial and so now the challenge is you have a different council, a different group of people so it's continuous education and conversation about what this project's intention was and what we've learned from it and then are we ready to do more strategic planning."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. What efforts have been undertaken to educate the tribal council regarding their roles and responsibilities to the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, it's been an effort that I've taken on each new election that we have. We have staggered terms every four years so every two years I have...sometimes can have a set of new elected officials so I meet with the tribal elected officials and give them an orientation independently, just sort of walk them through what we...our purpose is, what our outcomes have been and what we intend to do. And then understand that this is a grant from the Northwest Area Foundation and that we have our responsibilities through a memorandum of agreement with them and so we just really clarify the roles of everyone very early on in their election being seated, after being elected. And the other roles that we've done is really helping as each tribal...new tribal elected chairman...we've had...this is...Harold Frazier is the chairman again so we've had technically three different chairmen in the time that we've worked this project and so again just my relationship with whomever is elected, respecting their leadership role, giving them as much information as I can so they know where we're at and just that process of seeing what we've learned. And so we do meet with them annually, the Tribal Ventures Board and the Tribal Council itself. We have a retreat and discuss this year's efforts and again our goals for the next year."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Regarding the annual meeting with the Tribal Council and the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board, how effective have those meetings been? Have...has there ever been discussion or suggestions regarding to how... Has there been discussion or suggestions regarding how to increase the efficacy of those annual meetings?"

Eileen Briggs:

"We've had these annual meetings... We've had annual meetings both on the reservation and off the reservation for Tribal Ventures Board and the Tribal Council to have conversation and my estimation of them they're very effective. Tribal council oftentimes are obviously meeting in official sessions and they don't often get to have sort of larger I would say conversations around the larger issues and just their own space to have conversations collectively. So I think we've created a space for that through the annual meetings or the project...the retreats with the council. I also think that it's given some insights to the efforts of nonprofit organizations and the role that they play in the community. It's helped to educate one another around the kind of collective efforts that we're doing. There are...there's...obviously we all work in our own little world and I think it's raised the awareness of each other's responsibilities, particularly around the kind of program deliverables and the kind of accountability that we all have and I think that that's made it really effective. And as far as feedback about when they want them, tribal council members say, "˜We need to have more of these,' so they're very interested in those. The other piece of that is really trying to have it go beyond just a presentation of outcomes and impacts but really create the space for the kind of dialogue and conversation about what are our core issues, what directions are we going and build relationships to move that way. We don't always have 100 percent participation from council but we've had I would 60 to 75 percent participation nearly every time."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What do you suggest could be done to maybe increase that participation level?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, we do find that if we have...it's sort of a 50/50 opportunity. If you have the retreat or the meeting on the reservation you may end up with more participation but there's sort of a distraction that happens with daily life and situations and so it's hard to stay focused. We do have council members who do not travel so I think that that's sort of our...we might have more participation if we kept...are able to keep it closer to home and been able to create that environment for focus."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What strategies have been used to engage and educate Cheyenne River Sioux citizens about the Tribal Ventures Project's process, where it is right now?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, we've used a number of different techniques. One.. Of course we've done a newsletter that has sort of summarized each project and given little tidbits of information. We actually hosted a radio show on our local community radio station regularly on...and it was not only just about Tribal Ventures but it was about the...looking to the future and projects that were happening on the reservation so we brought in other entities. So I think that in and of itself showed our people an opportunity to communicate about the efforts and progress of Tribal Ventures in conjunction with other progress and efforts that were happening on the reservation. So those two mechanisms through communication I think have been key. And then we've been very diligent about our communication with tribal communities that we visited in the first place. So we return to communities on an annual basis to do sort of an updates, give a report to the community so we'd give a presentation, we'd have different participants and different initiatives speak about their experience and what they got from that. Then we also held...periodically we would host a large community celebration. Again, in our culture and our way we realized that this was a gift that came to the Cheyenne River people and this...for this gift we give thanks and so we would have an annual...not annual but about every three or four years we'd give a [Lakota language] which is Thanksgiving gathering. So we would feed the people and have a celebration and at those events we sort of would do the reflecting back again of sharing about what the progress has been. So that sort of 800 people coming to a gathering is one example. And then also very small events and programs where we would present to programmed officers and departments again about what our efforts have been. And timely, trying to find places where there might be a natural intersect. And as we've come towards...we're coming towards the end, we're not completely finished with our project, recently we've used two specific tools. One has been again the community meetings so I just finished 45 presentations throughout the communities in about three months and with that we actually used videos. We designed and created these videos that helped tell the story of the strategic areas of economic, community and individual development of the plan as well as our Voices project and then the overall impact and outcome of Tribal Ventures. So these short four minute videos have been phenomenal where we've been able to interview participants, people have been able to see their relatives and see different components and parts of the reservation benefit from the efforts of the Tribal Ventures plan and I think that has been really helpful and we are seeing some momentum here for people feeling positive about the work that was done not just for Tribal Ventures but really proud of our own people for the steps that they've taken to take this path that Tribal Ventures has created for people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned several means of engaging and updating the community on the status of the Tribal Ventures Project including the newsletter, radio broadcasts, community meetings where videos were features, the [Lakota language]. Were these various methods...were they part of a larger citizen education plan?"

Eileen Briggs:

"No. I think we were...we were looking at I think as much as it formed was our commitment to the respect we gave to our community members who gave us so many ideas in the beginning of the effort and tribal leadership and it was that continuous I guess the continued commitment to their voice and their ideas that came from the people and the respect for them that we of course needed to bring that back to them because this came from them. This came from the people so this needed to return in a good way to give them the updates, let them know what's happening and I believe that when people saw the plan when it was written that they could see themselves, they could see their families. They actually saw their quotes. We had quotes from people in there. Maybe not identified but people could see themselves in the plan and so that I guess...that commitment and respect for them was so important to us that I guess that was the underlying plan was that we would of course give this back to them, take this back to the people "˜cause a lot of times we get these grants and programs and they come and go and we don't one have the resources to do that communication to talk about the impact and the outcomes of that and so we're trying to see not only is this different money but we're trying to show our people that we can do this. We can tell our stories about what has worked, what hasn't worked and where we need to go from there and give people the opportunity to participate in that so it's not a separate effort. And I think we've modeled that."

Verónica Hirsch:

"What participation method or venue do you feel proved most effective?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think these videos have been phenomenal. I think obviously face to face meetings. We was in a small community, Thunder Butte. It's a small community of 10, 15 houses and around 45 miles from our tribal headquarters and was there a couple of...just a couple nights ago and we were just...we got the feedback. They were participating. We had 10 or so people there and the reality was people said, "˜Nobody comes out here. Nobody comes to us and tells us these things.' So they were so appreciative of the meeting, of being face to face and then I think the videos have been just incredibly effective. They were very short and concise, positive but they didn't just gloss over things. They tried to talk about the issues that we were dealing with but in a way that people could absorb and I think that those have been really effective."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. How are coalitions built between and among other Cheyenne River Sioux tribal departments and programs with the Tribal Ventures Project?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think it's happened in a number of ways. Obviously around areas of interest. We had a financial literacy, youth individual development account, effort there and that effort focused on a lot of young people so there were efforts to reach out to schools, connecting to that program. There was also an effort within the tribal government with their employees to increase financial education amongst employees. There has also then grown out of that a larger...we don't necessarily call ourselves a coalition but a group of people who are focused on workforce development coming together talking about just really what does a workforce strategy look like on this reservation but understanding that the basis of that is we need to understand each other. Programs and departments don't necessarily know what someone's role is, they have an expectation that's maybe not realistic or they don't realize there's an opportunity that they're both going after because there isn't necessarily communication. So I think that those coalitions or those coming together have helped to improve services, to help us to coordinate better. I don't at some level sometimes collaborate but I think sometimes you kind of go with just communication and coordination first and then you get to some collaboration over time. So that's the sort of effort that I think we've seen sort of outgrow with our partners. And I would say that the Tribal Ventures Partnership Board in and of itself is the kind of collaborative work between tribal department programs, nonprofit, community members, tribal leadership so that itself has its own dynamic that is impacting the kind of understanding that we need to have collectively to address issues like poverty and other issues on the reservation."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. Were any external partners included or approached in a type of coalition framework and when I say external I mean external to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I know that we worked with the...we created a Cheyenne River Chamber of Commerce and they connected to other native chamber of commerces to do... They connected to other chamber of commerces in both native communities and non-native communities to understand and educate and make connections. We also saw the South Dakota Indian Business Alliance engaged with some of the efforts with Cheyenne River as a result of our work together. We saw with a number of the work around GED attainment. We created a very successful GED program and that has built our understanding and relationship with different organizations in the state that provide similar services to better provide services on our reservation and also to improve the kind of services needed to be provided to native people."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. I'm going to transition here and ask you to in a sense predict what... What dynamic do you think would exist within the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation among the Lakota people there if the Tribal Ventures Project did not exist, had not come into being?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I moved home about the time this project emerged on the reservation so I don't have a ton of sort of previous experience but...but, I think that...we have a lot of challenges with our own trust of one another, our own sense that we can...we have great ideas but I think that we often worked in silos and I think that that was a result of very much governmental resources and scarce resources and then all of us having to sort of protect those resources. I don't think that people intentionally were trying to be territorial, I just think that you've got...that naturally started to occur. And so I think that that would have continued I think to a larger extent. And there wouldn't have been this opportunity for sort of a collective effort and reaching out to our...think of our whole reservation and not just your community or your family but we could think of us collectively. And I think intuitively we want to think of ourselves as the Lakota...Four Bands of the Lakota that live on our reservation but oftentimes when you're mired in survival and struggle and just trying to keep what you have and maintain that in the midst of much, much challenge it's difficult to think of the larger, bigger picture and I think that that's one of the things that I think has made a...we've seen an impact. And then I would just also add that the work of the tribal council over time to see that this continued on. That in and of itself... When tribal programs or funding comes and goes and you're kind of used to, "˜Well, that used to be here, it was good but it's not here anymore,' usually in three year timeframes–we had 10 years of effort and it's...we're going to be in the same boat as we look forward. Will this just end? What will we do? There's a lot of questions in front of us as a tribe but regardless of that, we've had this time to sort of stop and think together and I think that that may not have happened for...and it's hard to predict or to be able to say, "˜Well, this wouldn't have been here.' But we know that lives and resources have been changed, opportunities that weren't here before that really just made sense like, "˜Yes, we should have that,' but we never had the resources to make that happen. And we have opportunity now with our own tribal...some tribal resources that we have available now and I think this has helped to demonstrate a collective effort. Obviously I've spoken about that but I think it also demonstrates the creativity and the thoughtfulness that's necessary for effective programming and we have some resources available to us as a tribe now through some settlement money and some decisions are being made and you're hearing things like, "˜Well, we need to think that out or have a strategic plan,' and I'd like to think that Tribal Ventures would have...has influenced that but if not we may have just been acting again in a survival mode. "˜Here's some money, let's spend it. Let's not think about what...' Not that our people didn't think but I think that you just get caught up in reacting. That's all. And I think we've been able to have at least a breather and take a pause and make an effort together."

Verónica Hirsch:

"How does the Tribal Ventures Project represent Cheyenne River Sioux citizens and reflect Lakota values?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, one of the values is about respect itself and I think that the work that we've done with our partners is really about trying to meet people where they're at, be respectful of their opinion and position but also try to give this exchange an opportunity for everyone to have room to be where they're at but also emerge from that in a place of your own vision for yourself and I think we reflected that on an individual level and then the community's vision of itself and then our families and our whole economy really that vision. And I think that those kind of respecting...we're always kind of putting those lenses...asking ourselves those... We'll run into challenges, communities or projects that we got started really...many of them have been very successful but we've hit a lot of bumps in the road, things that didn't go the way we wanted them to, partnerships that didn't work out the way we thought they would. And we always come back to asking ourselves, "˜Well, what do our values tell us? How should we handle this? What should we do?' We had some contentious issues a couple of times and we really just felt like, "˜Well, we need to go there and just listen and talk to one another and understand each other.' And that in and of itself is a reflection of how we do business. We are very much committed to our communities, the historical and cultural connections that are in our communities and in our families and so when we approach communities even for a community meeting we'll say, "˜Well, who's the grandma in that community?' or "˜Who's the person that we reach out to?' "˜Well, that's who this is, this is the person but that's her nephew so you can him.' So we're very much going within the dynamics of our own community and respecting that process even who's cooking. We're going to make sure we ask appropriately for someone to cook for us and try to feed our people and do things in a way that is comfortable for them and respecting that and giving thanks. I think that that's something that we really focused on at Tribal Ventures is to be able to be appreciative and thankful for what we have and to be honest about the opportunities. That's another value of ours is honesty and being honest about things when they didn't go well and things when there's opportunities and challenges that we have to say, "˜We have to look at this. This isn't...' I always say to people, I say, "˜Well, no one's going to care about this place as much as we do and so we're the ones that are going to have to lead this change and have to be willing to listen to one another even though we disagree. We still have to have those conversations.' And I think that value of fortitude, of being something to stay with something is very much underpinning of the work that we've done to say, "˜You've got to stick with this and we've got to keep going with this because the children are depending on something to happen.' And so we're very much talking about values. We recently did a support of a couple of veterans groups who were going to be traveling across our reservation and elsewhere and so we supported them by creating these t-shirts and we wrote, "˜The Lakota Values,' on the back of the shirts and we said, "˜These are just words unless we live them.' And so we're sending a message around values and talking about that as well as we created this cultural mini-grants. We had small amounts of money that really were giving people opportunity to carry out their ideas that they felt would support and encourage a positive Lakota cultural value. So all kinds of ideas from horse rides for young men and women who wanted to learn about horsemanship but also our culture and our values "˜cause no one was teaching them that. So we supported that in a small way. Other projects...we're helping other community members think about the positive decisions and positive lifestyles about living this life and choosing to live in the wake of many suicides that we have in the community. So there were every ideas that came. People have really good ideas about promoting positive self-identity and our cultural values and so we put out a little bit of money to help to support food or t-shirts or something that they wanted to make it happen but they made it happen. And I think that that self-determination or that value of...that you know what you need to do and to support that and with this little bit of money...it was a little bit of a catalyst, it was an activity that we did but we found that people really wanted to talk about their values and it meant so many things to different people and yet as a group we will not move forward with any kind of poverty if we don't feel good about who we are, if we don't live the values that we have as a people and we don't talk about them. So I think just the process that we've engaged in with our community just sort of...it's embedded. It's real hard to pull it out and say "˜Oh, well we were talking about values on Thursday.' We live them and talk about them more directly with people to shine a light on it when we can but just to remind ourselves that we're Lakota, we need to be Lakota."

Verónica Hirsch:

"How do Cheyenne River Sioux citizens understand and define their tribal council's roles?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I think there's a couple of things I...my perspective is. I think that they have a lot of expectation of their tribal leadership to be their advocate, to be some sort of a social worker problem solver, to be a legislator, to be a diplomat, sort of ambassador for the tribe and those roles are a lot of different hats but I think because of our community and many other communities I'm sure face this, there is an expectation a lot in that social worker problem solving advocate role and so I think our community members sort of define like, "˜You're supposed to be my spokesperson.' And that's very much part of our traditional life ways that we have an [Lakota language] and you send someone up to be that head person to speak and so that's who's...even though we have a political process and elections now, it's still embedded in sort of who from that community are they putting up to speak for them. And so when you're up there and you're on tribal council, that is the expectation that you're going to be the conduit for any elected leader but a lot of times you're trying to help someone get their electricity turned back on which many elected officials in the United States do not have to deal with on a daily basis but I think that the expectation is very high for our tribal leadership and understanding those roles and responsibilities is really key because oftentimes your time is used up filling some of those hats and you're not able to focus on the legislative part or fix things on a policy level or legislate. And oftentimes, this is just my opinion but I think as a leader sometimes it's overwhelming–it is overwhelming and so I can... "˜Let me do the thing I think I can handle. I'll work on this electricity thing or this other problem that I think I can make changes and this is a whole other arena that I'm not as knowledgeable about or I haven't learned as much as I want to yet to really affect the kind of changes.' So I think that's the balance that we have facing our...when we look at our tribal elected leaders. But we as a people in our...what I've seen at home is that our people very much respect that that tribal leadership is a responsibility and they respect that. They don't agree with it a lot of times and that's okay. I don't think that's been the issue of not respecting it but I do think that they see that it could be better and they would like to see some changes. I think that's a larger see change and some things that can happen over time but we have made the IRA government system work fairly well on Cheyenne River because we are Four Bands of the Lakota, we have... Before the IRA government we were already doing sort of representative councils to make decisions around our area but what I've seen since then is that we realize that things could be improved and we want to make changes. But our leadership and our tribal citizens need to be clear about what all those roles are because I think we become mired in the role of the problem solver and the challenges because so many people are in survival mode."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. You've mentioned citizen participation in some of the Tribal Ventures Project's community meetings. You mentioned that community members expressed gratitude for having Tribal Ventures staff come to them and to really make a deliberate effort to engage them. Now this far into the timeframe of the Tribal Ventures Project have you noticed that citizen participation has increased in these type of community events?"

Eileen Briggs:

"I don't know that I've seen a huge increase. I think that social media has changed in the last 10 years for this reservation and I think that participation in face to face meetings you're kind of getting around the same number of people coming. It depends on the community. We were in a what I would call more traditional community of Green Grass recently. We had 25 people come. That's phenomenal. They have like maybe 20 houses there so we had a big turnout for that community and they very much are reflective of...they don't have as great of internet service there so they're very much communicating word of mouth, telephone, face to face works best for them so we have great participation. Other communities where there's a lot of technology and that, a younger population is using that. They're getting information in a different way. So I think that that's changed us a certain amount so I don't know if I've seen participation in that way in our community meetings. We have different Facebook groups that definitely have a lot of...it's a great place that you can stand behind your computer and have all kinds of opinions and ideas and sharing that happens with social media. And so I think that kind of participation is...we're seeing that but I don't know if we've seen the kind of participation that is sort of engaging to change things collectively in a face to face way quite as much. Not in my experience. But I think that we're ripe for it because we have the social media to gather people. I think our colleges are a nice central location as well, our tribal college so those are some places where I've seen a little bit more participation but they're a little bit more engaged. It's sort of indicative of the structure of education."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You've mentioned the changing dynamics of participation mechanisms. How do you think the Tribal Ventures Project can address those changes and maybe even harness some of let's say that youth involvement albeit that involvement takes place as you mentioned maybe behind a computer screen? Do you think there's a way to even using that means to somehow inspire or promote an increased level of let's say youth citizen participation?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Oh, definitely. I think that we see young people participating in their own way. We have a group of young people on our reservation currently that are very concerned about some issues–health issues, some environmental issues–and they have organized themselves to do some research and collectively try to advocate on that and it's a different arena than I work in every day but I watch that and I'm in awe that they have taken on these steps and I certainly can't speak to every detail of that but they're going to be participating in a research conference that we're going to be having in a few weeks and I just see them wanting to be engaged in something and I feel like the work that we've done with Tribal Ventures and I think the work that we see tribal programs and departments do, they...we certainly have not excluded that kind of participation so we're welcoming it, making room for it and opportunities for the kind of participation that we all need. And I would also make a comment around communication. I think that that's a critical issue in many, many of our communications that the communication is very low, trust is low, so is the sense of...leadership is low and I think we have these high incidents of sort of imbalance in our community and oppression and racism and things like that that we're facing but I guess I have done some understanding but I see this kind of thing that we should push down on some of those things that are really high but I think the work of really trying to grow and push up levels of trust and leadership and communication can naturally push those other things down in what I've come to understand. And so I really think that communication is a key component. And if I had a magic wand and I could say, "˜I would like to have every tribe have some significant communication tool consistent for just information and positive stories but the kind of information that...' We don't have that as consistently as I would like for our people because when you don't know, you're going to be in poverty, you're out of the loop, you don't know... If you're not related to the right person, you're not connected in some way, you can become disconnected and it can hurt, your family can continue to be disenfranchised I guess in a way, like struggling out there. And I guess I feel like any tools, whether it be a newsletter or radio or the sort of videos or trying to harness how we can use social media and other tools to try to communicate that that's sort of my own interest but I see other tribes... I watch the Confederated Tribe of the Umatilla. They have an amazing newspaper that they've had for many years. Well, they have some gaming money, they can support that and just understanding what did that sort of communications office of the tribe do and how much does it cost to run one and what kind of deliverables can they provide the people? There's always challenges with that but I just feel like that's a gap that's missing in our communities is communication and particularly from the government. So you have this continued disengagement of citizens because there's no communication, websites aren't updated, there isn't sort of anybody who's writing about what's happening that's good and we just like to talk about what didn't go well and, "˜Did you hear what they did?' And that's in every community but I feel like we have a gap there and that could really affect some change."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. The Tribal Ventures Project spearheaded a large data collection attempt to learn about the tribal community. What was happening at the community that made that particular project, that data collection project a priority?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think two things. One, we had a 10 year poverty reduction plan with the Northwest Area Foundation where we were really looking at the kind of outcomes and impact that we were making and trying to determine what would be the key indicators, what data points will we point at from 2006 to 2016 to indicate some kind of change. And of course we were looking at census data which is not reflective of Indian communities and is historically under representing our statistics for our families and demographics and we really felt like we were just...that was our only option and as much as we looked at other points where we could talk about participation outcomes and things around that, it really didn't really show kind of where the status of our families was at so I think that was one of the drivers behind that. And I think the other was just the overall dissatisfaction with the census and how it isn't good data for us as Indian people. And so we said, "˜Well, we have an opportunity to use some of the Northwest Area Foundation investment here under our evaluation to create this...some tools and so we made a decision to create a baseline dataset around our families. And we decided to do a household survey across the entire reservation surveying every fourth house on the reservation and up to five families in that home. And I think it has been a very remarkable effort. It's sort of like...sometimes I step back and I say, "˜Whoa! What did we do?' Because we got in deep in families. We got participation from 819 families, from 520 some households across the reservation, both native and non-native, drove every road on the reservation, used our own tribal members to do the surveying, got three attempts at every house. Our methodology is very solid and our sample size is amazingly large. But that dataset has created a baseline about lots of information. We asked over 160 some questions around land, around their home, around the demographics or the people and their household characteristics. Were people a veteran, what was their highest level of education at this point, how many children were in the house, what were their ages? We asked questions around income and expenses for their home. How much money do you spend a year on birthdays? How much money...do you...who do you trust to lend money to or who asks you to lend money? Do you trust banks? Lots of questions. And then we asked a lot of cultural resource type of questions. Do you hunt traditional foods? Do you pick traditional foods? Do you participate in cultural activities? What do you...how many times a year? Lots of questions. We asked a lot of very quantitative questions as well as qualitative questions. We asked questions about...qualitative like what do you think the hardest thing is about being Lakota today and that kind of information. 819 families participating and giving us their input and providing us what we call the Cheyenne River Voices Research Project. It is the voices of our people. It is an opportunity to now have a tool. We have an executive summary of that that we've created to help our tribal leaders have some direct feedback and what we call backup. We like backup for their...maybe your gut check says, "˜Well, yeah, of course we spend a lot of money, leaves the reservation to shop at these larger discount stores.' But what percentage of our people shop at that and we can tell that story. We have an actual number. How many people have children in their home? How many people have a cell phone? There's so many questions that we asked. We're basically sitting on...we call it a treasure chest of data and information for our people. I don't think we've even begun to understand even how we can use that because it is fairly fresh. It's been in the last year. But we are definitely seeing people saying, "˜This is a tool. This is something I can use to design program or this is a tool we can use to support grant efforts, this is a tool we can use to strategically think if we moved up or down in our efforts.' And of course we need to do the research again to survey to have some sort of comparison data and also ask similar questions that might be asked in the national survey but I think that it's really...it's changed our data, changed our data that we're used to accepting from the census. For instance, the census said, when we started this project in 2012 that we had around 6,109 people that live on our reservation within the two counties that encompass our reservation and we did...our Voices research came with 10,527 people living on our reservation. So we changed our population number and it was tribally driven data. This data was driven and...driven...collected by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on behalf of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, it's their data, tribally collected, the questions we wanted to ask, the kind of things that we wanted to know about our own community with our own nuances and we're so grateful to the 800 and some families that participated in the Voices research. We're so grateful. And so we've been taking that back out to the communities and sharing with them what we found out and people so appreciate that. They're like, "˜Wow, you really were listening to us.' And so we haven't even...we still have so much work to do but that just kind of gives you an overview of the Voices research and the work that we've done to really try to capture the story and be able to tell the experience of our families."

Verónica Hirsch:

"You mentioned how the Voice project permitted the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to exercise sovereignty in data collection and arguably will be able to exercise that same measure of sovereignty in data interpretation. With that in mind, how do you think the data that has been collected can impact or influence tribal governance systems, whether it's happening currently or however far into the future?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think we can do a number of things that this sort of data collection, that we're capable of doing that, that we have...not just capable but we have the willingness and the strategic forethought to do that and I think governance systems can be responsive to those sorts of notions and that that sort of becomes to be expected. Well, we're supposed to do that, Cheyenne River is known for that, we've don't that. And I think when you talk about governance systems, systems that often obviously in high poverty, high areas of struggle and reactivity, it is very...the governmental system is only reflective of that life and experience of its people. And so I think it can only be and I think that these opportunities that we have with the Voices data, with the work of many partners in this effort has really...has a chance to influence the governmental systems. We can think through these processes, we come to expect that we should have some sort of baseline information, something to compare it to. We can help educate each other about what are the realities and then design and frankly evaluate our efforts more effectively. I think that we oftentimes are just...we're just trying to work grant to grant. That's no different than paycheck to paycheck. So we're working grant to grant and we're trying to say, "˜Well, what does this...how does this grant fit within our strategic effort? What do we want...what do we want for this population that we're trying to serve or for our future? And I think we have some sense of that but I think this data can help us pinpoint that a little bit more. I think that this data can change the governmental governance systems in a way that looks at our policies, that looks at our human capacity, human capital so to speak and see our families in a new way and figure out how do we move our families forward so that our government can move forward."

Verónica Hirsch:

"With that in mind, how can the Tribal Ventures Project excuse me, the Voices Project, really promote those in tribal government as well as tribal citizens to get onboard with this idea of data collection, of realizing its significance, its importance and its relevance to the tribal community?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Well, I think they see themselves in the Voices data. They see, "˜This is reflective, this is data that we're interested in that will impact.' I think that a lot of times our people haven't been asked, not asked relevant questions that are relevant to their life, to their own culture, to our own way of life in the middle of the prairie, wherever we live and these sorts of efforts...oftentimes data collection is often done by people from outside and that data gets collected and then carried away and we don't ever see the results of that and I think this kind of effort we're keeping at some level inside the camp and we made a lot of work to make sure that when this data was released that our own people held onto it, sat with it, looked around it themselves and there's so much more. But we know that other tribes, other organizations are interested in what we've done. We are sharing it to the best of our ability but the focus is inside the camp. And our focus is to make sure that we actually see this data being utilized to impact the changes and I think that's what will engage people because data does... Decisions are made every day that affect our people based on data and if we aren't deciding and getting that data ourselves, somebody else is going to do it and we may have nothing to do with it and I think that we are showing here that we need to be involved, we need to create, we need to drive the bus as I say. We're driving...we need helpers. I don't have statisticians on every street...every corner at home but we have helpers who can come and help make those things a reality and a partnership that can help get us what we need. But, we have to know and stop and figure out what our intention is around data. What do we need to know? What are the kind of questions that we need to be asking ourselves so we can move forward?"

Verónica Hirsch:

"Can Lakota values be employed to educate the tribal citizenry about what data is, what it is, what it does and why we care about it?"

Eileen Briggs:

"Yes, I think Lakota values and our way of life...I think we've always been data collectors as people. I think that we have over time...obviously we've survived...survival and problem solving in a survival mode is always analyzing data, looking at information. We don't call it data. We talk about stories. We know the stories and we make decisions based on the stories that we know of our families and the experiences they're having and we feel like that's reflective of the situations that we need to impact. And so we've been doing that. I think that Lakota values are really...it's not so much values but knowing who we are as Lakota and keeping...or knowing who we are and living those...that experience of historically. But this isn't necessarily new. It's a new way of doing things, a sort of a more modern way of understanding that yes, we've been collecting data a lot of times for federal programs and federal requirements for compliance primarily but not for strategic direction and I think we are in a position right now in Indian Country to get a hold of that and to take a more of a proactive and I think strategic approach to collecting that data, looking at that data ourselves. Either the data we've already been sending to wherever and understanding it and analyzing it better so we can make better programmatic and evaluative decisions but also collecting additional data. But that's a process. Data isn't a priority for everyone. They think, "˜Well, that's just the way we've done it all these years.' But that's because of the generational experience with the federal government compliance and data requirements. It's not something that we have been...that hasn't been invested in. Tribal govern...federal government has given tribal government any experience and expertise and technical assistance to develop our own data collection systems. We now are seeing where that needs to...we are wanting to make that happen and trying to go in those directions and I think that's the effort, that's the opportunity that we see that are our cultural values. We need to make decisions based on information that came from us not on information someone else is deciding about us and that's...data is power and data and power money, they all go together and we need to be sovereign of that. We need to be understanding our own data. We need to be able to design mechanisms and ways to collect that data so that we are the ones determining our future."

Verónica Hirsch:

"Thank you. That's all the time we have today on today's episode of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations please visit NNI's Indigenous Governance Database website which can be found at igovdatabase.com. Thank you for joining us."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.: Effective Bureaucracies and Independent Justice Systems: Key to Nation Building

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In this informative interview with NNI's Ian Record, Leroy LaPlante, Jr., former chief administrative officer with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a former tribal judge, offers his thoughts on what Native nation bureaucracies and justice systems need to have and need to do in order to support the nation-building efforts of their nations. 

Resource Type
Citation

LaPlante, Jr., Leroy. "Effective Bureaucracies and Independent Justice Systems: Key to Nation Building." Leading Native Nations interview series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. August 12, 2010. Interview.

Ian Record:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host Ian Record. On today's program, I'm honored to welcome Leroy LaPlante, Jr. Leroy, who goes by "JR" to many, is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He worked as chief administrative officer for his tribe for three years from 1998 to 2001. Around that time, he was named ambassador of the tribe by the then-chairman, a great honor. And he currently works as an attorney working with tribes on a number of different, in a number of different areas including economic development and housing. Welcome JR."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Thank you, Ian."

Ian Record:

"We're here today to talk about a couple of topic areas relevant to Native nation building and governance, those being tribal bureaucracies and then tribal justice systems. And I want to start off with tribal bureaucracies. And I'm curious to learn from you, what role do you feel bureaucracies play in advancing the nation building goals of their nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think it's really important for Native nations to have a strong infrastructure in order for them to really accomplish their goals. They've got to have, I think, one, they have to have a strong legal infrastructure, but I think they have to have a strong infrastructure where they can deliver services and their programs are functioning in an effective manner."

Ian Record:

"So what, in your experience, do Native nation bureaucracies need to be effective?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think, for one, there needs to be, I think, a good system in place: policies, procedures, ways to measure outcomes. There also needs to be a very good financial accounting so that performance on a lot of tribes function under grants, federal grants and so forth. And so there's a big need for tribes to have a way to make sure they're performing well on these grants and so forth. But you know, in my experience as the administrative officer for Cheyenne River for three years, we had the privilege of having a good tribal controller who kept us on track financially, and we had a good planning office and we had a good grant oversight. But for me, what I think was really important -- and we grew exponentially in those years that I was, that I had the privilege of working as the administrative officer -- but the key was we had a separation of roles. The administrative or the executive branch of our tribal government, we knew people respected what we did and they trusted us to do what we did. The tribal council, the legislative branch of the government, they had an understanding of their role. And I think that that's really, really key. If you can have that, I don't want to call it separation of powers necessarily, because it's more so, I really see it as the government having different roles. And I think that's what resonates with Indian people, more so than powers. So I think that was key, to have this sort of hands-off approach and letting us really manage the programs and let the programs do their work."

Ian Record:

"We've heard others who either serve or have served in positions like you did for your tribe, draw the distinction between those who make the decisions and then those who carry out the decisions. Is that essentially what you're talking about?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And I think that if you have a tribal council that tries to micromanage a lot, I think they can get in the way of what we're trying to do. And because, you know, the daily decisions that we make in government, you know, especially when we get caught up in personnel issues and those sorts of things, it can really bog down government. And when government gets bogged down, government gets slowed down, we all know that the real losers, in that instant, are the people. And we're there to serve the people, we're there to provide services to the people, we're there to provide critical services to tribal members. So it's important to just let those programs function freely."

Ian Record:

"So what happens when -- and granted it sounds like during your tenure there wasn't a lot of this going on, but based on your experience perhaps working with other tribes -- what happens when that political interference in the carrying out of programs, in the delivery of services, and just the day-to-day bureaucracy of the tribe, what impact does it have within the bureaucracy itself?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think the immediate...I think there's immediate impacts and there's long-term impacts. The immediate impacts are, you get this...the services aren't provided in an equitable fashion, you have this favoritism towards certain, maybe employees where you have some...so nepotism can come into play in terms of hiring. They get...if there's this micromanaging, there's this...it can interfere with personnel decisions. And also, just decisions in terms of where these programs need to go in terms of their planning and so forth. The long-term effect that it has on it is it does affect long-term planning, and I think that if they would just let the programs function and plan out their work like they're supposed to, then things will work out accordingly."

Ian Record:

"We've seen instances among nations where formally, there was that situation where there were elected officials interfering in program delivery and administration, bureaucracy of government. They make the necessary changes and that micromanagement stops or at least is reduced to the degree where the elected leaders suddenly find that they have more time to focus on, ideally, what they should be doing."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well that's what I meant, Ian. I kind of misspoke on the last response to your question, but that's what I meant by the long-term effects. I think there's a short-term effect and that the interference, it prevents those programs from functioning the way they're supposed to, it prevents them from hiring the way they're supposed to, making personnel decisions the way they're supposed to, making fiscal decisions the way they're supposed to. But I think the long-term is it detracts from what their job really is, and that is to plan long-term for the tribe. To think where, you know, the bigger decisions. So you kind of have this hierarchy of needs in a tribal government; you have these everyday, daily operations. And, you know, who decides, you know, what to purchase with a particular program budget is a very small matter. But when you have legislators and tribal council members making those kinds of decisions, obviously, that's going take away from the bigger things they should be doing, which is planning for the tribe's future, creating laws that are going to be implemented for the improvement of the tribe. And so it does detract from those bigger things and those are the things that they're likely to do. And so that's what I meant by a short-term effect and a long-term effect."

Ian Record:

"And it also has a direct effect on the people who've been charge with administrating the decisions that the elected officials make, does it not? The program managers, the department heads, the administrators?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think it really does, because you're hired to do a job and you want to...in terms of developing that leadership, in terms of utilizing those people for what they're hired to do, it does stunt their growth, in a sense. So that's...it does have an effect in that regard. But here's one of the saddest things that I see happening when you have talented people, tribal members that are doing these program management jobs or whatever, filling these tribal positions. I think when you get this interference from tribal council, it can get really discouraging. We hire people who are capable, we put our, everybody that applies for a tribal position through an application process, and we feel like we hire the best person. What happens I think with people, people get frustrated, they feel like they're not, [don't] have the freedom to do their job and so they end up, we end up losing I think some very talented people. So I think one direct effect is that it does maybe impact and where we have somewhat of a brain drain on the tribe. I mean, if you get hired to do a job, you expect to be able to come in and freely do that job."

Ian Record:

"So then...what role then should elected leaders play in ensuring an effective bureaucracy to carry out the wishes and priorities of the nation?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I've never been an elected official. And, you know, I think, I don't know if I'm qualified really to speak to that. I guess I could, I guess I'm qualified enough to say what they should be doing, or what we'd like to be doing. So in a perfect world -- and of course we all know it's not a perfect world -- but in a perfect world what you would like to see elected officials do is really put the people before themselves. And put the interest of the tribe as a whole, collectively, before themselves. I think, too many times, people that are elected to tribal council or to an elected position sometimes have their own agenda. And I think it's important that -- it may be a good agenda -- but I think that it's important that they try to serve the people first and carry out those duties. Now again, elected officials have different roles. And I think it's really important. A long time ago, Indian people had different roles in our society, and you even see that today. If there's somebody in our community that makes drums, for example, that's that person's role. People respect that. And anytime somebody needs a drum, they go to that person to make a drum. And I think that those roles in tribal government are very similar, and I think that that's where we can import some of our traditional ways of perceiving what we do is that you have a role.

The problem I think, Ian, is that sometimes when people take a position in the tribe, they don't what that role is to begin with and so when they come in, I think, there should be some sort of orientation process. There should be some sort of time where they're brought in a transition period and they're saying: this is what we understand to be your role as an elected official, as an elected councilperson, as a tribal secretary, as a tribal treasurer. And you know, it's really, you know sometimes we're a little too hard on elected people because I think that we assume that they know what their role is when they're hired or when they're elected and I don't think we should make that assumption. I think we should, if we assume anything I think we should assume that they could use some mentorship; they could use some instruction.

So that person comes in, they take that elected office, and then they don't perform or they start micromanaging or they start doing something other than what we think they should be doing. But it really should come as no surprise, "˜cause they're walking into a position that they have no formal training for. And so I think that we need to really be understanding of, you know, and if you look at a majority of elected people in tribal government, they are people that don't have a lot of formal training. They are people that are from the community, that people trust, that are respected. You know, the qualifications of an elected person in tribal government is different from an elected person in state or in federal government. There's an emphasis...or in the non-Indian world, in dominant society, there's a great emphasis placed on education, there's a great emphasis placed on experience, and so forth. Maybe they were a former businessperson, maybe they were law trained. But in Indian Country, the emphasis on qualifications for elected officials is how well do they understand their culture, how connected are they in the community, how strong are their kinship units and, you know, how committed are they to helping the people, did they, how long have they lived on the reservation? And those sorts of things.

And so, I think if we're going to assume anything about people that are elected, I think we should assume that they probably could use some training. But with that, if that training's provided up front, I think what I would expect of an elected person is that they, if you're elected to council, obviously, I believe that first and foremost you need to represent your people as a whole and what's in the interest of the tribe as a whole. Set your personal agenda aside and really try to fulfill your obligations to uphold, number one, the constitution of the tribe, the laws of the tribe, and that includes our policies and procedures, and to do what's in the best interest of the people. And not just for what's going get you elected for the next term, but what's best for the people five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now.

The other thing I would expect from elected people, Ian, is that I think we have a commitment to...as Lakota, as Sioux people -- I speak specifically to our tribe -- we talk about our [Lakota language], our lifeways. We talk about our traditions. We talk about everything we do is for that seventh generation. We try to plan that far ahead. I think it's really incumbent upon officials that are in a position to make laws, that are in a position to make policy decisions, it's really incumbent upon those elected officials to plan ahead, and to really walk that talk. Not just talk a good talk to get you elected, but really live out those core values of who we are as Lakotas. And I think that in and of itself would drastically change the landscape of tribal politics."

Ian Record:

"You made reference to this, essentially this need to plan for the seventh generations forward. And seventh generation planning, strategic planning really; when that strategic planning process has been undertaken and there's really no end to it, but when the nation and its leadership has done that hard work to forge a strategic vision, put a plan in place to get there, doesn't it make the day-to-day bureaucracy work that much easier because those people that are in charge of carrying that out, understand clearly where we're trying to head and does this decision that's performing today, does it contribute to that or does it detract from that?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Right. I mean it's very...you put that very succinctly. I think that that's exactly what long-term planning does. I think, when you have a strategy in terms of where, and a vision of where you want the tribe to be, you know, generations from now, everything works toward that end. And so people, it does give program managers more focus and it does...but you know, that example being set by elected officials is so critical. Because if they're setting that example, then it trickles down to your administrative personnel, it trickles down to your program managers, it trickles down to your tribal employees -- that there's this conscientiousness that what we're doing is really for the betterment of the people not just here, today, but further down the road. But in order for that to happen...we really talk a good talk. I think Indian people, we're very eloquent and I think that there are words that we have in Lakota or in our Native language, our Native tongue that when they translate to English, they're very beautiful concepts. And when the outside world hears them, they're very impressive. But do we really live by them? And I think that that is really, that's really the test. And if we do, if we're really committed to them, what you will see in a tribal government is you will see a structure. And that structure will have, it'll be a system in terms of how we go about our business. And it'll start, you'll see it in a way that we conduct council meetings. You'll see it in a way we...you'll see it in our organic document. You'll see it in our policies and procedures. You'll see it in our day-to-day operations. There'll be this structure in terms of how we go about doing our day-to-day business, and so you...and that's the infrastructure that I'm talking about. That you've got to have that infrastructure in place, because it's one thing to take a vision and philosophies in terms of how we want to be, but you got to have the practical policies and infrastructure that get us from point A to point B."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned earlier the importance of serving the nation as a whole, essentially treating citizens fairly and consistently. How can Native nations achieve fairness in service delivery and within the bureaucracy of government?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"That's a big challenge for tribal government, because I think that tribal governments are already kind of up against the wall because they got to overcome the perception that they don't provide services in an equitable fashion. And there's always these horror stories about nepotism and all these other things that we have to overcome. You know, I think one of the ways you make sure that our services are being delivered in an equal fashion to everybody is I think you have to have transparency in your government, and I think you have to make sure that you have sound policy, and you have sound procedure. That when you draft these laws and you draft these policies and procedures, that you don't deviate from them, and I think that's the key. I tried to engage in a policy and procedure revision in my tribe, and I think the plan sat on the table for the full three years I was there. You find that you don't have the time, but the key is that you got to work with what you got, and as long as you're consistent with those policies, and they may not be perfect, but utilize them and force them, stick to them, and don't deviate from them. You've got to have a rule that you go by. And of course, and this is true with the community as well. You've got to have a rule of law where people understand that this is what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. The same thing in tribal governance, you've got to have policies, procedures, you've got to have ways of operating so that...and you've got to stick to them."

Ian Record:

"In one of the areas where we commonly see deviation, as you put it, or inequitable treatment from a policy or something like that within the tribal government is around personnel issues -- hiring, firing, other sorts of issues like that. Where should...where and how should those issues ideally be resolved? Or if there's disputes around personnel, where should those issues be resolved?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"It's going to differ from tribe to tribe, Ian. And I think the important thing is that whatever process you set up, that it be a fair process and that you follow it every single time, and again, you don't deviate from it. When I served as the administrative officer for my tribe, there was so many things I wanted to do. I wanted to engage in economic development planning, I wanted to...there was so many other grants I wanted us to look at and really decide whether or not we should even apply for certain grants because there are some...as an administrator you don't want to apply for everything, but sometimes you do it because you have an ambitious program director who writes a grant application, but you want to be able to look through and make a sound decision to make sure it's in the interest, in our best interest. And those are those big decisions, right? And you want to focus more on areas, departments that are weaker and get them stronger. Those are the bigger issues you want to deal with as an administrator. But I spent, I would say, roughly 75 percent of my time bogged down in personnel issues. And so one of the things, I would say, is your administrator has a role. That role is to administer the programs of the tribes. I wished I was never involved in personnel issues as an administrator, because I didn't see that as my role, but council did. The problem was was that a lot of times council would get involved in that. So we had system where if a personnel action was taken, the immediate supervisor would take action. The appeal process was that you were allowed to go to a program director. If there was a department chair, that was another level in the appeal process. I was included in the process, and then of course we had an elected personnel policy board that was the final say on all personnel issues. Now, sounds like a great system, but if you add up the time frames an employee had to appeal, you're looking, you could be bogged down in a personnel issue for 45 to 60 days. And if council got involved, it could stretch out for several months. So, I think, you really want to try, what I tried to do is streamline the process as much as I could. I recommended to council on several occasions that I be removed from the process because I wanted to focus on some of the more important requirements, job requirements of an administrator of a tribal government. We had over 75 tribal programs, we were managing over 50 federal grants, we had over 600 tribal employees -- there's just a tremendous amount of responsibility. But that's the system my tribe went with, and so the next best thing is to try to train your employees, your supervisors, your department chairs, your program directors. I couldn't say much of the policy personnel board, but our HR [human resources] person did a good job of training the board, making sure they knew how the system worked. And just trying to make sure that people follow that process as closely as they possibly could and just try to get a personnel issue through that process without it getting bogged down somewhere. And if we all kind of stuck to the process and followed it according to the books it would usually go through smoothly, but the x-factor was always council."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned that your nation -- when you were working in this administrative position -- had more than 75 programs operating at once. And among many nations, the number of programs is often hard to count. And a lot of that is a legacy of federal grant programs and things like that, which some have pointed to as a major source for what is commonly called the 'silo effect'..."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Sure."

Ian Record:

"...Where you have all these different programs kind of operating independent of one another, don't really communicate with one another, and then there's in turn, often a negative impact on the use of typically limited tribal resources. Do you see this silo effect at play in your own nation? Or perhaps have you seen it in other nations? And what do you think are some of the consequences or the drawbacks of that situation."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I don't think there's anything positive about the silo effect, obviously. I think, you'd like to see a department chair or a program take ownership of that job and really grow that program, but I think the negative downside of that is you could get a program director that is, that does become too territorial. And so it does infringe upon our efforts to be more cooperative and to share resources where we can, but more importantly I think there are some real, I guess if, I'm not sure how to put this, but there are some areas, some issues in tribal life, in tribal government that we, there's environment. There's, where I'm from it's, there's management of land resources, social services, education. And I think that what I try to do, when I was working for the tribe, is that I tried to identify those areas and the more we could get programs to work cooperatively, collaboratively, to address those needs, the better. The silo effect, as you call it, really prevents those programs from doing that and it does have...and it does have an adverse effect. The other thing I will say about the grants is that sometimes as tribes we can get too dependent on those grants. I think early in the '90s, mid-90s, in the '90s period, it was an era where there was a lot of application for grants and tribes that were good at it, you know, they were getting grants. It was, you know, if you had a good track record, it was pretty easy to get certain grants and so forth. But sometimes we can get too dependent on that. I think what you want to see eventually, and again this is where if you free up time for an administrator, in my role, you can do more of this planning where you're not so dependent upon these grants."

Ian Record:

"I want to switch gears now to another topic that you're very well versed in and that's tribal justice systems. And I think it's no coincidence that in this era of Indian self-determination, this federal policy era of Indian self-determination, we're seeing a groundswell of attention by tribes to strengthen their justice systems. And I'm curious to get your perspective on this question of what sorts of roles can tribal justice systems play in rebuilding Native nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think they're critical, I think they're foundational to nation building. You know, I think the creation of your own laws, the promulgation of those laws, the adjudication of cases, the creation of case law -- all of that is so important to strengthening tribal nations. I mean, our tribal courts is probably one the most fundamental exercises of tribal sovereignty that we have -- the creation of laws and enforcing them. But the thing is the courts...if courts are effective and judges are performing their jobs in a good way, and the courts are functioning in a way we would like them, it gives the perception to the outside world that we're very good at resolving our matters in dealing with internal matters. But not only that, but we can also deal with any matter that comes through our courts on our reservation."

Ian Record:

"What, in your view, does strong, independent justice system look like? What does it need to have?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think a strong independent justice system, first of all, is tribal. I think it should be tribal in a sense that it knows how to deal with tribal issues and yet it's diverse enough to handle and adjudicate all matters that come before it. I think you should have conmpetent judges. I think you should have strong advocacy for clients and it must have a way of measuring its performance. But yeah, a strong tribal system should be tribal in nature. In other words, what I mean by that is it shouldn't just be a boilerplate replication of what a state court looks like and promulgate those laws, but those laws should be traditional in nature, it should reflect our customs, it should reflect our customary law, our traditional laws, and we should know how to deal with those and inject those viewpoints in our decisions."

Ian Record:

"It's interesting you bring that up, because I've actually heard that from several other tribal judges that I've had an occasion to interview. That in many ways, the tribal justice system and the tribal court in particular is the most direct, concrete way that a tribe can convey its core values, its cultural principles, not only to the outside world, but its own citizens. Is that something that you feel is accurate?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Oh, absolutely. You know when you think about the types of cases that come before our tribal courts, you know you're dealing with a lot of domestic cases, domestic violence cases, family cases, so the courts have the opportunity to resolve disputes between tribal members. And so there's a tremendous opportunity for our tribal court system to really bring into that process some of our traditional ways of resolving conflict. You hear a lot of tribes speak of a peacemaking court and so we don't have to necessarily engage in an adversarial process with tribal members, but you can actually promote some sort of peacemaking where people are, where we promote restitution and restorative kind of justice, which is more in line with our traditional values."

Ian Record:

"So we touched on this issue of political interference and bureaucracies. And I'm curious to get your thoughts about political interference in tribal jurisprudence. What are some of the impacts of political interference in court cases, for instance?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, obviously, you want your courts to be able to make decisions without any fear of consequence from an elected official, tribal council. You want them to be able to adjudicate matters in a way that is just and do so freely, and without any free of retribution from anybody. But unfortunately, in instances where council do get involved, it does create some hesitation on the part of tribal judges to really deal with matters as like they're trained to do. And unfortunately, the result of that is we've seen a lot of good judges come and go out of our court system. I think that, you know, your courts are, you have to have judges with good experience, if not law trained, with great, good experience, with sound awareness of tribal law, and some experience with handling a diverse number of matters. But you know, when you have this turnover of tribal judges because they end up not being able to stick around very long because they're doing their jobs properly. It's detrimental."

Ian Record:

"So you mentioned this issue of transparency with bureaucracies, and the delivery of services. Isn't that equally important when it comes to the administration of justice in Native nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Yes it is, and I think that there needs to be a sense of predictability when people come to, when they're coming to tribal court, there needs to be this sense that they know what to expect; there's not going to be this 'kangaroo court' process. And so, you know, we want to make sure that people know what to expect when they come into tribal court, that they know they're not going to have any surprises. And I think that's...that not only has an impact upon plaintiffs and defendants in tribal court, but here's another aspect of this, it affects who practices in tribal court, you know, because one of the things we lack in tribal court is sound advocacy. You know, we don't just want lay advocates practicing in our tribal courts. One thing that lends credibility to our tribal courts is the fact that a licensed attorney who practices regularly in state court and federal court has no hesitation to come and represent a client in tribal court. We want more participation from the state bar, wherever you're at, whatever state you're in, but we want more participation from lawyers and the state bar in tribal court, because what that does is it improves the perception of our court systems, it improves the advocacy in our court systems. And so you want that transparency, you want to know exactly what to expect when they show up in tribal court, that we have consistent, strong, civil procedures that we're going to follow, criminal procedures that we're going to follow, that there are going to be no surprises."

Ian Record:

"You know, it's interesting, we've been talking about tribal bureaucracies and tribal justice systems and a lot of the criteria or components you need for each to be effective are similar, are they not? And isn't it very difficult, for instance, to have one without the other? Specifically, in our experience, we're working with a number of Native nations and it's very hard to have an effective bureaucracy, for instance, if you have a kangaroo court system, as you talked about. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think that it is very important that you have some predictability, that you have that infrastructure, legal infrastructure, if you will, a strong tribal code where people can have a remedy for whatever, an issue that they're, a legal issue that they're involved in, that there's good procedure that we follow. Bbut in addition to that, I think it's important that we have, that we document our case law, that we...and so people know what to expect. I've received calls from people that will say...practicing attorneys that are members of the state bar that will say, "˜Is there a case on point in your tribal court on the following issue?' I'd like to be able to respond, "˜Yes, and I can get you a copy of that opinion.' And I think that that's the transparency, that's the kind of infrastructure that you want, where people can say, "˜Okay, when I go to Cheyenne River and practice law, I know what to expect when I go there.' And so yes, it's absolutely...in fact, if it's...I'm not going to say it's more important, but it is absolutely, at least, equally important as it is...to have that, those types of infrastructure."

Ian Record:

"So, to generate that infrastructure, to create that infrastructure, that takes funding, does it not? And essentially, an approach on the part of elected officials, or those who set the budget of the nation, to treat it as not just another -- the justice system, the courts -- not just as another tribal department, but as kind of a stand-alone, larger, more encompassing branch -- that may not be the best word -- but branch or function, fundamental function of government, does it not?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think at least our tribal officials need to recognize our court system as a stand-alone entity that has a specific function, a very important function."

Ian Record:

"So you mentioned this need for tribes to ensure that the infrastructure's in place for the court system, the justice system overall to function effectively and essentially, act as the nation's protector, as its guardian. That infrastructure, achieving that infrastructure takes money, does it not? And perhaps a realization on the part of elected officials, or those who control the purse strings of the nation, to treat that system as more than just another department, but to actually treat it as a fundamentally critical function of government."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Right. And it takes time to educate and to help our elected officials understand that. And I don't think it's a matter of our elected officials not knowing that it serves an essential function of government, but I think that they have to understand and it takes time to educate them that what the courts do is so vital to tribal sovereignty, it is so vital to self-determination, it is so vital to us. You know, if we want to engage in any type of regulatory authority on the reservation, you know, our courts have got to be equipped to be able to carry out, you know, adjudicating any matter. And so yeah, it takes a while to get them to prioritize, I guess is what I'm trying to say, Ian. I think they understand that it serves an important function, but for them to understand that it should be up here on the fiscal or the financial fundraising list is another matter. So, sometimes it's just about...I would like to see elected officials just take a run through tribal court and just to see what they do on a day-to-day basis. I think you have committees and tribal council that obviously understand that and who hire judges and hire tribal attorneys and they're well versed in the importance of that. But unfortunately, when you look at the tribal budget, Ian, there's just so many other needs. And how do you say...it's like trying to pick your favorite child, so to speak. It's really hard. And so that is a problem with courts. And I think one way is to maybe look at some of the available federal funding that's out there, but again that takes planning. And it's being able to have that foresight to see when those opportunities are going to come down the pipe."

Ian Record:

"Isn't it important for the connection to be drawn not just for elected leaders, but also citizens that when you have a strong, effective, independent judicial system, that empowers you as a nation to tackle those other needs through restorative justice, through healing people, through healing families and things like that."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Yeah, and it does. I think people...the thing about the law is it doesn't get a lot of publicity. When a case is decided, even if it's an important, an appellate case in tribal court, when it's decided it doesn't get a lot of fanfare. The people that pay attention to it are people like myself, but as far as a general public, there may not be any publicity about an important case that our tribal court decided that's going to have some sort of ripple effect across Indian Country. But there is this general understanding by tribal members that the courts serve a special role, but I don't know if they really see the long-term effects of that. For example, Cheyenne River just had a case recently that went all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't know if people see that and how that impacts. And if that case would've been decided favorably by the United States Supreme Court that would've changed our civil jurisdiction authority over non-Indian people on the reservation. Unfortunately, it wasn't decided favorably, but it could've had that kind of impact. And so yeah, I think people are starting to see it more and more. And you mentioned some of the benefits. The other thing is when we have a solid court system and we have remedies, especially in civil matters, it does encourage things like economic development and corporations coming on to the reservation and things like that. So, and again it goes back to council. Is council willing to do a limited waiver of sovereign immunity so that these matters can be resolved in our tribal court? Because I think the courts are ready to do it. I think the court, I have a tremendous of confidence in our courts that they're willing to take on any issue. We have a very strong appellate court that's willing to hear these matters, but is our council...so I think that that appreciation for our court system, I think, really starts at the top. And I think our appreciation for any of this stuff and appreciation for improving tribal governments really starts at the top [with] your leadership.

Ian Record:

"You mentioned this issue of investment and the role of courts in that. How does a strong, independent justice system create an environment of certainty and competence for investors -- not just financial investors, but people willing to invest their own human capital in the nation and its future?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think, you just...I think the main thing is that you want to be able to, the tribal court, you want to be able to have a statement that says, or a law that says, or a code that says that matters of dispute will be resolved in tribal court. And I know, people that come into contract with tribes, they want to be able to say that if we...if things don't work out with this specific contract, we want to be able to enforce this contract somewhere. And hopefully, we can say it can be resolved in tribal court. Like I said, I don't think it's a matter of the court not being able to handle those matters, but again, it's whether or not the tribes and the tribal council feeling confident enough to be able to open themselves up to that sort of court action."

Ian Record:

"I want to follow up quickly on this issue of sovereign immunity, and this is an increasingly critical topic. What we're seeing is more and more tribes approaching that issue strategically, whereas before it was kind of this blanket response of, "˜We don't want to waive sovereign immunity because we're sovereign,' as if those two things are the same. And more and more tribes are coming up with innovative approaches and doing exactly what you say. 'We'll waive our sovereign immunity through this contract into our own tribal court system.' Isn't it incumbent upon tribes to really approach that issue in a very calculated, deliberate manner of, "˜Okay, this is a tool that we can use, but it has to be used wisely'?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, and I think, to answer...I guess I'll answer it this way. Yeah, I do think tribes need to be very deliberate with that approach and I think maybe the reluctance would be again...you got to have a competent court though. And so what I think we're seeing with some tribes, they may -- I think we talked about it today -- some tribes have considered setting up a separate business court where you might have special judges come in and hear these matters. Because I think there's this perception in the outside world that either, you know, you're typical tribal court judge can't handle a very complicated, contractual issue. So set up a separate contract court where those issues are heard by a special judge that would come and hear those matters and is well-versed in that area of the law. So there are some very unique ways that tribes can try to address this and to improve the outsiders' perception of how we conduct business on the reservation."

Ian Record:

"I want to wrap up with I guess you would call it a personal question. Last year, you were selected to be a part of the first cohort of the Native Nation Rebuilders program, which is a program that was developed by the Archibald Bush Foundation out of Minneapolis in conjunction with the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on the program. You're almost a full year through the program now. I'm curious to get your thoughts on what the program is about, the potential for the program moving forward, and how it's empowered you to contribute to Indian Country."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I...first of all, it's just an honor to be a part of the program. It was an honor to be selected. And, you know, since I came on as a Rebuilder, you know, I've been through a couple trainings, which I thought were absolutely fantastic. I think our first training was tribal governance and, I think that, being able to participate in those courses, in those training courses, it just kind of gave me some hope that there are resources out there for tribal governments. I've been law-trained and I've taken courses in Indian law, tribal law and different other things pertaining to Indian Country. But a lot of -- like I said earlier -- a lot of our elected officials aren't well equipped to do their work. And I think a lot of our tribal officials could use a crash course in federal Indian law, a crash course in tribal bureaucracy, a crash course in tribal governance. And being a part of the Bush Foundation has exposed me to those resources and hopefully those resources -- more people will take advantage of them. My overall impression of being a Rebuilder is really is it's opened up doors, because I meet so many people from across, from other tribes. It's given me some good tools to do my work."

Ian Record:

"One quick follow-up: As part of this Rebuilders program, you were asked to go through a distance-learning course on Native nation building. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on that course and what it could bring to Indian Country."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think it's...I hope our elected officials take advantage of it. You did a really good job of putting it together, Ian, I know that you worked very hard on that. And, you know, it's easy to maneuver your way through the online course and the material is very well researched. But what I gained from it mostly was just hearing other tribal leaders and other members of tribes and citizens of tribal nations that are doing a lot of the same work that I'm doing. Hearing their stories. I think Joe Kalt said today that he's just kind of a pipeline, where he's gathering the stories and kicking them back out to Indian Country. And I think that's a good characterization of what Native Nations [Institute] is about and what the Bush Foundation is doing through the Rebuilder program. We're taking this information, we're funneling it through, we're getting it disseminated out to the people that need to hear it. And those stories are inspirational and if anything else, what it does is it says, you know, that nation building is taking place and it's being done very effectively."

Ian Record:

"Well, JR we really appreciate your time and thanks for joining us."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Thanks, Ian. I appreciate it."

Ian Record:

"That's all the time we have for today's program of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us. Copyright 2011. Arizona Board of Regents."

Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times: Gay Kingman

Author
Producer
Institute for Tribal Government
Year

Produced by the Institute for Tribal Government at Portland State University in 2004, the landmark “Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times” interview series presents the oral histories of contemporary leaders who have played instrumental roles in Native nations' struggles for sovereignty, self-determination, and treaty rights. The leadership themes presented in these unique videos provide a rich resource that can be used by present and future generations of Native nations, students in Native American studies programs, and other interested groups.

In this interview, Gay Kingman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe discusses her 25-year career as a teacher, principal and tribal college president. She also discusses her work as Executive Director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association as well as some of her past roles, including Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians and Public Relations Director of the National Indian Gaming Association. Kingman is a fierce defender of tribal rights and sovereignty.

This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Institute for Tribal Government.

Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Kingman, Gay. "Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times" (interview series). Institute for Tribal Government, Portland State University. Portland, Oregon. 2004. Interview.

Kathryn Harrison:

"Hello. My name is Kathryn Harrison. I am presently the Chairperson of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. I have served on my council for 21 years. Tribal leaders have influenced the history of this country since time immemorial. Their stories have been handed down from generation to generation. Their teaching is alive today in our great contemporary tribal leaders whose stories told in this series are an inspiration to all Americans both tribal and non-tribal. In particular it is my hope that Indian youth everywhere will recognize the contributions and sacrifices made by these great tribal leaders."

[Native music]

Narrator:

"Gay Kingman, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, is the great granddaughter of Chief No Heart and daughter of Violet and Augustus Kingman. Her paternal great grandfather was Dog's Backbone who was killed in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Gay spent 10 years researching her grandfather and the Indians who fought at Little Bighorn. She was greatly rewarded when legislation was passed to establish a memorial in their honor. Gay's parents had high expectations for their daughter sending her to a school run by the Presentation Sisters where Gay was encouraged to continue her education. She earned a BS at Northern State College in Aberdeen, later receiving a master's in education at Arizona State. During her college years she married and had two sons. Her outstanding career as an advocate in Indian Country was preceded by 25 years in the education field as a teacher and administrator. Venues where she served include Pine Ridge, Eagle Butte, Minneapolis Public Schools, United Tribes Technical School and the Scottsdale Public School system. She was the superintendent of Pierre Indian Learning Center in South Dakota and the president of Cheyenne River Community College. Through all her efforts on behalf of Indian Nations, Gay has remained at heart an educator, one who liked to work with the student no one else wanted, the student causing the most trouble. This depth of commitment to social justice, this willingness to take on tough and stubborn jobs has informed every social task she has embraced. After her sons were grown, Gay went to Washington, D.C. accepting a prestigious educational award. President Carter had created the Department of Education. One of Gay's jobs was to see what could be done for Indian people in the Department of Education. She served as president of the National Indian Education Association which meant lobbying, testifying in Congress and fundraising. Quinault leader Joe De la Cruz brought Gay into the National Congress of American Indians and she was quickly installed as Executive Director bringing the venerable old organization from a financial crisis to a state of stability. She learned the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., developing allies in Congress and with staffers in finding opportunities to educate members of Congress who didn't have Indians in their districts. She cultivated many relationships with national Indian leaders such as Roger Jordain. In 1989 a propitious event occurred that would take Gay's life in yet another direction. She issued a call to the Indian community to come in and help her clean the NCAI offices. One man entered the door whose interest was not in clean floors but rather in taking her out to dinner. Timothy Wapato and Gay Kingman married in 1990. Gay a Democrat and Tim a Republican have been a dynamic political couple working both sides of the aisle through many daunting challenges, not the least economic development in Indian Country. In the early 1990s the times were contentious. Senator Daniel Inouye told tribes they had to get together and do some good education and media on gaming and how it could meet the needs in Indian communities. In 1993 Gay was appointed the Public Relations Director of the National Indian Gaming Association and Tim became its Executive Director. Many individuals, not the least Donald Trump, were hostile to Indian gaming and worked hard to limit it with legislation. To combat these efforts Gay created a PR campaign, Schools vs. Yachts which she conducted from the grassroots to the national level. For this campaign she won a prestigious PR award. Gay's human rights leadership extended to the University of Madrid where she was a guest lecturer at a discrimination and human rights symposium chaired by Bishop Desmond Tutu. In 1998 Gay left her D.C. career to return to South Dakota to take care of her 100 year old father. Today her sons continue in the path that Gay, her father and her ancestors established. Vernon works with Indian business development and Chuck, a lawyer, is engaged with the National Tribal Judges Association. Gay Kingman is a member of the Policy Board of the Institute for Tribal Government.

Family history: Dog's Backbone and Little Bighorn

Gay Kingman:

"My parents, my mother was Violet Rivers Kingman and my father was Augustus "Gus" Gilbert Kingman. My mother... They were both Cheyenne River Sioux tribe members and both part French because the Canadian French came down on the Missouri and intermarried with the Sioux and so we're all part French as well. My grandfather, I remember very well my Grandpa Rivers was, they called him the Little Frenchman. He was a blue-eyed man and would...he fished in the river and would sell fish so I'd go out in the boat with him once in awhile. My father on my dad's side was a descendent of Dog's Backbone who was killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn and he went to school as a young man at Hampton, Virginia. It was one of the first off reservation boarding schools. It's still in existence today. It's a prestigious Black university. I've been there twice now to do research on my grandfather. So the Kingman name will be honored this June 25th at Little Bighorn and I've worked almost 10 years on doing that research and they'll be laying a warrior marker where Dog's Backbone fell warning his tribesmen that the soldiers are coming and the bullets are coming fast and furious."

Gay Kingman's tribe

Gay Kingman:

"I was secure in who I was as a tribal...a member of the tribe and it was never questioned until I guess I grew up and went away and then I always...then I found out there were other people or other tribes and everything. But we had...the tribe that I'm from is a large tribe. We have over probably around 12,000 members, 12,000 something and our land base is quite large and our leadership is...we have an exceptional leadership all throughout history. So I come from I guess a tribe who I'm very proud of and we have four Bands of the Sioux Tribe at Cheyenne River. And those four Bands, on my father's side I'm Minnecojou and then on my grandma's side I'm Blackfeet Band. I guess...I did get an education growing up on my own culture and traditions but it was not anything out of the ordinary. It was just an accepted thing that happened."

Parents' hopes for their daughter

Gay Kingman:

"They set high expectations and it wasn't anything that they demanded but it's just accepted that you do these things. As my family had been great leadership in the tribe, it was just accepted. And so my parents started me playing the piano at I think I was like five years old and I kept that up through college. They sent me away to school so I could have a better education than I could receive on the reservation. That was all expected and I accepted it and went through with it because I believed that they knew what was right for me. I think those kinds of expectations you put with your children and I know for my own sons I didn't demand it but they were expected to go on to college as well and they did. The Presentation Sisters, and I was the only Indian there in school because as I said it was in Aberdeen, South Dakota and it's off reservation. They encouraged me as well as every student there to go on to school. As far as my tribe, the tribe encouraged us and they had financial aid opportunities for us to go on to school but if you think back in those days that was early ‘50s and girls weren't expected to do as much and it was that way on the reservation as well. A lot of the men were expected to go on to college and do great things but women it wasn't and we were geared into being a secretary or we were guided into areas that weren't as I guess progressive. And so after I got my two-year degree I had gone to Presentation College then for two years and I asked to go back onto my four-year degree and the person in charge of financial aid said, ‘No, you've got your two-year degree.' And so I thought, ‘Well, I want to go get my four-year degree of education so I can teach, not just a two year.' And so I went before tribal council and I remember I was so scared to go before the tribal council at that time and I asked them, I said, ‘I want to go on to school and get my four-year degree,' and one of the councilman I'll never forget, he said, ‘Why is it some students finish in two years and some finish in four.' They just didn't understand the degree and how many years it takes and the advanced degree but they gave me the financial aid and so I was able to go on then to Northern State College in Aberdeen and graduate with a four-year degree in Elementary Education. I finished in '63, 1963 and went immediately into teaching. Meanwhile backing up a little bit when I was 19 I got married and I had my first son in 1960 and I always tell my sons that, ‘You have to go on to school because you went to college before you were born,' because I was having them and I was in college and I was doing education and working too because when you go to school you never have enough money to fully compensate you for all of your needs. And so I worked at Penney's and got very low income. And then next door to Penney's was a Woolworth's and they thought I was a pretty good worker and a good checkout so then they gave me a nickel more an hour so I moved over to Woolworth's. It was really a struggle but it was fun because many of us Indian students were struggling together to get through college."

Choosing education as a field of study

Gay Kingman:

"I liked children and so I think education is a way that, it's a springboard too for any other field that you could go into so I went into education and minored in music because I'd had years of study in music, played in the church...played organ in church since I was 11 years old. I guess it was a springboard for me in my career because after education then I went into tribal affairs nationally. We didn't have a good career counseling either in those days. Today I think young people are exposed to all of, a wide diversity of careers. I began teaching on the Oglala Reservation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota and it was grade school. My degree was in Elementary Education so I taught from like first through third grade and then I transferred to...this was for the U.S. Government. Then I transferred to my own reservation, Cheyenne Eagle Butte and taught there and that also was...I think it was like third and fourth grade and then I moved to Minneapolis and taught there in the Minneapolis Public Schools. I've always been one though that I liked to work with the student that nobody else wanted, the student that was causing the most trouble. I can really relate to them well and they relate to me. And so when I was in Minneapolis, the school I taught in was in the south side and I had students there who came from poverty area and students there who had troubled home life. And the class that I had were those students that nobody really wanted and we had a great time. I think...I have such problem with parents who let down their children because many of the problems stemmed from the poor home life or the parents who were drinking or the parents...I had one child whose mother was a prostitute. I used to have to go get the child out of...in the morning sometimes from her home because she'd sleep in and nobody would wake her. And then I was offered a principal-ship. So I moved from Minneapolis to Bismarck, North Dakota and I ended up actually beginning a school. It's kind of every teacher's dream to put into a school all that you've wanted for children and so I started the Theater Jamison Elementary School at United Tribes which is...it's a college, it's University Today. So I moved to Scottsdale and I had a position as the Director of Indian Education for the City of Scottsdale and we had kind of the reverse from what I'd been used to. When I worked on the reservation, our children were more needy, had more poverty. In Scottsdale we had a lot of needy students but it wasn't because of poverty, it was because maybe their parents were gone all the time and they were neglected or whatever. So one of the things that I did with the students in Scottsdale was set up an exchange program with Chinle, which is a school district on the Navajo Reservation and we would bring our students from Scottsdale to Chinle, to the Reservation and they'd actually stay in Navajo homes and they would be exposed to the family and their way of life and then we'd have Chinle students come to Scottsdale and they'd learn what it was like to live in the urban area. And it was wonderful because when we first got to Chinle the Scottsdale students said, ‘Well, there's nothing to do here.' But it wasn't long and they were jumping in the sand dunes and they were hiking up and down Canyon de Chelly."

The American Indian Movement (AIM)

Gay Kingman:

"I was personally impacted by the American Indian Movement when I was in Minneapolis, that began in the late ‘60s and I saw for myself the reason for the American Indian Movement and there was a lot of persecution of Indians in those days and probably exists today but it's gone more underground, it's more subtle. There was a lot of abuse by the police to Indian people. So my husband, the boy's father couldn't...got involved in this because he couldn't let some of the abuse that was happening and he was well educated as well and so he used his ability to write and to speak out against the abuse that was happening. For example, some of the pregnant woman got beat up...there was...in Minneapolis there's an area where a lot of the Indians lived and the police beat her and there were things like that. So a lot of the Indians got together and they formed what they called then the American Indian Movement and they would take people home from the bars before the police got to them because the police would abuse them. They'd get beaten up. And that's how the American Indian Movement began. And I think it had good intentions and it was the best way to do things at the time and it was the best way to help the Indians. My husband then and I started the school for a lot of the children because the children were being pushed out of the public schools. The school wasn't addressing their cultural needs or their other needs coming from the reservation to the city and so we started the Survival School for those children that weren't in school and my husband ended up running that as I worked for the Minneapolis Public Schools. And it's still in existence today and it's an acceptable school today but at the time we had such a hard time getting it going because people thought that it was something that wouldn't last. But yet we had a lot of success with the students that attended because we could attend to their needs, we could address their cultural needs, language was taught as well as we learned the values in the Indian way. To this day Clyde Bellecourt and the people that began it are still good friends because their intentions and what they did were very honorable. Today they run the...some very good programs for people in Minneapolis."

Life as a teacher, mother and activist

Gay Kingman:

"My own children were part of everything that we did. In the Indian way your children go along with you, you don't leave them at home with a babysitter so they were down with the American Indian Movement at the meetings. I taught in the same schools that they went to so I was there daily with them. My husband and I ended up parting ways at Minneapolis. He remained with the American Indian Movement in the Survival School and I left to go to Bismarck and run the school and begin the Theater Jamison School. I did so principally because I felt that the needs of my children would be better served that way for me to be in a more established position and give them a better home life that way."

Sons growing up, a career change, going to Washington

Gay Kingman:

"For the first time in my life I didn't have my sons and it was terrible. I'd walk down the hall to where their bedrooms were and I'd just get a lump in my throat. There really is an emptiness syndrome. So at that time I thought, ‘Well, if they're leaving home, I'm going to too.' So that's when I went to Washington, D.C. I had accepted a educational leadership position and it was I guess a prestigious award that I got. I was one of 500 that was selected, 50 of us were selected to study policy in the Nation's capital and actually we worked at the same time and then we had classes going on at the same time. So I worked for OMB and my position was the transition team for the Department of Education. President Carter had come in and he created the Department of Education and so when you do a big transition like that in government it's almost an unwieldy situation because education had always been in Health and Human Services, HEW, Health, Education and Welfare and they took the Education out and made it a standalone department. And so one of my responsibilities was to decide what we could do for Indian people within the Department of Education. Today as a result of that there is a Department of Indian Education within the Department of Education and it works with Indian students in public schools and public schools across the United States that have a significant number of Indian students receive funding to assist them with Indian children. And it depends on the need in the community. There's also funding for universities that have Indian students and they can get funding for scholarship programs to set up for Indian students. So that's within the Department of Education and I guess I had a small part in trying to get that set up within the Department of Education. Always people think of the Bureau of Indian Affairs when you think of Indians. Well, in the Department of Education now there's Indian Education.

As President of Cheyenne River Community College, Gay works toward its accreditation. She eventually heads National Congress of American Indians, NCAI, getting it on solid footing

Gay Kingman:

"My career was going and I was working in these various positions. I'd also been asked by people I worked with and I got elected to certain offices nationally and I served...I got elected to a three-year term for the National Indian Education Association and served as secretary and treasurer and also president of the National Indian Education Association. That is an organization of schools and colleges nationwide of Indian Education and when I served as president it meant lobbying in Congress and advocacy for Indian education, trying to get more funds for respective programs. It also meant running our office and so these were going on parallel to my career and it also helped prepare me also for the advocacy and I guess the politics that happen in Washington, D.C. Then I was also elected to a three years term on the National Congress of American Indians. Now the National Congress of American Indians is much broader than the Indian Education Office. It is made up of all of the tribes nationwide who can have membership and it deals with all of the programs that Indians have nationwide such as economics or health and human services or education or it could deal with legislation in Congress, many Supreme Court law cases that have come down, whether good or bad for us and what that means. So when I got elected to the Board of Directors that meant a very wide perspective then that I would have to work with. I served as secretary for the organization and then I was elected as treasurer as well for the organization and served there three years. I remember it was Joe De la Cruz asked me if I would be interested, cause Joe was on the Board of Directors and I said, ‘Well, I never thought about it but I would be.' So the Board met and put me in as Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians. So I went into...I didn't even go back to Eagle Butte because the urgency was so demanding at that point so I went directly to Washington, D.C. from the meeting. And my son was working at home for the tribe as a comptroller for the tribe and so I called him and asked him to go pack up my things. I'd written a letter of resignation and of course the chairman of the tribe was there so they knew my situation and I went to Washington, D.C. to become the Executive Director. And I wasn't prepared totally for what we found. We found a financial mess. The organization was almost on the verge of bankruptcy. Federal grants that the National Congress of American Indians had at that time were in danger of being pulled because no financial reports had been submitted. It was just a real mess. And then the main thing was that there was no credit, no credit for any of the hotels so we couldn't even have meetings. And so I put out the call to some of the tribal leaders at that time and here again Joe De la Cruz and Wayne Duscheneaux, they immediately responded and they sent people in to help. I remember Joe sent in his financial person to help begin sorting out records. Another tribal leader sent in some staff. I believe a tribe in Michigan sent me some workers because we had to terminate, we had to let go the staff that was there. We just didn't have the funds to make payroll. And I called on some of my friends then who were living in Washington, D.C. One, Carol Gipp, whose field is business and finance so she came over and started helping. I called upon my son who is an attorney and an excellent writer and so he came over to help. And so we kind of got by that way and we began sorting out the financial situation and we began making headway and I had meetings set up...I remember [unintelligible] with a tribe in Wisconsin helped greatly with the federal people because we had grants with Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. And so we had meetings set up with them to work out what arrangements we could make to get our grant back in good financial sitting. The years that I was there, the couple of years until my contract was up, I received a resolution of support from the National Congress of American Indians acknowledging all my hard work and that we put the National Congress of American Indians back on a firm sitting again and it was able to move ahead. New people coming on were able to take it from there and keep the progress going. So our old and venerated organization that had begun back in 1944 was on firm sitting again. I especially enjoyed all of the people because I got to meet Indian people nationwide and work with them. I got to know all of the staffers in Congress and work with them and some very, very outstanding, very supportive Congressmen and Senators such as Senator McCain. He remains an idol to me today. If you think all this man has done, he was a POW for seven, eight years of his life and his arms were broken and he can't even comb his own hair, physically he went through so much. And so he stood up, he stood up for Indian people many times. Senator Inouye who is Democrat, again a warrior who's lost an arm in the war fighting for his principles and what he thought and we have him on our side and he's stood up for Indian people many, many times. There's many people like that including staffers that kind of come and go because they're not well paid in the Congress but many of them, we've lost some good people in Congress like former Congressman Elizabeth Furse. We need people like that in Congress to understand where we come from as Indian people."

Sometimes encountering negativity, looking for the good things and meeting Tim Wapato

Gay Kingman:

"With me, the politics that I ran into were Indian politics and I had a hard time because all my life I've always believed to see the good in things and you can do good but when I ran up against some negativity in politics it was hard to fathom and I didn't have...I could not get on that level and deal with it...I'd rather take the high road so that's what I did. But one of the good things that came out of my time at the National Congress of American Indians, it was soon after I got in in 1989 the place was a mess and so I had asked the Indian community in Washington, D.C. to come and help me clean. And so the doors were open and we had people doing floors and dusting and washing and everything and in walked this man I'd never seen before. I thought he came to work so I said...I was going to put him to work and said, ‘Will you do this and that?' and he said, ‘No,' He said, ‘I'm house hunting.' But he said, ‘I'll come out and take you out to dinner later.' And I thought, ‘Sure, just another Indian man, he's making promises he won't keep.' So we were all working and we had the National Congress of American Indians building all spotless and here he came back and he did take us to dinner. That was my first time that I met Timothy Wapato who eventually was to become my husband. The more I talked to him I thought, ‘Well, this man has some intelligence,' and I liked what he did. He was the Commissioner of Administration for Native Americans. I never thought in my life that I'd ever get married again ‘cause I was always so busy and never had time for it. I liked my life. I was satisfied with what was happening. But when I met Tim Wapato, he eventually asked me to marry him and I said, ‘Well, let me think,' and finally it was like a month later we were on a plane together going somewhere, Albuquerque or somewhere and I said yes. So we did get married. We got married...we've been together since 1990 and got married. We called this spiritual man at home Orville Looking Horse. He's keeper of our sacred pipe which is on the Sioux...sacred pipe of the Sioux Nation which is housed on my reservation, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. So I called Orville and told him and he said...he didn't say anything. And of course you don't pressure spiritual leaders anyway so I thought, ‘Well, we'll just pray and see what happens.' And time got closer and closer. So meanwhile Tim had asked some of his spiritual leaders from the northwest and they said, ‘Well...' and it's a seven drum religion and they said, ‘We'd be happy to do it but we feel that we don't want to come into another spiritual man's area and you should start there first.' And so we didn't know what to do and one morning about 5:00 in the morning the phone rang and it was Orville. He didn't say, ‘We're going to do it,' or anything, he just told me what to do, what preparations I had to make to get ready. So we were married on the equinox of summer on June 22nd and Orville performed the ceremony. He brought sage from our sacred area there and green grass, it was a traditional ceremony. It was interesting because the tribe sent one of our cultural people to tape the ceremony and so for the next week or so our wedding played on our reservation and they showed...our wedding is part of the archives now of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe."

As a political couple in Indian Country, one a Democrat, one a Republican

Gay Kingman:

"I think it's advantageous that Tim and I were in different backgrounds, he Republican, me Democrat, he in different areas of expertise than mine because when it comes down to it, when you advocate for Indian people it doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or Republican or Independent. What matters is that you get for Indian people what needs to get done. The same way with the issues that Tim worked in the past had always been environmental or law enforcement. Mine had always been education and administration. We figured out that we'd been at many of the same meetings but we'd never met. In our careers we could work both sides of the aisle because he being Republican he could work that way for Indian people and I could work the Democratic side of the aisle. Being nonpartisan I think is the best thing I think when things come together for Indian people."

In the early ‘90s as some of the tribes began gaming, some of the governors objected: the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) enters in

Gay Kingman:

"The times were contentious and Senator Inouye was telling the tribes, he said, ‘You've got to come together on this.' It's a time much like today where there's a lot of adversarial problems thrown at Indians not because it's right or it's the truth but because there's a lot of anti Indian sentiment out there. So a friend of mine, Raquel, who was chairman at that time of the Oneida Nation was running for president of the National Indian Gaming Association and in those days NIGA, National Indian Gaming Association was kind of operated out of a shoebox. There was no office, it was kind of wherever the elected leader resided was where the office was. So when we were working for Sycuan Danny Tucker was chairman and they were looking at maybe trying to do some gaming and Indian people are always looking to bring in economic development for the people. So I said to him, ‘Well, why don't you run with Raquel on the National Indian Gaming Association.' I got up and went out of the room to go to the bathroom and here again the board was meeting and when I came back in Tim said to me, ‘You're the new Public Relations Director.' I said, ‘I am?' And he said, ‘Yes.' They'd asked Tim if he thought I would take it and Tim says, ‘Well, I don't speak for Gay Kingman,' he said. He said the right thing. So anyway they'd gone on to other issues and so finally they told me that I was the new Director of Public Relations for the National Indian Gaming Association and this is in direct response to Senator Inouye's telling tribes that they had to get it together, they had to come together and do some good education and media outreach on what their needs were and why they were wanting to go into gaming. It wasn't very long thereafter, I'd say maybe a couple of weeks that they'd asked Tim to be the Executive Director. So together then we remained in Washington, D.C. and Sycuan ended up donating our time to the National Indian Education Association and our mission at the time, the direction that they gave us was to set up the National Indian Gaming Association with an office in Washington, D.C. and the old advocacy and education to Congress and to the media and to, at that time, the governors because we were having such difficulty with the governors. So we moved...we remained in our townhouse. We lived just a few blocks from the capitol and we had our office set up within our townhouse. Our computer was in our living room and our fax was on the dining room table...no, our fax was on the kitchen table, on our dining room table we had some of our other things. But we hit the ground running. We didn't have any time to take a breather because things were happening within each state. There were real problems with the governors, they didn't want the Indians to do gaming, the Indians were saying, ‘Well, we can...within the state you're doing gaming, why can't we.' And there were lawsuits that were going on. Many, many of the states were really having contentious situations. Anyway, this whole scenario was going on and finally the Cabazon case had come down saying that if a tribe...if its state is doing gaming then the tribe can too. So I want to say all hell broke loose and it was, it was just all over then. The governors were complaining to President Clinton saying, ‘You can't let that happen. It's immoral, these Indians can't do gaming, they couldn't regulate, who are they.' So we were dealing with this whole thing and then at the same time Donald Trump through Congressman Torricelli had introduced legislation to deny Indian gaming to the tribes saying that they couldn't. And so we were having to deal with that too. Hearings were set up and the House Interior and Insular Affairs was to hold a hearing so we brought in, we got Indian people to come in. Grandmas came in and elderly and children came in. We just really...people wanted to protect what they had and it wasn't by any means near what we have in gaming today. It was real small scale but yet they knew that they were making money on it and it was good revenue and it was economic development and they needed to keep it. So we set up the hearing and I put...I researched Donald Trump's yacht and got a big picture of it and put it outside the hearing room door and at the same time got a picture of the school at Mille Lacs that they financed with Indian gaming proceeds. And Senator Inouye and Senator McCain came over, here again our star warriors came over and testified in support of Indian gaming and then it was Donald Trump's turn. And the chairman of the committee and that time, it was a Democrat, was Congressman George Miller from California. And Congressman Miller, I don't know if you know him but he's a very strong supporter of Indians and civil rights of people and he's also a very strong personality physically. He's a big man and very articulate and so they...when Trump got up to testify, Congressman Miller started asking him his questions and Trump had a very politically correct speech written but as he listened to Senator Inouye and McCain and some of the Indians testify he was getting angrier and you could just see him. He was writing on the side of his speech and then all at once he just crumpled it up and tossed it. So we didn't know what was going on and here was Donald Trump getting angrier. And so when George Miller started asking him questions, he just let it out. There was nothing politically correct about what he had and he called...he said, ‘Well, those Indians don't even look like Indians,' and he meant some of the Indians on the east coast eluding to that they were mixed Black. And George Miller, you don't fight with the chairman in his own committee and it was the most astounding thing that happened. And after Donald Trump testified, his people pulled him right out because they knew what he had done. And we had videotaped...I had videotaped the whole thing and so when Donald Trump left, the press followed him and Tim and Rick Hill were outside standing in front of these pictures of the School vs. Yachts and they held a press conference. And both Rick Hill and Tim Wapato are very articulate and extemporaneous speakers and they can think on their feet and they held the best press conference. And I immediately took the videotape over to a studio and viewed it and pulled out the excerpt of Donald Trump and him opening his mouth and getting in a fight with the chairman and we put that up on satellite feed and got it to all of the major networks by the 6:00 news and it repeated again on the 10:00 news. We made a seven second video of it. We got that out to all of the areas that had remote stations so they could get it too and it played nationwide. We called the legislation, the anti Indian gaming legislation, we renamed it the Donald Trump Protection Act. And so after that happened, that episode, no congressman or senator wanted to touch it and in fact it failed in committee. We won big. We defeated the anti Indian gaming legislation but by no means were we out of the woods because there were a lot of battles yet. All of the governors were still crying because Indians were beginning to game in their states. It was the early stages."

The National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act had passed in 1988

Gay Kingman:

"Here again we won a lot in it but we lost our sovereignty in the way that...Indians have always been able to game. We've gamed since time immemorial. We've had our stick games, we've had all of our games but when it came down to organized gaming I guess or slots or gaming that the states realized we were going to get some revenue out of then they wanted to deny it. So in the Indian Gaming Act that passed the Congress allowed the states to enter into a compact with Indians to do gaming. It was an erosion of our sovereignty because Indians have always been able to do gaming. Now we had to go to the state and work on a compact to do gaming and in some states they even refused to do that, they refused to do a compact and in some states it wasn't a negotiation, it was a dictatorial relationship like in my state of South Dakota. The governor just said, ‘We're dictating this is how it is, take it or leave it.' And the tribes took it. In my state there's not a lot of revenue out of gaming anyway because we just don't have the market, we don't have the populations. In this state of Arizona Governor Fife Symington, the tribes eventually even had to go to negotiated rule making on getting a compact. Governor Fife Symington would not do a compact with the tribes. This is a time when Tim and I were running night and day. We were in all of the states sporadically depending on where the hot spot was at that time and working with the tribes locally and then we'd do a lot of media outreach to call attention to the issue. We were back in the office and we would get reams and reams of fax papers from the different areas."

Educating Congress on the issue of taxing and Indians; the role of Congressman Hayworth

Gay Kingman:

"One of the other things that happened was Bill Archer, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, decided that he was going to tax Indian gaming so he came out with language saying that he was going to tax Indian gaming. Tim and I happened to be in, I think we were in Spokane at the time and we turned our phone off that night cause we were so tired and that morning when we turned it back on we had like 60 messages and it was all because this had broken just that afternoon which in D.C. was late afternoon and we didn't get it. And so we immediately headed back to D.C. but Tim as Executive Director immediately put onboard two people who were tax experts. We held training sessions for staffers on why Indians don't pay tax and why we don't pay tax is tribes were sovereign before anyone ever came to this United States. After the Constitution was set up based upon the tribes and the confederacy on the east, in there the Commerce clause were in there that you don't pay taxes and it's in a lot of our treaties. I'm from a tribe that has a treaty and this is our land, we gave...we got our land reduced because of the influx of non-Indian people across this United States and the treaties we signed that this would be our land for time immemorial, it can't be taxed due to the Constitution and due to our sovereignty that we've always had and yet this was what Bill Archer was trying to do. And so we tried, we really tried to educate each member of the Ways and Means Committee. Now if you've ever worked with the Ways and Means Committee it's called Gucci Gulch because the Ways and Means Committee handles all of the big money in the United States, the airlines and they handle everything that is huge money and the people that work there, they wear very fine clothes. And here we were kind of a rag tag little group of Indians trying to educate Congress and if they needed something we had a piece of paper telling them that this is it. Then meanwhile Congressman Hayworth from Arizona, this state, was a new congressman and then we said, ‘Well, you can't just educate him, he's got to carry this.' So Ivan Makil who was chairman at Salt River Tribe at that time, a young, astute chairman, really saw the danger in this and so he came and worked with us side by side. Every time Congressman Hayworth would kind of waiver a little, Ivan would be right there because these were his constituency could do it best. So when it came time to vote Chairman Archer had commissioned a report from GSA on why tribes should pay taxes and meanwhile J.D. Hayworth, while Congressman Archer was waving this GSA report on why tribes should pay taxes, and when it was Hayworth's time to speak he pulled the Constitution of the United States out of his pocket and he said, ‘It says right here in the Constitution of the United States,' and he gave the section and everything and he said, ‘that Indians do not pay taxes.' And he slammed it down on the table and he said, ‘I'll take the Constitution of the United States over any old GSA report anytime.' And you're not supposed to clap or anything in the committee but there was applause. And finally it came time to the vote and this was like 3:00 in the morning and so Tim said, ‘I'm going to go stand up there and look them in the eye because if they're going to vote against us, I'm going to see who it is.' So he went up there and he stood like this and looked them in the eye as each came time for roll call vote, which congressmen had asked for and when it came time for the final vote it was in our favor, we had won. Indian tribes would not be taxed and it has not come up again. We had won such a victory in the Ways and Means Committee and...Indian tribes historically don't go to that committee, we go to Education or we go to Interior and Insular Affairs or we go to the Senate Indian Affairs but that's a committee we don't usually work. When we won there and we won big, we were immediately celebrities almost. People were calling us, our phone was ringing off the hook but there were so many issues again."

Gaming, misperceptions and prejudice

Gay Kingman:

"In response to Indians are getting rich I think out of 560 some tribes nationwide there's still only 200 and some that do gaming and of those 200 and some that do gaming there's only a few that have the very wealthy gaming that we hear about. My tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, doesn't have any gaming at all. The tribes in South Dakota that do have gaming like the Oglalas, they're not getting rich. They make just barely enough to make payroll and maybe have a little income to the tribal general fund, the revenue fund. We don't have the population. You've got to have the population and the market to do gaming. This tribe here, Gila River, they have access to all of the Phoenix area, there's a huge population. And in the wintertime when we get all the snowbirds, it nearly doubles. So this tribe here has access to all that population and that market and so I would imagine here that their gaming is very, very...the revenue that they generate is very high. So that's one thing, it's a misnomer that all tribes are rich. But all my life this is what I've had to deal with, whether it's this misnomer about Indians are rich or this misnomer that we're drunken Indians or this misnomer that we're dumb. These are misnomers that all my life that I've tried to educate people on that Indian people are like everyone else, we have our good people, we have our bad people, we have unfortunates, we have wealthy. It's the sprinkling of America and I would love to have the opportunity to talk to people about these ideas that they have that need correction."

Moving to Scottsdale, Gay and Tim take her aging father in

Gay Kingman:

"At that time he was only 98 and he loved Arizona. And he was getting along really well and he'd go out and sit on the patio all morning and watch the birds and he just really loved the weather and the climate. And then after he reached 100 we thought we better move back home and take him back to South Dakota so he could be near his relatives and people could come visit him ‘cause everyone was wondering how he was. This man was getting on up in age and they wanted to see him. So we moved back to South Dakota and I'd had a home there since early ‘80s and so we just moved back and began renovating it and my father was able to visit friends and relatives. Of course at his age a lot of his close friends had moved on. I took care of my father and I was really happy. I'm so glad to have done it. There were some hard times, some things he didn't understand and he couldn't hear and he was getting very, very forgetful, sometimes he didn't know us. Most of the time he was in real good shape. He ate very, very well. He loved his oatmeal every morning and he ate almost around the clock little bitty meals. He didn't like to go to bed. They say as you get older that you revert back to your childhood and he did. He was like a child. He was like my baby. But we had such remarkable times with him too. His bedroom was down one level. I have a level house and one morning he came up and he says, ‘Oh, I made it.' And then he looked at Tim and I and he said, ‘I don't know what I'm going to do when I get old.' And at that time he was probably 103. He was great."

Tradition, politics, concerns for the future

Gay Kingman:

"Well, first of all I think it's only been one world and that's my spiritual world that's kept me strong. The way I was born and raised my parents brought me up to be very spiritual and whether it's the Catholic religion, which I was raised in but also the traditional religion. And so that's been what's kept me strong through everything. Everything else just fell in line with the spiritual way whether it's been the politics or advocacy or working in the non-Indian world, that's all tied in with the spiritualism. We're in a very similar situation as we were in 1993 when we were asked to take over the National Indian Gaming Association. The tone of the country is the same way. There's a lot of anti-Indian movements going on, we're getting beat up in the press. The tribes are stronger I think in many ways and then some of the tribes have a lot of capital to deal with these issues. But with capital comes also a lot of demands and so say for example some of the California tribes although they have a lot of revenue coming in from the gaming, the demands for that revenue have increased. Meanwhile in Congress we still have some of our friends. Senator Inouye is still there, Senator McCain is still there. We might have some new friends but we also have a lot that don't understand Indians that aren't friendly either. I think we need better education of Congress. And a lot that has spilled over from gaming is hurting us like on the east coast some of the tribes that have tried to do gaming. It's spilling over into what we call federal acknowledgement. One of the main problems we're faced with is within our own ranks as Indian people. I think we need to come together better. I don't want to say unity because we're always talking unity but going back to spiritualism and traditions and culture, I'm a firm believer that that's where we need to be. And with money comes prestige and all of the...I think some of the people with money want to embrace right away all the glitz and glitter of the non-Indian world, which is fine but don't lose your traditions and your culture cause that's who we are as a people. I see a lot of our young people who are floundering because they're going into gangs or they're taking drugs or alcohol. If they had their traditions and the cultures and the values that came from...that were taught in those, they wouldn't need that. And so that's I guess some of the problems that I see on the horizon that we're faced with."

Erosions to sovereignty

Gay Kingman:

"Yeah, I think it's a steady drip. I mentioned earlier the demands on the tribe because they now have a lot of money. For example the California tribes, they're small, maybe a few hundred people in a tribe and so the county is coming at them saying, ‘Well, we need money for roads, we need money for law protection,' so the tribes are negotiating with them to do that, which is fine but in a way it's eroding the sovereignty because they don't have to do that. They should be sovereign within themselves. It's also spilling off into other tribes like mine, my tribe because we don't negotiate with the county. We do to the point where we might have a mutual understanding but we don't give up any part of our sovereignty. We have a bill right now that's being floated around in Indian Country. It's called the Sovereignty Protection Act. I'm very fearful of it because what it's doing is...there are several sections in there that aren't very good like putting land into the PILT, the payment in lieu of taxes, saying that if you have trust land which isn't taxed then the United States Government will pay the county or the state in lieu of that land so they still get some money. Well, this is none other but taxation again, an attempted taxation and it's wrong because as I explained earlier it's our sovereign right, that land is ours in our treaties and in our heritage and it's ours, it shouldn't be taxed. But this legislation would allow that and tribes should rise up and deny this and it's floating around within our midst by our own people."

Gay's sons continue the family's legacy

Gay Kingman:

"My sons have followed in the path that was set by my ancestors, which is the responsibility we have to our Indian people. My one son is, as I mentioned earlier Vernon Robertson has his degree in business but he's gone on. He works for the Mille Lacs tribe and he's in there...he's Vice President of the Business and Economic Development, I'm not sure of his exact title. He's carried on. All of his positions have been to make things better for Indian people in the business world. Chuck, my other son, Chuck Robertson, with his degree in law is working also to make things better for Indian people. He's Executive Director of the National Tribal Judges Association and he works with all of the tribal judges nationwide in their respective areas. That was the other thing I forgot in the spiel that I mentioned that's floating around Indian Country that's so bad for us is the...in the legal area, which would provide federal court review of our tribal courts and this is wrong because like my tribe and our tribal courts are just as good or better than courts off the reservation. We'd be the first to jump on our own tribal courts and improve them if something went wrong and so the regulatory factor is very important. So I'm very proud of my sons in that they've carried on the tradition that I've tried to carry on in my life."

Gay lectures in Madrid at a Human Rights forum chaired by Bishop Desmond Tutu

Gay Kingman:

"What I learned was that there were other Indigenous people that are in the same category that we're in in our country. On June 25th of this year we'll be laying the memorial for the Indians that fought and died at Little Big Horn. My people, the Minneconjou Lakota, were the people that were totally annihilated at Wounded Knee, men, women and children. The children were followed up ravines and killed. The women were brutally mutilated and raped. For our people to have come through that and to have lived and to have survived is tremendous. And I like to think that my little part of the world where I've worked has had a hand in assisting with the improvement of human rights for Indian people. But I found out that it doesn't have to do with Indigenous I guess, with being a minority within a large majority. You're not respected and you're denied a lot of things. Our school systems on the reservation, if you look at the SAT scores, most of the school systems on the reservation are far below those off the reservation and it's not because the children are dumb it's just that they have less opportunities afforded them. These are all...there's so much to get done. In my life I guess I've tried to work on some of them."

A hope for the future and a legacy that could be shared

Gay Kingman:

"I'd like to see our sovereignty have true sovereignty where we're self-sufficient and our tribes are self-sufficient and our people aren't in poverty. My tribe and some of the tribes in the Great Sioux Nation live in, by the U.S. Census, some of the highest poverty in the United States, the counties that they're in and that shouldn't be in this United States with all of the wealth. When you think that we were self-sufficient here before the coming of the White Man, we had strong values that of fortitude and generosity and all of these things that kept us strong and I'd like to see that shared but until all people in this United States become out of poverty and self-sufficient, that would be my dream."

The Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times series and accompanying curricula are for the educational programs of tribes, schools and colleges. For usage authorization, to place an order or for further information, call or write Institute for Tribal Government – PA, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, Oregon, 97207-0751. Telephone: 503-725-9000. Email: tribalgov@pdx.edu.

[Native music]

Videotaping and Video Assistance
Chuck Hudson, Jeremy Fivecrows and John Platt of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Editing
Green Fire Productions

Photo Credit:
Photo collection of Gay Kingman and Tim Wapato

Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times is also supported by the non-profit Tribal Leadership Forum, and by grants from:
Spirit Mountain Community Fund
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, Chickasaw Nation
Coeur d'Alene Tribe
Delaware Nation of Oklahoma
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe
Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians
Jayne Fawcett, Ambassador
Mohegan Tribal Council
And other tribal governments

Support has also been received from
Portland State University
Qwest Foundation
Pendleton Woolen Mills
The U.S. Dept. of Education
The Administration for Native Americans
Bonneville Power Administration
And the U.S. Dept. of Defense

This program is not to be reproduced without the express written permission of the Institute for Tribal Government

© 2004 The Institute for Tribal Government

Frank Pommersheim: A Key Constitutional Issue: Dispute Resolution

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

University of South Dakota Professor of Law Frank Pommersheim discusses the key constitutional issue of dispute resolution and presents three cases demonstrating how tribes are endowing their constitutions with legitimacy through the careful, thoughtful resolution of disputes.

Resource Type
Citation

Pommersheim, Frank. "A Key Constitutional Issue: Dispute Resolution." Tribal Constitutions seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. May 1, 2012. Presentation.

"I plan on leaving a lot of time for questions so we can have a good discussion. But I want to start by saying this, a number of you came up to me during the break asking me if I was Johnny Depp. I thank you for the compliment, but I'm not. But I appreciate that. But I also want to start by giving two examples of the importance of words and vision, because people have said how important words are and how important vision is, and I want to give from my own experience two concrete examples. One is very short but to the point. The second is much longer and had a much more profound influence on me. The first is, I think a number of tribes are aware that they have drug courts, that there's good funding that comes from the Justice Department and from the Bureau of Indian Affairs not only to tribes but to other communities around the nation to deal with the issue of drugs. And it looks to try to work with people who have drug problems and not focus so much on their criminal behavior. A very, very positive thing, a good thing. The federal government is actually trying to do a good thing in that way. But the people at Rosebud [Sioux], they think it's a good thing, but they didn't like the term drug courts because ‘drug court,' it sounds negative. And so what they did without anyone's permission, they just changed the name to ‘wellness court.' So the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has a wellness court that focuses on working with people who have committed crimes and have been involved with the use of drugs. But just think about that for a moment. To me that's a real profound difference between working with a drug court and a wellness court, because it shows the commitment of the people at Rosebud, that they want their members who have committed crimes who do have drug problems, they want them to be well. It's just like one word, the difference between ‘drug' and ‘wellness.' To me, it makes a tremendous amount of difference. And I actually see it in action, because when I listen to the tribal trial judges at Rosebud, when they talk about the wellness court, they talk about it with pride. They talk about how tribal members are really being healed and they're really changing. And I think part of that is because the drive is to get them well, not to punish them, not to be indifferent to the wrongs that they may have done, but to really focus on the good things. And I think one of the things to keep in mind in the context of tribal institutions in the courts, where I have most of my experience, or in a context of constitutions, is without being naïve, without being simple minded, to focus on the good and to focus on the positive.

The other example I want to give is a little bit broader example, because people are talking about sort of the importance of vision. And I think sometimes the word ‘vision' is kind of overused. It's a good word, it sounds great, but what does it actually mean? And I want to give one example. And again this comes from Rosebud. Thirty-five years ago, 40 years ago, before there were community colleges on most reservations, there were none. But there was one man at Rosebud by the name of Stanley Redbird, and Stanley had the vision that he wanted to start a college on the Rosebud Sioux reservation. No federal funding for it, no one had even really heard of that idea. But Stanley said, ‘We should have a college on the reservation. Why should people from Rosebud have to go off the reservation to go to college?' Well, it seemed obvious to most people. Rosebud Sioux reservation is in the middle of a very rural place in South Dakota, extremely impoverished, and you would think or most people would think, ‘You can't have a college here.' But Stanley had the vision, and he persisted. And he himself was not a college graduate. He himself was not even a high school graduate, but he persisted in his vision, and gathered around him a number of Native and non-Native people and said, ‘We can make this happen.' Without funding, without accreditation, but he had the vision, and his vision energized people, that you could do a good thing. I think that's a tremendously important thing, to be able to be energized by a vision to do something good, and in the context of starting a college. It started very slowly. Today it's fully accredited, offers not only AA [Associate of Arts] degrees, offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, [and] is getting certified for the first Ph.D. to be offered by a college on a reservation. Tremendously powerful. But the second part of that which kind of brings together a number of themes that I was hearing during the day is, education for what? Regis [Pecos] talked about Head Start. Head Start for what? And it's a very important question. Everybody's in favor of education, except some -- oh, this is recording -- except some Republicans. It's a joke. The thing is, is education for what purpose? And Stanley's vision was sort of the two-road approach. He wanted people educated on the reservation to know their tradition and culture, not just as something they knew, but something they could incorporate in their professional lives as teachers, as counselors, as lawyers, as doctors, but also not to ignore the good things that also come from the dominant society. And so the notion was to strike a balance, a creative balance. Hence, the two-road approach. So the people who went to college at Rosebud, at Sinte Gleska University, would know the best of the two roads. And so it was yes, education but education that didn't mindlessly accept the dominant society's view of education that meant just non-Indian, non-Native ways. That was unacceptable to Stanley and the people he gathered around him. So oftentimes there is a convergence at a high level of abstraction between Native and non-Native people about important issues, including constitutions. But one of the things you have to think through is below the abstraction, is what do you really want? And this has been one of the themes that I've been hearing all day is, what do tribal people want in their constitutions? How can you think about a tribal constitution? And Regis [Pecos] and Joe [Kalt] and others have given some very important ways to thinking about it.

I just want to add one or two things that are much more sort of practical in a way. One of the ways of thinking about law -- and I always have this for my students whether they're law students or not -- is you just ask, ‘What is law about?' Because I'm a teacher, I'm tempted to call on Bob [Hershey] to see if he could give me a good definition of what law is. But to me, what it is, it's about two things. It's about power and it's about values. Every law that exists, knowingly or unknowingly, is trying to support a particular value, and because it is the law, to a certain degree it has power behind it, because the power is what makes us obey the law even if we don't want to. So whenever we think about law -- there are good laws, there are bad laws, they cover the range, the continuum -- but the important thing always to ask ourselves is, ‘What is the particular value in that law? And what is the power that that government -- whether it's a tribal government, state government, provincial government, United States government -- that uses to enforce that particular value?' And so when tribes are thinking about constitutions, to me those are the two most important elements. What are the values? And that's the theme we've heard most of today -- that constitutions are about values. Absolutely critical, absolutely kind of central, but the other part, and Joe mentioned this a little bit, is sort of the power, because one thing that constitutions do -- and sometimes may or may not make you uncomfortable in talking about it this way -- is what? It distributes power, and that's just the reality of what a constitution is supposed to do in part -- to distribute the values, to distribute as it were the sovereignty, that a nation has to its constituent forms of government. And so when you think about constitutions broadly, those are the two things I would emphasize. What are the values that you want to see recognized, enshrined and supported in your constitution? And I think in many tribes there's quite a bit of convergence about that. Where there's more divergence is how you're going to distribute the power in the government to recognize and carry out and establish those values. And I think that's a very, very important kind of balance to keep in mind. How do you want to distribute the power?

When you look at that, roughly speaking, there's two ends of the continuum to look at. One is, traditionally, inasmuch as any tribe knows its true traditions, how was power distributed in your tribe traditionally? And two, is that still possible in some way today, in whole or in part, or not available at all today? Then the other model that's out there, which I think is a good model but it's a bit dangerous, is the model of the United States Constitution, the three branches of government, checks and balances, separation of powers. Well, they're good things, kind of, but I'm going to have a little asterisk next to them, because they're not inherently good unless that's what the people want. And one thing that's also true, because we were talking about constitutions today in terms of a lot of pressure, good pressure, from tribal members saying, ‘We want to improve our constitutions. We want to make them better.' And that's a tremendously good, positive and important thing. But I think it's also true, and one note that hasn't been struck, is that there's a lot of pressure on tribes to amend their constitution that doesn't come from within, but comes from without. And this is particularly true in the context of economic development and Joe touched on it a bit. Today in South Dakota, routinely when businessmen want to do business on the reservation, you know almost the first thing they ask, ‘Does the tribe have a separation of powers?' Now most businessmen, when they say separation of powers, if you could ask them a follow-up question, they themselves don't know what the hell the separation of powers is. It's just what their lawyers tell them. And so part of the deal about the separation of powers is, businessmen aren't really interested in the separation of powers, they are just interested, justifiably so, they want a business atmosphere where they can make money and where the rules of the game are predictable. That's what they really want. And they've been told that separation of powers sort of guarantees that. And in some ways it does and in some ways it doesn't. So I think tribes have to pay close attention not only to what's coming up from themselves and their communities but certainly in the states and certainly in South Dakota, tribes need to be alert to -- not necessarily a bad thing -- but they need to be alert to the pressures that come from the outside that say the tribes have to amend their constitutions, particularly to have separation of powers, to create a good business atmosphere. That's fine. But tribes have to realize where the pressure is coming from and what they are reacting to, what they are trying to achieve. That is again, what are the values? And if one of the contemporary values is economic development, which it is probably in every tribe in the country, then it's a legitimate question, Joe Kalt was suggesting this, that a tribe needs to ask itself. What is it that we can or should have in our tribal constitution that will enhance economic development? And I think the major thing in a tribal constitution -- any constitution -- that enhances economic development is to have a structure and distribution of powers which creates a fair, predictable rules of the game, rules of the road. So if somebody's going to come to your reservation and do business, they're entitled to know what the rules of the road are. And if they don't like the rules of the road on your reservation, fine, they can go someplace else. But they are entitled, I think, to know, and when we talk about responsibility, arguably the tribe has a responsibility to people who are coming and perhaps doing business, tell them what the rules of the road are and what their constitution says or doesn't say about economic development. So I think it's important to keep track of these two streams of pressure for constitutional reform, because in my view there definitely are these two streams. Not just one stream from the people themselves, but there is this outer stream, and tribes need to kind of thread their way through that.

The other thing I wanted to talk a little bit about -- before getting to this dispute resolution issue -- is this notion of to me two critical things are, and this note has been kind of mentioned a few times as well, is legitimacy. Any constitution will only work because it's perceived as legitimate by the people who are subject to it, that you accept it. Bush v. Gore is being used as an example. A terrible decision, an outrageous decision in which then Chief Justice [William] Rehnquist himself said in the aftermath, ‘This case can never be used as precedent in any other case.' I mean a fairly frank admission that the decision, in my opinion, blatantly political, but most American citizens kind of shrugged and said, ‘Okay. A bad decision, but we're not going to abandon a constitution.' Why? Because there's a longstanding commitment to it as being legitimate. Legitimate not because of its perfection, arguably legitimate because of its imperfection. Because if any of you actually read the constitution, know its surrounding circumstances, it wasn't perfect at the beginning. I mean, the United States Constitution recognized and accepted slavery. How could that kind of constitution be a model for anyone if it recognized and legitimized slavery? And so it was imperfect. And actually although it's kind of slidden away, there were some good things in the Constitution from my point of view about the relationship of the United States, the fledgling United States, to Indian nations. There was a great deal of respect actually in the Constitution as originally written for tribal sovereignty. There's a recognition in the Indian Commerce Clause that Congress only had the authority to recognize and regulate trade with Indian tribes, not to regulate the trade of Indian tribes. The Constitution recognized that the fledgling United States didn't have the authority to go into Indian country. It said basically, ‘You're sovereign, we make treaties with you. You're sovereign, you're separate.' Commerce is important to us, and so in our distribution of powers, that power was granted to Congress. So it was Congress who had that authority, and also an important issue in the context of the Constitution was that there was tension and battle between the fledgling federal government and the states who would have authority to deal with Indian tribes. The United States Constitution placed all that authority in the federal government, none in the states. And within the federal government, they gave all that power strictly in the area of commerce to the legislative branch. But this segues into the next thing about interpretation. Unfortunately it was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1903 called Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock and all that stuff that I just said, the Supreme Court at that time just leapfrogged the plain meaning and the historical backdrop to the Indian Commerce Clause and said somehow, ‘Congress has plenary authority in Indian affairs, complete, untrammeled authority.' But it takes some work to get that from the text of the Constitution and from its history. And so this notion of legitimacy is absolutely central.

And when I think about legitimacy, I think there are three components to it in the context of Indian Country. Legitimacy comes primarily from the people. Tribal citizens who need to be consulted and hopefully participate directly and often in developing their constitution and/or amending that constitution when it's necessary. Because I think the ultimate source of power for any sovereign is ultimately not really in the government but in the people. Because the thing that's often left out when we talk about or learn about the United States Constitution in basic civics is the power comes from the people, and the people reserve that right to make changes in the Constitution, to amend it, to bend it however necessary to meet contemporary standards. And so my understanding in working with tribes in South Dakota that they have basically the same view is that the power is ultimately in the people, not in the government. And so one important component of legitimacy comes from the people. So when a constitution is being discussed and when it's ultimately voted on, how many tribal people are participating?

And two is part of that, the second group that's important, is the leadership. Official, unofficial, elected, not elected, traditional, non-traditional, people who are perceived as leaders. This is what leaders do. The best definition I ever heard of leadership is, leadership is managing learning in a group. That's what leaders do. They manage learning in a group, whether it's in a family, whether it's in a classroom, or whether it's being chair person of the tribe or president of the United States. And so authentic leaders -- and this idea of legitimacy -- they're the ones that manage in a good way the learning that takes place. That's what good leaders do, whether elected or not, none of that.

And then finally, I don't know if Joe's still here, Joe, no, Joe's not here. I'm coming to the defense of lawyers. Yes, indeed. The third group that is important, and I mean this quite seriously and I'll explain it, that lawyers are important. No, strike that, good lawyers are important, because it is true that ultimately in the modern world, constitutions at some point have to be drafted and written in a very, very thoughtful, complete, precise way, and the persons on balance who should have those drafting and expressive skills are lawyers. But it's also important to remember -- and I always tell my students this -- the people who have caused the most destruction in modern Indian law today are largely lawyers. Because lawyers, I tell my students, if a tribe is represented by a lawyer, and the tribe asks the lawyer, ‘Can we do this? And the lawyer says, ‘No, you probably can't do it because you haven't checked with the federal government.' That lawyer should be fired. He's just engaged in malpractice. But on the other end are lawyers, a tribe asks, ‘Can we do this?' And those lawyers say, ‘Well, you can do anything, you're sovereign.' I also believe they should be fired, because you can get people off the street to give you that kind of advice. It takes a lawyer with understanding, nuanced understanding, of what the tribe wants to do. But it's not a blank slate. History is out there. It doesn't mean you cave in to history, but good lawyers can help tribes navigate the treacheries of past and current history and their interaction with the federal and state governments. I don't believe you can pretend that that reality doesn't exist, and that's what good lawyers can do. They can help. They never tell tribes what to do, but they can help tribes get from where they are to where they want to be in the best possible way that avoids difficulty down the road because tribal attorneys who say, ‘You're sovereign, you can do whatever you want, now pay me and I'm going to leave.' And the tribe is left with that legacy when that advice turns out not to be too reliable in today's real, complex world. So I think lawyers are important. But more importantly, good lawyers are important. And good lawyers in Indian Country, I think there are two essential characteristics that they need. They need to be good lawyers, they need to be smart, they need to have the skills to navigate the law and to draft, but they have to understand the tribe they work for. They have to understand its history and its culture and perhaps more importantly, this is a dangerous word, they need to have affection for the people they work with, because without affection I don't think you can really accomplish the important things that tribes are kind of struggling to do. So this thing about legitimacy is absolutely essential, because it will happen -- and I'm going to give some examples in a minute -- that tribes are faced with very difficult questions, and the notion is, once a decision has been made, a tribal constitutional decision has been made, is there enough legitimacy -- that as Joe was suggesting -- if you're on the side that lost or if you're on the side that doesn't like the result, because it's legitimate, will you accept a decision that you disagree with? It's easy to accept decisions that you agree with. That's easy. We can all do that. But it's very, very difficult sometimes for citizens, particularly when a constitution is new, is to be able to accept decisions that you disagree with. That's what legitimacy is. It means that the constitution and its values and its structures are more important than your individual feeling or the feeling of any particular group with the tribe. Because without a sense of legitimacy, constitutions are just a bunch of false promises, and I guarantee that to be true. If a constitution doesn't have legitimacy, it's false, because as soon as the tribe faces its first most difficult decision, if there's not legitimacy, the constitution will be finished. Because the constitution really only works, any constitution only works is because it's legitimate. This is what oftentimes we mean by -- though it's a phrase that's been overused and misunderstood -- about the ‘rule of law.' You always hear that phrase in Indian Country. Do tribes have the rule of law? Actually, you hear it more in sort of foreign policy discussions. Whenever we're helping out foreign nations, the two things that are always parroted is, ‘We want to bring the rule of law to this country.' Well, it's sort of a yes-and-no proposition. If you're bringing bad law to those countries, what good is the rule of law if it's bad? So the notion about getting the rule of law is that your commitment, as others have suggested, both from your mind and from your heart and from your tradition, is that you believe enough that you can accept a decision that is contrary to your own interests. And without that, I think constitutions are yet another set of false promises. So legitimacy is key, and it doesn't just happen one time as you're going forward to the constitution, but legitimacy is always at risk. You don't learn this in high school, but in the context of American history there have been instances involving the United States Constitution when its legitimacy was actually at risk, and no guarantee that it was going to work. And strangely or not strangely enough, the first genuine constitutional crisis in American history involved two Indian law cases decided by the Supreme Court in 1830 and 1831: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia. Most of you have probably heard about them. But the background of those cases were the state -- can you imagine this today -- in both of those cases the State of Georgia did not even appear to argue before the Supreme Court? Can you imagine that, that one of the constituent states to the Union in early days of the Constitution said, well, I won't use that word, but I'll use a nicer word and just say, ‘We're not going to appear before the United States Supreme Court, because it doesn't have any legitimacy to tell us, the State of Georgia, what we can or can't do in Indian affairs.' So you had amazing tension in those cases between the federal government and the State of Georgia. But you had even another tension. You had a tension between the executive branch and the judicial branch. You know, when the Supreme Court makes a decision, everybody plays by the rules, it's just enforced. But what happens -- particularly when it involves someone who's in prison -- if you don't play by the rules? Worcester v. Georgia, United States Supreme Court said to the State of Georgia, ‘You didn't have jurisdiction to convict these two non-Indian ministers who were preaching on the Cherokee Nation reservation and you wrongly convicted them. You have to let them go free.' And who would that be carried out by? Then-Chief Justice Marshall didn't go marching to the capital of Georgia to let those folks out. That's the responsibility of the executive branch of the federal government. That's the Marshals Service. Ultimately, it's the President of the United States. And what did the then-President of the United States say? Some people think it's apocryphal, but President [Andrew] Jackson said, ‘Whatever. Chief Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.' Meaning that the executive branch wasn't going to support a decision of the United States Supreme Court. Do you think the republic could endure if states felt free on a regular basis to not appear before the United States Supreme Court? Do you think the republic could survive if the executive branch on a routine basis said that it would not enforce judgments of the United States Supreme Court? And the answer is no. Fortunately -- or maybe unfortunately depending on your point of view -- is that what happened is that the court went into recess, President Jackson realized the republic was becoming unraveled. South Carolina passed the resolution they were going to leave the Union. And so he realized that he couldn't be, refuse to enforce a judgment and let the State of Georgia get away with its disrespect for the Supreme Court. And so he convinced the Governor of Georgia to pardon those two defendants who had been convicted. So right from early Indian law history there was a genuine constitutional crisis about whether the United States Constitution had enough legitimacy to survive that crisis. And it's important to realize I think, without inviting it, that sometimes tribes will face crises of their own about the meaning of their constitution. But my thinking is that you have to hold fast to the values and the structure that you can accept the decision, work with it, even when that decision seems to you to be against your interests and may seem to you quite wrong as a matter of constitutional interpretation. Because without legitimacy, constitutions cannot continue to function and that's the most difficult thing to establish at the front end, and it's the most difficult thing to maintain. And so it's important for tribes as they go through adopting constitutions or revising constitutions to insure that they have legitimacy. Legitimacy means what? Talking all the time, being respectful [of] what others say, particularly others that you disagree with, and that they're respectful of you and that you remember that you are united in your support of the values, you're united in the support of the structure, even though you might disagree with a particular decision.

So let me conclude by giving three examples and three cases that I served on the appellate courts of these three tribal nations. The first case comes from the Saginaw Chippewa in Michigan. People talked a little bit today about one of the critical issues for tribes in the U.S. is membership, enrollment. But nobody talked about the flip side of that and the flip side is disenrollment, a very painful, a very powerful force within a number of tribes. And so a case came up at Saginaw where the tribal council there began to disenroll people and a number of people thought it was just wrong. And so they brought a suit in tribal court raising the question, a very important question, ‘What power does the Saginaw Chippewa tribal council have to disenroll people?' It's a very powerful, though perhaps painful, question. And it would be a good question for all of you to ask yourselves, ‘What power in your own tribe does your constitution say about who has the power to disenroll for what reasons under what circumstances, or does it really address the issue at all? And so the case at Saginaw, and I'll simplify it a little bit, the view of the tribe was -- represented by an excellent attorney -- and the view that the tribe had plenary power to disenroll people for whatever good reason it thought. The challengers -- also represented by an excellent attorney -- took the position, ‘Well, if you look at the tribal constitution, it's an important, really basic question, what is the structure of this tribe's constitution?' And what it meant by ‘the structure' is this, and I think it's a very important question for every tribal member to ask about his or her constitution. And it is this: Tribal constitutions structurally, from an overall point of view, can be organized into two categories. One is what we might call a ‘plenary power' constitution. A plenary power constitution means in the text of that constitution, all the power of the tribe is granted to the tribal government and none of that power is reserved directly to the people, and there are tribal constitutions that do this, I've seen them. There are also many tribal constitutions, in fact probably more tribal constitutions, that are what I would call a delegated powers model, in which the power of the tribal people is delegated in a specific manner to the tribal government itself, and all powers not delegated or enumerated to the tribal government are reserved to the people. And I think, structurally, that is probably the most important structural question for tribes. All the power to the tribal government, or only some and the rest of it reserved to the people. And for those of you who are members of tribes that have tribal constitutions, look at your tribal constitution or look at it again and see how you would answer the question about whether it's an enumerated powers constitution or whether it's a plenary power constitution. So that was one of the big questions in the Saginaw case. And we reached the conclusion -- we being the court -- reached the conclusion that the Saginaw Chippewa tribal constitution, which was adopted in a revised edition in 1986, was an enumerated powers constitution, and the tribal council only had the expressed powers that were set out in the constitution. And so we went then to those enumerated powers, and there was some limited, direct recognition of the power of the tribal council to disenroll people. But they were very limited powers. They were limited to members who were enrolled in more than one tribe, and it also mentioned that they had the power to disenroll people who had been adopted into the tribe and their parents divorced. It didn't seem like the constitution gave the tribal council any broader power. Then the question was, ‘Does the tribal council have any inherent powers to disenroll?' ‘Cause that's another thing that comes up sometimes. It comes up with the United States Constitution, sometimes comes up with tribal constitutions. Even though it's not specifically mentioned in the constitution, does a tribe under some circumstances have inherent power to do X. And we decided in the Saginaw case that the only inherent powers that the tribal council had to disenroll people were for two reasons. If it could be proved that a person became a tribal member through fraud. We took the position that a tribe must have the inherent power to disenroll people if they can prove that those people became tribal members through fraud or mistake, because sometimes mistakes happen in the context of enrollment, particularly in the context of blood quantum, ‘cause blood quantum ultimately is what? It's ultimately a math problem, and so if you have somebody working in the enrollment office that's not that good at math, they might have got the fractions wrong and someone gets enrolled not because of fraud, but because of a mistake, and that's the position that we took. But that's not quite the end of the story, because it all doubles back to legitimacy. We made that decision and we said that the people who had been disenrolled had been disenrolled improperly, and if the tribe was going to disenroll them, they had to have another disenrollment ordinance, they could only do it for the grounds that were identified in the constitution and they had to provide due process, notice and the opportunity to be heard. This is very important from a tribal judiciary point of view. It's how you say what you say, because when we made that decision, the tribe might have said what? They might have said, ‘Go fly a kite.' They might have fired us on the spot.

So when a tribal court makes an important decision interpreting the tribal constitution, this is where legitimacy comes into play, because sometimes tribes can, will, although they're less likely to these days, is to say, ‘No, we don't recognize you the tribal court, and we're just going to go about what we've been doing.' And so there are two things there. One is -- and I'll give another example in a moment -- is how well tribal decisions are written, how thoughtful they actually are, how familiar they actually are in talking about tribal tradition and custom, because in the context of the Saginaw case, we looked back to the history of enrollment for the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. It had a lot of adverse, troubling conditions imposed by the federal government that created a very difficult situation in Saginaw in determining members and it wasn't really the tribe's fault. It was the fault of the federal government who created these kind of crazy rules. But we understood that and we said that. And we tried to show respect to the tribe itself -- meaning the executive branch -- and to the plaintiffs and to tradition and custom. We talked about unity. We talked about respect. And they're just words, but you can make the power of expression, you can use the right words the right way and you can make a powerful expression. And so -- and this is my opinion and I'm not neutral because I worked on that case -- the tribe didn't like the decision. They definitely did not. But what did they do? They accepted it. You could see it in the tribal newspaper. It's incredible. It's like the statement in the tribal newspaper reads like this, ‘We disagree strongly with the decision of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Court of Appeals, but we're going to follow it.' That's legitimacy. And so tribal courts themselves have a powerful responsibility, in the way you write your opinions, to show respect, to try to lead the way even when one side wins and the other side loses, is to try to show that there's a way of harmony, there's a way of respect. It might not always work, but you have to do it, I believe, and all good tribal judges and tribal appellate justices do that. You kind of think in the context of respect, and it makes a difference.

I'll give one other...I'll give two more examples. One was a case from Cheyenne River [Sioux Tribe], it's actually an ongoing case. Issue came up at Cheyenne River, because they have a provision in their constitution about redistricting. Their constitution -- as most tribal constitutions [do] -- say that tribal council members will be elected from certain districts. Well, at Cheyenne River the constitution was adopted, it's an IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] constitution. It was adopted in the ‘30s. And so some people were saying, ‘Well, the population and demographic patterns in those communities have changed dramatically and therefore there should be redistricting.' And interesting enough in the Cheyenne River Sioux constitution, it actually expressly says that you can amend the constitution and so you could amend for redistricting purposes, but it also said the tribal council shall redistrict. And arguably the tribal council hadn't redistricted, so there was a challenge saying that the tribal council wasn't carrying out its constitutional responsibilities to redistrict the reservation and I'll just cut to the interest thing. The plaintiffs, the challengers, the relief they were asking for, they wanted the court, they wanted the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals to make, to order the Bureau of Indian Affairs to supervise the next election or, in the alternative, they wanted the court itself, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals, to monitor and oversee the election. And the members on the court said, ‘We're not going there. What does that have to do with self-determination to ask the Bureau to come in and supervise an election?' And so despite ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the challengers, we didn't adopt their proposed remedy. We just said -- and again easier said than done -- we just said that we expect the tribal council, and we set a timeframe, to go forward and come up with a redistricting plan. And so there, there's another sort of cautionary note, that even when you rule in favor of one party in the context of a constitutional dispute, be careful about the remedy that you order to be implemented, even when it's requested by the parties. And again, it takes a certain kind of sensitivity to that.

Last example -- this kind of stuff hasn't been mentioned at all today -- and I do want to mention it and then I'll finish. This case comes from Rosebud. A lot of tribes in their constitution -- hasn't been mentioned at all today, maybe Joe mentioned it quickly -- but there's a lot of pressure internally and externally on tribes to insure in their tribal constitutions that they have Bill of Rights protections, that there is the right to free expression, free exercise of religion, all that. But also because many tribal constitutions in their Bill of Rights section -- if they have one -- is modeled after the Indian Civil Rights Act. And so oftentimes they'll be like sort of what we call Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. And so when you have that kind of language in a tribal constitution that is a direct replica of the Indian Civil Rights [Act] protection, this is just an example, against unreasonable search and seizure, and that language also models the Fourth Amendment, and then a tribal member is a criminal defendant in a tribal court prosecution, he wants to challenge his arrest. She wants to challenge the arrest as lacking probable cause. They want to say that evidence was seized impermissibly, and that the evidence should be suppressed and their conviction should be reversed. And this is a very important question for tribal appellate courts. When you have Bill of Rights-like language in the context of stuff that applies in the context of criminal prosecutions, does the tribe intend that that language -- and I'm just using the Fourth Amendment -- do they intend that it be interpreted just like the Fourth Amendment to the United States constitution, where there are warrant requirements, the exclusionary rule, all that kind of stuff, or do they mean something different? And if they don't have anything in the constitutional history or discussion when they adopt that language, they're not providing very much direction to the court itself about how it, that is the people, think about these constitution-like protections which have very similar language to the United States Constitution and oftentimes the Indian Civil Rights Act. And the tribe needs to speak -- when they're talking about individual rights because my experience has been with the tribes in South Dakota, tribes are interested in individual rights. To me, it wouldn't be accurate to say that tribal people are all sort of communal, they have no sense of individual rights. It's a balance, and the people who are adopting the constitution, if you're going to have that kind of language in the constitution, you need to provide some background for the court about do you mean just like the Fourth Amendment or not quite like the Fourth Amendment? So whenever you're copying language I guess, borrowing language that comes from the United States Constitution or from the Indian Civil Rights Act, it's really important that there be discussion, documents that show is it just the values that you're interested in, fairness and privacy, or are you inclined to want the exact rules that come from the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, particularly in the context of prosecuting tribal defendants? If you believe that exclusionary rules should apply, that means X number of tribal convictions are going to be reversed. Is that where the tribe stands as a matter of value or not quite, [it] may have something else in mind.

So those are just sort of three examples in three different contexts. Disenrollment, district representation and the rights of criminal defendants, where those are from three real cases [from] three different tribes that I've worked with in terms of interpreting. They're all about interpretation, because that's ultimately what courts do, because however well a constitution is drafted, and the well drafted the better, no doubt about it, but ultimately there are going to be issues of interpretation. And so you have to think about interpretation. And one of the ways the tribal people can aid the court ultimately in interpretation is not just simply adopting the constitution and the language but the stuff that goes with it. Are there tribal constitutional debates, meetings, that are recorded that become part of the tribe's constitutional record, so that when a case comes up and people say what the people really meant was X, that there is testimony, oral history reduced to writing about how tribal people -- the people who give the constitution legitimacy -- how they were thinking about that particular provision of a constitution. Because it's totally inaccurate to think that a constitution is simply going to be interpreted based on the bare bones text that's in the constitution, however well it's been drafted. And so to me two key things that bracket constitutional thinking is legitimacy now, forever and always, and interpretation and an ongoing kind of commitment of tribal people to their constitution. And it might need revision at certain times. The United States Constitution has been amended any number of times. Very few constitutions survive and have authenticity and legitimacy without the necessity of being amended at certain times. And again it's a very powerful notion in terms of education, because education is a very valuable component that gives legitimacy. Because too often the education that people get in high school and even in college about the United States Constitution I don't believe is very effective or fair, because it's too, it's too self congratulatory about the constitution is great, we're great, duh. There's got to be more to it, because a long-lasting constitution is not inherently great. It takes legitimacy, it takes mistakes, and that's what tribal people themselves I think have to realize, and your children and grandchildren, about it's an ongoing process to be educated to think about any constitution, but particularly a tribal constitution.