Tulalip Tribes

Joseph P. Kalt: Sovereignty: Your Best Tool for Development

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development Co-Director Joseph Kalt share some innovative ways that Native nations have exercised their sovereignty in order to foster sustainable economic and community development.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Kalt, Joseph P. "Sovereignty: Your Best Tool for Development." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 25, 2009. Presentation.

Joseph P. Kalt:

"What I'm going to do is...this is fun for me. Part of what our jobs let us do -- [because] we work for universities and we don't really have to work -- is we get to drive around a lot and see the world and see really cool things out there. And so the real title of my talk is ‘Some Cool Ideas We See Out There That Might Be Interesting to You.' [Because] part of our job...I had, actually, a tribal chairwoman up in the Pacific Northwest one time say to us, ‘Oh, I get you guys. You're just a pipeline; you suck up information over here and shoot it out the other end.' [Because] you guys are too busy. You don't work for universities; you don't get to run around like we do and just sort of hang out. Really, some cool ideas we see out there, maybe they'll be useful to you. But the theme is, the theme is ‘Sovereignty is your Best Tool for Development.' You can feel in these sessions the only policy that's ever worked to turn things around in Indian country -- rebuild the communities, give people jobs, rebuild families -- is self-determination. That's the only policy that's ever really worked. Why? Well, sovereignty is a tool of development. I'm just going to show you (if I can figure out how this works...see I can do it; here we go) some cool ideas, things we see out there, people using their sovereignty as an asset, just like having money in the bank.

Create a city: what a cool idea! All around the earth we human beings, everywhere, we create little towns. Just pause and think about it. We do that, that's what we do. And they usually have a title like alcalde, if you're in Mexico, or mayor or something like that, whatever. You go out in Indian Country and quite often, there's only one town with any government. It's in the central, where the tribal headquarters are. Why is that? Why don't we see more? Not just a little community, but a real self-governing town? We human beings do this because someone's got to decide what the speed limit is down there on the road. Someone's got to decide, 'Where are we going to locate the solid waste facility?' Somebody's got to decide these very local things that all over the world we human beings have to face, but you don't see it in Indian Country. The tribal government, the central tribal government does it all. Why is that? ['Jurisdiction.'] What do you mean? She says 'jurisdiction.'"

Audience Member:

"The town of Mission, on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, is the only real city in Mission, South Dakota. And they have their own functioning city council and this kind of thing. So it's a jurisdictional issue for us because if a non-Indian gets a DUI, then the city sheriff would pick them up and haul them in."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"And one of the reasons everything out there is run through the central tribal government is because historically, when the feds controlled everything, they only wanted one government to deal with, partly so they could control everything. ‘If I channel all my money through you, name you tribal chair; well then I can control everything.' And so you've got this legacy out across Indian Country of -- like you say -- no towns, in the sense of little governments. Not big governments trying to rule the world, but just getting the little things of daily life done. Alright. So there's some real cool cases out there.

One of the fastest growing towns in Indian Country for the last ten years has been Kayenta on the Navajo [reservation]. Interesting. Notice how I wrote that. That's the way towns identify themselves. You don't see that in Indian Country, right? [Because] of this legacy of, ‘We're going to channel those dollars so the federal government and all the power through the central tribal government [because] we want to control that. We don't want real self-determination for tribes. We want to control it.' What did Kayenta do? Well, they went out and basically said, ‘Darn it, we're going to create a town,' basically, a township. And they said, ‘We're having trouble with things like, well...' It's no different than any other nation. They were complaining about the central Navajo Nation government, just the typical thing. There's nothing wrong with central Navajo Nation, it's just they had local needs down on the ground, so they go in and they create a township.

They didn't levy taxes. They're not called taxes; they're called fees, little business fees. And they convinced the local, very small business owners and so forth, ‘Look, if you'll pay small fees to support what we're doing, we'll go out and do things like go in and do all the archaeological surveys we need to do as one big block and create a little industrial or business area.' Because what was going on was every time anyone would want to open a business, it'd then take 18 months to do...’Well, we'll go do it ahead of time and figure out, okay, this is a safe place for our history. We can have some business. Oh, we'll also use our little fees to put in, oh, water lines, buy a fire engine,' the things that towns do, okay? Oh, and they promised the community business permits. ‘You submit a permit,' I think they said, ‘we'll have it to you within 10 working days,' not two years -- fast. We'll try to provide local service for you.

Here's another case. Quil Ceda. Quil Ceda Village at the Tulalip Tribes north of Seattle. This is a really cool case. Sort of like, ma'am, like what you were saying about Mission. Well, they're a little frustrated. They're sitting next to Marysville, Washington and Seattle sort of dominating them. So they went out and they created a village. And it's this chartered city. It's a separately chartered city. It's a separately chartered city. This is actually their charter. That's actually part of their charter. They said, ‘We're going to exercise our sovereignty and...' you can just eyeball it there. ‘There's going to be a village council, there's going to...' the bottom right-hand corner, ‘we're going to start putting in our own public utilities.' They actually now have a company that runs the fiber optic system on the rez and it's taking over the cable television operation and the telephone operation and all the data stuff and so forth. They have ordinances and resolutions about how they're going to operate. They have administrative departments of clerks and treasurers. They have boards and commissions. They have taxes. They basically created a town.

They went to the feds and got their congressmen -- lobby, lobby, lobby. It's a federally chartered city. It's only the second federally chartered city in the United States. Anybody know what the first is? What's the first federally chartered? Huh? Washington, D.C. And now the Tulalips have the second federally chartered city. Why'd they get it federally chartered? [Because] they're getting -- don't tell anybody else -- they're getting ready for a big fight with the State of Washington over taxation. And by getting themselves federally chartered they can build an argument that, ‘Hey, wait a minute, Washington. We're not a city of the State of Washington, we're a city of the United States. You state, you don't have jurisdiction over us.' Pretty cool little try they're doing.

And what did they end up with? They've ended up with this economic powerhouse, just an absolute economic powerhouse. Quickly, their two basic businesses are two shopping malls. They just opened a major casino a year ago April, but they basically built themselves on two shopping malls. There's one of them. Just the classic big box stores; Home Depot, Walmart, etc. And then they have one of these high-end outlet malls. And the payoffs for them: jobs. It turns out by creating a city, it's like running a business. There's lots of jobs. ‘Oh, I now have to have a crew, because I've made myself a city, I have to have a crew who takes care of the strips along the roads of the grass and so forth [because] you've got to keep vegetation a little ways off the roads so you don't have fires and so forth. Oh, and I have to have my own water company and I have to have my own cable TV company and I have to have my own building inspectors and I have...' and on and on and on. If you pause and think about it, it's actually a pretty good business because you create all these jobs.

They now are the economic powerhouse of their region. I think they employ something like three times more people than are members of the tribe, or at least adult members of the tribe. And most of their citizens are working for their tribal government. Go ahead and let somebody else stand behind the cash register at Walmart. Their tribal members are out there running the highest tech -- I took a tour recently of it -- running the highest-tech water treatment facility in the United States. They've got this, they've got a special -- I'm not very good at science -- but it has something to do with a membrane that you push the water through and so forth. And they're now being looked at around the United States as one of the best water companies in the United States. And they have fire departments and they have health inspectors and so forth -- income for people.

They started asserting jurisdiction. You gave me the perfect lead for this. They started asserting jurisdiction. Because now, ‘Wait a minute. No, thank you. Our cops will patrol here. No, thank you. Our school buses will go here. No, thank you. Our health inspectors, our fire inspectors...' Jobs, jobs, jobs. But also, jurisdiction, jurisdiction, jurisdiction: using that power to create a town, using sovereignty to create economic development, but also to expand their jurisdiction. Also, in the process, building an unbelievably qualified and capable set of employees. They're sitting there now as the economic powerhouse, as the economic powerhouse in their region.

So what happens? They get invited to every damn meeting. They're starting to complain. They basically are starting to be treated like another county or city [because] they're so powerful. All the other governments around them have to recognize their sovereignty and have to deal with them. And so they now have these employees who are getting so well trained, they go to the meetings and they're the dominant, they dominate the meetings. They go to the meetings with the surrounding counties and they're going to have a meeting on, they have big problems, they live right on an interstate highway and -- the weirdest thing I ever heard -- right on this interstate highway, whenever they need a medevac [helicopter], they close down I-5, right in front of the Tulalip's, and land helicopters and it causes all the traffic to have to get off the freeway and run through the middle of Tulalip. Well, this creates all this jurisdictional trouble. The tribe basically controls the process, because they've got the best traffic planners out there. They can tell you -- it's just fascinating -- they can tell you exactly the rate at which light posts will be demolished by cars at parking lots. You might think it's crazy but it's some crazy...They have to apparently replace like 65 light posts a year. They all cost like $8,000 or something like that. But they're in charge of this in building essentially a city that is dominating their region.

Jurisdiction: it also gives them pride. They're the ones calling the shots on water treatment. They're the ones calling the shots on traffic control. It may seem like little things, but now the kids grow up with a different image in their mind, don't they? The kids grow up thinking, ‘Hey, this is sort of cool. Yeah, we go down to that meeting with the counties and we're there. So they're kicking butt. We know what we're doing. We've got the best-trained people. We've got jurisdiction.' And you see that resurgence of pride. How did they do it? How did they do it? How did they do it?

They started to get a mentality -- when I talk to people there -- they start to get a mentality that they don't run grants and programs, they don't have a housing program, they don't have a fire prevention program, they don't have a street-paving program run on some grant. They have departments. They're a government. They're a city. They have to do all of these things. And it's a change in mentality to think, ‘We're not just here living from hand to mouth.' And if someone funds highways next year we'll have a highway program. Nuh uh. They're investing in the planning, building the infrastructure to be departments, if you will, not grants.

And codes for everything. Codes for everything. These guys are code mad. They have the health code, they've got the fire code, they have the code for how far the sidewalk has to be placed away from the street, how often the grass has to be cut next to the street. Why did they do that? Why would anybody...they spend all their time writing codes, writing codes. Jurisdiction. They describe it as just a shield. When somebody wants to assert, ‘You don't have authority to have your own fire department.' You pull out, ‘Yes, I do. See my code? See my code? I do too.' ‘Where'd you get it?' ‘Well, our government created it. Well, that's the same way you, City of Marysville, got your fire department is you created a code.' So this tribe very much is conscious of the number, one of the main tools they have now to fight with over this issue of jurisdiction, is they basically any time anyone comes at them, 'Well, you don't have a good health department.' 'Wait a minute, my health department's better than your health department.' They're very aggressive, very, very aggressive about this.

They also have an attitude. 'We're going to do it ourselves and we're going to do it better. We're going to do it ourselves and we're going to do it better. When we walk into that meeting, when we walk into that meeting with the counties on traffic flow, or whatever it is we're going to do, or sharing the cost on repaving a road that cuts across the res, we're going to be better prepared, we're going to have better training, we'll have harder numbers. And if you fail me, if you don't do your job and don't show up, you're not going to have this job anymore as the head of our highway department.' I'm picking on you, I don't know why. You look like a nice guy, too, I don't know. My point is, they have this attitude and they hold each other to it. It's an attitude of, ‘Look, guys, let's go out there and really, really be a nation.' In this case, be a city. They hire the best. They hire the best.

Now, that sometimes means they don't hire Indian, but it doesn't bother them because they say, ‘Well, we're in charge.' Now watch me pick on somebody. ‘I'll hire this white guy here to be my police chief.' Why? Because he's the former president of the State of Washington's police chief's association and no one's going to be able to come in and push him around. Now, sure, part of his job is to try to get a young Tulalip guy to come along and be the next police chief, but the attitude is one, ‘We're going to go out there and we're going to get the best, and I don't care if you're Native or not [because] we the city, our sovereignty, our jurisdiction controls you.'

And then taxes...and not grants. It's that same mentality. It's that same mentality. All over Indian Country, people have to live in this environment in which the governments are so weakened because people keep taking jurisdiction away. Most governments in the world, it's actually not an evil thing -- if you provide services back to your citizens, it's not an evil thing that you go out and levy taxes. And so this tribe is sitting there, taxing these businesses -- actually trying to tax even more -- starting to tussle with the state, as you can imagine. But again it's that mentality of being a real government. They don't spend their time with grant writers. They've got a couple, I think they have one grant writer, but that's not what they fundamentally do. They don't make their life and their livelihood off of that mentality. They say, 'Look, we're going to provide services to our citizens and to the people who are in our shopping malls. We're going to provide them services and we provide good services, actually people don't complain.' And the result of this is they are not putting pressure on their neighbors, these sort of horribly run cities around them, who are now having to reform themselves because the non-Indian citizens at the next town were saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Quil Ceda Village is much better run than the town of Marysville.' And so you start to see that assertion and the pride and the ability to get these things done.

Now maybe this works for you and maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But it's a pretty cool idea in terms of using your sovereignty, using sovereignty to really go out and make it an asset in the fight for development and jurisdiction. A couple more real quick ones. Start taxing: another cool idea. But maybe you don't call it that. It's still a bad word. I'm not stupid. But, well, maybe I am stupid; you guys can judge that later. But start taxing. Why? Because you're trying to get off of that system of, ‘Oh, is my department going to survive depending entirely on whether I can go get a grant,' and whether, ‘you got sick last year and didn't get the grant written,' or whatever it was. But to do it, you've got to do the first thing, in a sense. And it doesn't have to be a city. The message obviously is if you can provide capable and high-quality services to the people, they turn out not to fight you quite so much about that second thing up there.

Examples: 2002, the Navajo Nation instituted the first comprehensive sales tax in Indian Country. What did they do? They earmarked it for things that met their priorities, for their priorities -- trust fund, land acquisition, local governments. And then they had smart and culturally based exemptions. Cultural organizations not subject; if you're selling things and you're a non-profit, not subject to our sales tax, for example. [Because] you're trying to design a system that works for you, not somebody else's sales tax. The payoffs? Started to build the missing infrastructure. What do I mean by missing infrastructure? All around Indian Country, I'll give you an example, there are no street lights [because] the feds never fund street lights. Another one: dental clinics, eye clinics. It's real interesting, you look around Indian Country, as tribal governments start to generate their own resources under their own jurisdiction, you can see actually where the missing stuff is, the missing services. Things like eye care never was a priority. Teeth. ‘Oh, teeth didn't seem...' ‘Well, wait a minute. Why should some outsider tell me whether my teeth are important?' And also, again it's very interesting -- here's a guy standing up here to tell you to go tax your people, but in all honesty it starts to send a signal. This is our government. It's a government of us. It's a government of the people.

One last idea: leverage your sovereign immunity. What do I mean by that? Incorporate under your own laws. It's kind of a movement around Indian Country now. Why incorporate under the State of Montana law? Why incorporate under the State of New Mexico law? Why not incorporate under your own law? And so you have cases; here's a tribe actually in El Paso, Texas, Ysleta Del Sur [Pueblo], can't get any economic development going. They feel like every time, they've got kind of a racist government around them in the State of Texas, and they create their own laws of incorporation. That's just parts of it there, sort of again, it's what the Tulalips are doing: codes, codes, codes. Well, in this case, we're going to create our own through our own jurisdiction. You don't have to incorporate in the State of Delaware or the State of South Dakota. You can incorporate here at this nation. This just goes on and on. It's interesting, Ysleta Del Sur is a Tigua, is Tigua. And so notice down at the bottom there: 'Corporate name shall be in the Tigua...' This is their law. The State of Texas, I'll guarantee you, never would have said, ‘Any business incorporated in the State of Texas shall have a Tigua name.' Ain't gonna happen, guys.

Challenge the nation with sovereign immunity. Waiving sovereign immunity? Where did this idea of immunity come from? Do you know where the word sovereign comes from? Do you know who the sovereign is? It's the king. This idea of sovereign immunity comes from British and European kings saying, ‘I am above the law. You, my subjects, cannot ever sue me or come after me in anyway. I am above the law.' Well, that's interesting. So the idea of sovereign immunity actually comes out of these Western European kings. Here's what real nations do with sovereign immunity.

My first one is, who wants to be West Virginia? Here's an interesting little tidbit. The poorest state in the United States is West Virginia. What's West Virginia also known for? They get on TV now and then. Coal mining. When do we see them? Yeah, or when there's an accident and there are 32 miners trapped in...now that's interesting, the government mine inspectors don't seem to work very well. We did a little analysis of the state constitutions around the United States. The State of West Virginia has the absolute strongest prohibition on any waivers of sovereign immunity of any state in the United States. You can't waive sovereign immunity in the State of West Virginia for anything. And they're the poorest place in the United States,

Now that's a tough issue, right? Wait a minute. Waive sovereignty? Well, waiving sovereign immunity isn't the same as waiving sovereignty. What real nations do all over the world because, face it guys, they're not going to lend you money unless there's some recourse. You're not going to get lended; no one's going to lend you money. So what governments do all over the world? They create international treaties. Example, the Treaty of Mauritius, [because] it was signed in this little country called Mauritius. A bunch of countries in the world said, ‘Okay, I'll deal with you, you deal with me. We'll set up our own separate court system. We'll set up our own separate court [because] I don't want to waive sovereign immunity into your courts and you don't want to waive sovereign immunity into my courts.'

Options: more and more tribes are succeeding in writing contracts in which they waive sovereign immunity on their company, but they don't waive sovereign immunity on the state, that is on their nation. They waive sovereign immunity into their own courts. 'Yes, you can sue my coal mine company. Yes, you can. I'm waiving immunity, but you've got to sue in my own courts.' That's what other governments do. That's what other governments do, except for West Virginia. West Virginia can't sue anybody from the state. And so those mine inspectors are just horrible, they have no accountability and they get on TV [because] they kill people. Waive sovereign immunity into your own courts. But to do that you have to have courts that work. You can talk a big talk, you can talk a big talk, but you have to have courts that work.

Second, waive sovereign immunity into international courts. Examples: Pacific Northwest. The Northwest Indian Tribal Court essentially says to a bank or a car dealer, ‘Hey, I'm going to waive my sovereign immunity, but we're going to waive it into the Northwest Indian Intertribal Court.' Oh, that's sort of cool. How's it work? Fundamentally it works if I'm a car dealer and I'm going to...'What tribe are you from? You're not Pacific Northwest. Okay, you're Tulalip. I'm going to waive...I'm going to sign a deal with you and if we get into a dispute, we're going to go into...Okay, I'll do it.' 'I'm the banker. I'll sign a deal with you. We're going to go into the Intertribal Court. We get to the Intertribal Court and nobody from your tribe can be on the hearing panel. We'll have judges from other tribes.' As long as you're not AIG, that's right. As long as you're not AIG, good point. So creating courts among tribes is one way by which you can provide assurances. Investors don't think the best things of state courts. It's not like people, like business people have great confidence in state courts. In fact the State of West Virginia has some of the worst courts in the United States. Indian tribes can out-compete by making yourself safer and a true rule of law.

Last point: waive yourself into arbitration. More and more tribes essentially say, 'We'll waive ourselves into arbitration,' meaning, you pick. 'If we get in a fight, you and the banker, we're going to...you pick one person, I pick another, so we're equal and then they'll pick a so-called neutral and we'll have...at least we'll have a level playing field.' But then you have the issue of -- and I'll tell you one last sort of cool story -- you have the issue of, if you have an arbitration award, who enforces it? Who enforces it if you have an arbitration award? 'You owe me money. The arbitrator, our arbitrator here just said you owe me $10,000,' and you go like this. You say, ‘I'm not going to pay you.' How do we enforce it? Very interesting. There's a very interesting case of a tribe borrowing like $110 million. They set up an arbitration clause and they had this big fight in the tribal council, should we waive sovereign immunity and here's what they did. It's kind of a cool idea. This is what I mean by challenging your own nation. We're trying to borrow $110 million. We don't want to waive sovereign immunity completely. We'll waive into arbitration. By that I mean, if we get in a fight, we'll go to arbitration and then on enforcement of an arbitration award, that will go to tribal court. If our tribal court won't enforce an otherwise proper arbitration award, then you can take us to state court.

This is a tribe that basically said, ‘Look, the tribal council meeting was cool. Look, we're talking big shots like we're sovereign and all that. We might as well back it up.' If we won't enforce our own agreements, what's it do? It puts the pressure then on the tribal council to make sure that they've got a good tribal court because that arbitration award, if it wasn't enforced by the tribal court, then it was going to go to state court. And the bank said, ‘Yes.' They've never had a fight, never had to do this, but it was enough for the investor to say, ‘Hey, we'll do it.' You waived yourself into your own courts.

Alright. I don't know, just kind of cool ideas we see out there, just kind of things we see that tribes are doing. Whether they work for you, I don't know. Everybody's different, but there's a lot of cool stuff going on out there."

Honoring Nations: Theresa M. Pouley: The Tulalip Alternative Sentencing Program

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Judge Theresa M. Pouley of the Tulalip Tribal Court discusses how the Tulalip Tribes reclaimed criminal jurisdiction from the State of Washington and then developed the award-winning Tulalip Alternative Sentencing Program, which she explains is a more effective and culturally appropriate approach to the administration of justice for Tulalip citizens. 

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Pouley, Theresa M. "The Tulalip Alternative Sentencing Program." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Duane Champagne:

"Our first speaker will be -- well, it was supposed to be Gary Bass, who is the head judge at Tulalip and he is one of the founders and sustainers of the Alternative Sentencing Program. But in his place, he's sent us Theresa Pouley, who is associate judge and who actually made the presentation at the Honoring Nations final program. They're 2006 honorees and have a very outstanding program, which I'll let Theresa tell you about."

Theresa M. Pouley:

"Well, I want you to know first that Judge Bass really wanted to be here and he is here in spirit, but he's also here in form. If you look at the 2008 applications [brochure], his picture's right here, standing next to me. And I thought a little bit -- except justices and judges are supposed to be more serious -- that I'd wear it as a little mask today so it was really Gary Bass, but then I changed my mind. I'm Theresa Pouley. I'm the associate judge. As chief judges often do, he delegated this responsibility to me to talk to you about Tulalip's Alternative Sentencing Program. And I was actually delighted. When I talked to Amy [Besaw Medford] and she called me on the phone, she said, 'Oh, this is going to be the feel good section,' and I was like so excited [because] nobody says 'feel good' and 'tribal court' in the same sentence ever. So what I'm going to do is just remind you that when I start out, it's not going to feel very good, but when I get to the end, just like Amy's been for this whole conference -- she's totally right, it is going to work.

I always start, when I do presentations like this, by thinking about words from our ancestors, from different tribes. And in this particular case, I thought about this saying from a Shenandoah proverb that says, 'It's no longer enough to cry peace. We have to act peace, live peace and live in peace.' And Tulalip's Alternative Sentencing Program is really geared towards doing those things. How do you act peace?

You look a little bit at the history of the Tulalip tribes  -- and this is not the feel good part of my presentation -- crime on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, which is located in western Washington, traditional fishing tribe, about 3,500 tribal members now -- the reservation by the time the 1980s and 90s came around was characterized by everybody who knew it as lawless. That's a pretty serious, and makes you take a serious sigh, about how the criminal justice system is operating at Tulalip. Now why is that? It's exactly the same as it is all over Indian Country -- the federal government took over traditional Native problem-solving and replaced it with a system of punishment and prison, and not a surprise, it didn't work at Tulalip. The main road that goes through the Tulalip Reservation was designated by the Washington State Patrol and virtually every other agency as 'blood alley' because of the number of drug- and alcohol-related deaths on its highways. In 2001, the Tulalip Board of Directors said, 'Enough is enough. We're tired of having state law enforcement on the reservation, we're tired of sending tribal members to state court, we're tired of having this reputation of lawlessness on the reservation, and we're going to take our community back. We are going to solve the criminal problems that happen within the boundaries of the Tulalip Reservation.' And they did.

They got a State [of Washington] piece of legislation, which retroceded all of their criminal jurisdiction under Public Law 280, and they took over and went about the business of adjudicating its own tribal members as guilty of crimes and holding them accountable for those crimes. Now, 2001, you had a huge influx of cases. So Tulalip Tribes never has heard a criminal case, never had a criminal defendant come before the bench before, and in a two-year period of time, they had 1,100 criminal cases filed in tribal court. Zero to 1,100. Imagine, if you will.

By 2003, Chief Judge Bass came to one conclusion that should have been easy for any judge to see all along, which is, his clients were all the same clients. And why were they committing crimes? Were they committing crimes because they had criminal behavior? No. They were committing crimes because 95 percent of the time, they had substance abuse issues. Over 60 percent of the time, they had mental health issues. Many of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because they were removed from their family's homes, because they were sent to boarding school. The issues that were bringing those clients to court simply were not being resolved, not on any day. So Judge Bass decided, in a Nike© kind of way, 'Just do it.' We can do it better than that.

So he created a special criminal calendar where he had clients come into court on a weekly basis and he asked them the question. 'I asked you to get a drug and alcohol evaluation. Did you get one?' And if they didn't, then he'd say, 'You're going to get one by next week and if you don't, I'll throw you in jail.' Throw you in jail for a long time like they would in the state court system? Warehouse you off 365 days? No. One day, to make the point. That's how important it was that you should get a drug and alcohol evaluation. Combined with that -- you know, modern technology is a wonderful thing. He used a system of urinalysis testing. It's a big joke at Tulalip, by the way. If you come in to get a will at Tulalip, you better be prepared to take a UA. You want a divorce, we're going to hand you the cup. Because, here's the key, early identification of drug and alcohol related issues and constant monitoring of sobriety is critical to your ability to comply with court orders. If the judge tells you that you have to get community service, that you need to get a job, you need to get a GED, what is the chance of you being able to accomplish that objective if you're addicted to drugs or alcohol? All of the state statistics will tell you exactly what the chances are: seven in 10 Native Americans in jail today are there because they did not comply with their probation. Why not? Because they're addicted to substances.

So a concerted effort was made by Judge Bass to change the way business got done. It was so successful on individual clients that the police were seeing, that the Chief of Police of the Tulalip Tribes went to the Board of Directors and said, 'I think you should pass a resolution. That resolution should require that we all investigate alternative sentencing and that we have a drug court.' And they passed a resolution implementing those things. So that's the history of how we get there. So now we know how we act peace. So how do we live peace?

We have Tulalip's Alternative Sentencing Program, which incorporates all the best values of the Native culture into a modern and traditional court system. First of all, you have regular and frequent reviews with the judge. And the judge is there not to punish you, the judge is there to encourage you to make better choices. If you do a good job, the judge is going to come off the bench and give you a hug. If you get your GED and graduate, your case is going to be closed. If you get a job when you haven't been employed for the last 20 years of your life, a round of applause is going to break out in the courtroom. That's how alternative sentencing works. We still had a group of clients that we couldn't reach, our repeat offenders who had been in court now five, or six, or seven, or eight times. And that particular system wasn't working. So the question became, what do we do with those clients? And the answer is, change. Change everything. And you start with changing the name. [Salish language]. The court 'giving the means to get stronger' is Tulalip Tribes' wellness court. Wellness court coordinates all of the services of the tribe. They all meet together once a week and those clients come forward and visit not just with the judge, but with all of the institutions of the tribe. Drug and alcohol counselor is there, mental health counselor is there, GED provider is there, Northwest Indian College is there -- everybody who has a vested interest in this person's life and in the requirements for that person sits at the table once a week. But remember, you have to change everything.

So imagine the courtroom. Now the courtroom is an entirely different place. They all sit in a circle. They start the proceedings and they open with a prayer. And everybody sitting around the circle, client, public defender, prosecutor, police officer, treatment provider, we all take our turn giving a prayer. And then all of the clients take turns doing closing prayers. Now Tulalip isn't a homogenous society. We have a variety of religions that are there, but we all get to learn and respect one another. These proceedings which happen in a circle, you don't sit on the bench–which is a problem for me when I do [Salish language], because I'm a little short, so sitting around in the circle sometimes is problematic, so I like to get up and wander around. You all sit in a circle, you open with a prayer, you close with a prayer, and they all watch out for each other.

When we first were awarded Honoring Nations in 2006, we'd just started [Salish language]. Now, we've had our first two graduates. The most rewarding thing, and this is what Amy's right about, is that I have a grandma who is a grandma to her grandchildren again, and a mother to her children again. The most rewarding thing is that I have a young mother who's 25 years old, who has four children who have all been removed from her care. And not only has she been clean and sober for eight months [because] she's got to come visit with the whole team every week, but now she's starting to get her children back. The Tulalip Tribes is planning on moving for an in-home dependency within the next couple of months. And not only that, as if that wasn't enough, her husband has always been a problem child. Since 2001, he was one of our very first criminal cases. And in 2006, he's still racking up charges. And in 2007, he's out of jail and on probation again. And guess what? He also is doing fabulously. The family's in family counseling, there's in-home services. We just gave them a congratulations card because, for the very first time in their life, they have a home with their children in it. You can just change everything and you do it just one at a time.

Now that's sort of the anecdotal information, but I'm always reminded, especially when I come to these gatherings, that it's not really my job. Nor do I get the luxury of seeing the results on a daily basis, but every once in awhile I get that reminder. We don't do this work for the mom, necessarily. We do this work to break the cycle of violence and drug addiction in our community that deprives her children and her grandchildren from being able to be tribal chairwoman. Actually, her children are all girls. So if they wanted to be tribal chairman that would be okay, too.

So if you act peace, live peace, how do you live in peace? You have to figure out how to incorporate the custom and tradition and values of the tribe into the justice system. Courts are not popular places. Nobody wants to come to court. I bet all of you when you thought you were going to talk to a judge you're like, 'Oh, man.' And I bet each and every one of you has a relative who's been to court and didn't have anything nice to say about going to court. Remember that separation of powers does not mean separation of solutions, and it certainly doesn't mean separation of problems. The Tulalip Board of Directors passed a resolution that said that we should plan a wellness court, that we should plan alternative sentencing, and the chief judge could have said, 'Absolutely not! You can't say anything about that. Separation of powers.' But he didn't because we have the same problems and we needed the same solutions. The same thing's true for the chief of police. He didn't ask those questions and he wasn't interfering with the province of the court. We need to learn how to work together. We have to quit thinking of our relatives who are in court as sort of the black sheep of our family. We have to love all of our clients and I really hope for every one of my clients everyday -- even when I send them off to jail once or twice -- that they get the message this time. [Because] I never know when I'm going to be looking at the chairman of my tribe, or when I'm looking at the mother of the chairman of the tribe. [Salish language]. That's the judge's role. The court's role is to give people the tools to help them be stronger. But that means everybody here -- this is all of your obligation -- you've got to talk to your local tribal court judge, bring them into the loop. Don't be afraid of passing a resolution. It is absolutely critical to our tribal members that we take the time to figure out how those disadvantaged people in our communities can be made whole, because if we don't, that's just perpetuated into another couple of generations. It's absolutely critical that you use justice systems to change behavior in a positive way. And when you do that, you go back to the more traditional problem solving.

At Tulalip it was like this all the time. From my own family it's absolutely like that. Court becomes a place where there's teaching to be given, not only to the person who's appearing in front of you, but to everyone else in the courtroom and everyone else in the community. Teachings are given. That's how we hand down particular pieces of information for the next generation. So, it's the old Shenandoah proverb right? Tulalip decided 'it's not enough to cry peace' anymore. 'We [absolutely] have to act peace, live peace and live in peace.' Crime rate at Tulalip, a year after this program, has decreased 25 percent -- 25 percent. That's an amazing day. And we get our mothers and our grandmothers back. We get our fathers and our grandfathers back. We do it for the future of our children in the ways of our ancestors. Thank you."

Tulalips wield new power against domestic violence

Author
Year

The Tulalip Tribes are now one of just three Native American tribes in the country to take advantage of a federal program designed to better combat domestic violence on tribal lands. In an agreement signed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office Friday during a regular meeting of the Tribes’ board of directors, tribal prosecuting attorney Sharon Jones Hayden was appointed Special Assistant U.S. Attorney with expanded authority over domestic violence cases...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Winters, Chris. "Tulalips wield new power against domestic violence." HeraldNet. The Herald of Everett, Washington. July 14, 2014. Article. (http://www.heraldnet.com/news/tulalips-wield-new-power-against-domestic…, accessed July 16, 2014)

First-time offenders learn accountability through diversion program run by tribal elders

Year

The 2012 Annual Tulalip Tribal Court Report states 415 criminal cases were heard in court. Included in that 415, are 24 newly filed criminal alcohol charges and 69 disposed, meaning judicial proceeding have ended or a case that has been resolved. Also counted in that 415, are 76 newly filed criminal drug cases and 126 disposed. Helping to tackle these numbers is a group of volunteer Tulalip elders, who are teaching offenders accountability in a traditional way, and saving the court thousands of dollars...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Montreuil, Brandi N. "First-time offenders learn accountability through diversion program run by tribal elders." Tulalip News. March 19, 2014. Article. (http://www.tulalipnews.com/wp/2014/03/19/first-time-offenders-learn-acco..., accessed May 5, 2023)

5 More Native American Visionaries in Washington State

Year

As the holidays kick in and people start looking ahead to the coming year, it is only fitting to acknowledge the leaders who will take Indian country into the future. Last month we brought you five Native leaders who are protecting rights, exercising sovereignty, building intercultural bridges and meeting future energy needs, among other accomplishments.

Now we bring five more who are rocking the world with their forward-thinking, innovation and their sense of social justice. With 29 of the 566 federally recognized indigenous nations located in what is now Washington State, the Evergreen State is a hotbed of visionary ideas...

Resource Type
Citation

Walker, Richard. "5 More Native American Visionaries in Washington State." Indian Country Today Media Network. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/5-more-native-american-visionaries-in-washington-state, accessed February 22, 2023)

Health, Innovation and the Promise of VAWA 2013 in Indian Country

Year

Yesterday morning, we made our way north from Seattle, past gorgeous waterways, and lush greenery to visit with the Tulalip Tribes of western Washington, where we were greeted by Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon, Vice Chairwoman Deb Parker, and Chief Judge Theresa Pouley. We saw first-hand, a tribal court system which serves to both honor the traditions of its people and to foster a renewed era of tribal self-determination...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Jarrett, Valerie and Tony West. "Health, Innovation and the Promise of VAWA 2013 in Indian Country." President Obama and the Native American Community Blog. Washington, D.C. September 06, 2013. Article. (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/09/06/health-innovation..., accessed May 31, 2023)

Key to Indian Development: Self-Government

Author
Producer
The Daily Yonder
Year

Beginning late in the last century, the economies of Indian nations in the United States began recording a remarkable turnaround.

Since the early 1990s, per capita income on Native American reservations has grown three times faster than have incomes in the nation as a whole.

American Indians are still poor – the poorest of any ethnic group in the nation, with 39% of the population living in poverty in 2000 and incomes less than half the U.S. average.

But the gains made among the 1.2 million people living in Indian Country have been dramatic. Something has been working in many Indian nations, according to two professors (Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt) who have studied tribal development...

Resource Type
Citation

Bishop, Bill. "Key to Indian Development: Self-Government." Daily Yonder. December 01, 2010. Article. (http://www.dailyyonder.com/key-indian-development-self-government/2010/1..., accessed August 1, 2023)

Growth a Source of Pride - And Strain - At Some Northwest Tribes

Author
Producer
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Year

The membership rolls at some Northwest tribes are swelling much faster than growth in the general population. Some of that increase is due to a high birth rate among American Indians. Also, rising prosperity from casinos and other businesses is luring Native Americans back into the fold. However, fast growth has strained the fabric of some tribes, while others wish they had more...

Resource Type
Citation

Banse, Tom. "Growth a Source of Pride - And Strain - At Some Northwest Tribes." Oregon Public Broadcasting, February 8, 2012. (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=146606951, accessed May 30, 2023)

VAWA 2 Years Later

Producer
Native America Calling
Year

It’s been just over 2 years since Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. In February of last year, three tribes participated in a pilot project to exercise the special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction (SDVCJ) portion of the law. Under SDVCJ, some tribes can prosecute Natives and non-Natives for domestic violence, dating violence or violation of some protection orders in Indian country. Tribes must meet certain requirements in order to assert jurisdiction but some are questioning if a non-Native can get a fair trial in tribal court. Join us as we discuss the outcomes of the pilot projects.

Guests:

Matthew Fletcher (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians) — director of the Indigenous Law & Policy Center at Michigan State University

Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribes) — Councilwoman for the Tulalip Tribes

Alfred Urbina (Pascua Yaqui) — Attorney General for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe

Resource Type
Citation

"VAWA 2 Years Later." Native America Calling. April 2, 2015. Audio. (http://www.nativeamericacalling.com/thursday-april-2-2015-vawa-2-years-later/, accessed April 6, 2015)

Melvin L. Sheldon: Refining Our United Vision

Producer
National Congress of American Indians
Year

Melvin L. Sheldon, Chairman of the Tulalip Tribes, provides an overview of Tulalip's building of a sustainable, diversified economy, and discusses some of the important steps Tulalip took to create a commercial environment capable of supporting business success.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Sheldon, Melvin L. "Refining Our United Vision." NCAI 2012 Annual Convention. National Congress of American Indians. Sacramento, California. October 23, 2012. Presentation. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl9JvnVkVmY&list=PLBjQrzrj0IyuAxD1KbDC..., accessed November 5, 2012)