Ian Record:

“Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I’m your host, Ian Record. On today’s program we are honored to have with us Terry Janis. Terry is a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and for the past year he has served as project manager for the constitutional reform process of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota. Terry, welcome and good to have you with us today.”

Terry Janis:

“Thanks, man. It’s nice to be here.”

Ian Record:

“Yeah, it’s good to see you again.”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah, yeah.”

Ian Record:

“So I’ve shared a few highlights of your personal biography, but I’m sure I left some pertinent things out. So why don’t you just tell us a little bit more about yourself.”

Terry Janis:

“From Pine Ridge, came over here to Minnesota, went to McAllister. From there went to Harvard for a master’s in education, University of Arizona for my law degree and several jobs since then -- kind of a balance between international Indigenous rights, land rights issues and broader national policy issues as well. So that kind of education -- law, law reform, policy development -- was a good fit for this particular job.”

Ian Record:

“So we’re here today to discuss constitutional reform”

Terry Janis:

“Right.”

Ian Record:

“a big topic across Indian Country and specifically, the work you’ve done on behalf of the White Earth Nation over the past year or so. As the White Earth Nation has worked to develop and then ratify, recently ratified, a new constitution, but the process has been underway there at White Earth for quite awhile.”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah.”

Ian Record:

“And can you sort of talk aboutcan you begin by talking about where White Earth was in the process when you came on board because as I mentioned, this thing had been underway for quite awhile before you joined the nation and its effort.”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah, they really started this effort of drafting a constitution in 2007 and it took them a couple of years. By 2009, they had had four constitutional conventions and came up with this draft. The number of delegates that participated in that process, voted on itthe idea was to approve a draft of this constitution that would then be moved to a referendum. That drafting process was completed in 2009 and it kind of sat there for a bit; I think part of the dynamics are complex. It’s difficult to move a constitutional reform process forward. The drafting process is critical and very difficult, but every stage subsequent to that is equally difficult and part of the issue was funding. And so a grant from the Bush Foundation helped them to move it to the next phase of really engaging in active community education process, move it then to a referendum, and then start to think, after that referendum depending upon the outcome -- and this one was positive -- to then look at the implementation process.”

Ian Record:

“Based on your understanding, of someone who is charged with helping to lead and implement that community education effort, what prompted the nation to go down the reform road to begin with?”

Terry Janis:

“I’m not from there, and because of that I don’t have the kind of personal insights or the personal biases that a person that’s from there would have. What I observed and the stories that I’ve been told is, like a lot of tribes, they went through a governmental crisis, a profound foundational crisis in the ‘90s with the 'Chip' Wadena administration; his conviction of embezzlement and how broad that was throughout their whole governance system. In reacting to that, not only did the people stand up in order to reassert an effective governance, but they really looked at the genesis of that: how did it get to that stage? And they immediately turned to the constitution.

And the conversations that you heard from that period of time, that were told to me when I got there, was how the constitution is so centralized in its power structure -- that the people, in power, can be dominated by a single person. And that kind of absolute power, in their experience, did corrupt absolutely. And so without any kind of way of balancing that they, as a reaction to that, they immediately moved to this kind of conversation of, ‘What can the constitution do to create checks and balances, to really have an independent judiciary and do those kinds of things?’ But I think that was the genesis of it.

So they actually started a constitutional reform process in ‘94, ‘95, ‘96. They drafted a constitution at that time as well and attempted to take that out into the communities. The stories that I’ve heard, both from the people that were doing it and the community members themselves, is there was just way too much tension still. They had gone through this amazing crisis. The communities were divided -- not just in two factions, but multiple factions -- so every time they brought this idea of a new constitution out into the communities, those factions and emotions really dominated the story line and it was just too premature. So they waited the 10 years. In 2007, brought it again and that’s where we stand.”

Ian Record:

“So you mentioned there was this profound governance crisis, if you will, that culminated in this high profile scandal. So they go down this reform road and in developing and ratifying, now ratifying, this new constitution system of government. What are some of the main things the nation is hoping to address? You’ve made quick allusions to them but”

Terry Janis:

“And I think that comes out of those crisis points. And what you see in this new constitution is a very clear separation of powers: a legislative body, an executive body and a judiciary. They clearly put a lot of time into that. Also the value of me not being in that drafting process, I wasn’t there, but you can see from the text itself that those parts of the constitution are clear, clean, deliberate and well drafted; that’s what they put their heart and mind and time and energy into. So there’s a very clear separation of powers, there’s clear establishment of an independent judiciary, they also put a lot of time into thinking about what it means to have a traditional government, something that’sin looking at separation of powers, you really harken back to the U.S. Constitution, which hearkens back to the Haudenosaunee constitutional form of government, but what you really get caught up in is it’s an American style of constitutional government -- the separation of powers, how they frame it, how they reference it -- but the way they do it is quite unique in the way of establishing mechanisms with language that tie it back to Anishinaabe traditions -- using Ojibwe language as a part of the constitution preamble and frame of governance, making sure that their judicial system isn’t just about punishment, but really emphasizes restorative justice -- engages the kind of most foundational aspect of the constitution in a way that depends on the people themselves to organize governance. So a range of different things that are quite unique that is really, I think, less controversial and more easily understood.

They also took on this huge issue of defining membership, citizenship. We all know or we should know about the way the federal government used blood quantum as a part of a military and colonial strategy to subjugate us. The ultimate result of that was our disappearance and that’s still on the books. And so they tackled that though with a very broad and dynamic rejection of blood quantum and move to lineal descendency. And that was a thing that came out of those conversations in 2007, 2008 and 2009. It’s part and parcel, very simple, very straightforward in the way the constitution defines it and it ended up being one of the most controversial aspects of their conversation.”

Ian Record:

“I think you’ve touched on some of these already, but from your vantage point, what do you see as some of the fundamental differences between the old constitution system of government, basically an IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] model, and this new creation?”

Terry Janis:

“I’ve talked about this new one. You got -- in order to make a comparison -- you’ve got to read their oldall of the IRA constitutions, but the MCT [Minnesota Chippewa Tribe] Constitution is even worse. And I’m not knocking MCT; they’re some good people, they’re trying to do good work with a bad system. But you’ve got to understand the history of the Indian Reorganization Act, its shift away from allotment; it ended the allotment process, which on its face is a very positive thing, but what this country was at that period of time, after the Great Depression, just before World War II, was all about assimilation. It wasn’t about recognizing the strength and sovereignty of Indian nations, it was about making Indian people white.

And the constitutions that came out of the Indian Reorganization Act, this model constitution that they had, the primary purpose of that was to make things easier for the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- their colonial objectives, their oversight, their kind of attitudes of superiority in having a trust responsibility towards Indian people actually owning Indian land, and Indian people having to ask for permission for using everything. These constitutions have at least a dozen, the MCT constitution has almost 30 specific places where before the tribe can do anything, they have to ask for permission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and it’s in their constitution. And so that’s their starting point.

And it establishes a mechanism where, for example, even though White Earth has the majority of the population, they’ve set up a governance structure in the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe where each of the separate bands is represented by two individuals on their governance structure. And so White Earth has over 50 percent of the population almost; they only have two votes out of 12. It is completely unrepresentative. There is no government in the world that would allow that kind of unrepresentative form of government and they accept it. It’s what they were forced to take up. The Bureau of Indian Affairs wrote their constitution for them. There’s no story or history or genesis of the language of this constitution coming out of Indian minds. It was the Bureau of Indian Affairs that wrote it, put all of these tribes together under one body so they didn’t have to build relationships with six separate tribes. They only had to deal with one entity.

So this is as colonial a system as you can imagine and me coming from the outside, I’m shocked honestly that they find a way to make it work, every day. But that’s where it’s coming from and having that conversation, and engaging that conversation as a part of this conversation, was a part of everything that we put together as well.”

Ian Record:

“Let me follow up on that. This is not part of our original questions, but this is something that I see come up in so many tribes I work with on the issue of constitutions and constitutional reform is...you’ve just shared with us a pretty deep knowledge of the genesis of, until recently, what was the law of the land for the White Earth people. And so often when these tribes struggle with this issue of, ‘Our constitution is inadequate. We pretty much understand we need to change it.’ It’s a whole other question of, ‘How do we do it?’ But a lot of folks contemplate reform without a full working knowledge of, ‘Where did our specific constitution come from? Did our own people have any meaningful say in its creation? Did they have any meaningful sense of ownership in this apparatus that they now use to make decisions and try to live as a nation?’ And how important is it for other tribes -- if people are going to look at White Earth as an example -- how important is it for other tribes to understand that historical context when they tackle the question of, ‘Do we need to change our current constitution and how?’”

Terry Janis:

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s all that important. At the end of the day, it’s relatively irrelevant because when you get to this scale of change, what you really have to have a deep understanding of is politics, power and change.

Politics is important. Who has what political source, where does it come from, how did they engage and develop it? In order to engage at this scale, you have to have a deep respect for politics, you have to understand the politics that’s happening in that community at the local level and a broader level that affects it. When you look at process of change, you’re going to recognize that some people are gaining, are benefiting from the current system and other people will gain or benefit from the change. And so you have to recognize where those tensions are going to come from, where’s the push-back going to come from, and you have to respect that and honor that and deal with it in a very real and dynamic sort of way.

And then that’s the process of change, the engagement of it. Whenever there is a compelling reason for change, like in White Earth -- the constitutional crisis in the ‘90s, history of where the constitution that they’re working under comes from, and how it contributed to the disaster that they just went through -- is an important part of what pushes and sustains. And that’s important, that has to be there, but in order to actually for change to actually occur, you’ve got to deal with the reality of politics and power and that is all a part of the conversation. Some of it is one-to-one information sharing education process, others are very practical sitting down and trading realities. ‘You’re going to lose this. Your people are going to gain that. How important is it that your people gain even though you may personally lose in certain ways?’ And you just deal with that in a very real sort of way.

The leadership at White Earth, at Bois Forte, at all of the MCT bands, are the same as the leadership in any other Indian nations; they’re practical, they’re very realistic and they’re in it as a life issue. And I didn’t say life and death. They’re in it as a life issue. Our leaders are politicians from that life perspective, but whenever you start to challenge them to give up, or this is going to be taken away -- this thing that has benefited you and your family -- that has to be an open conversation. It has to be a real conversation and you have to honor their integrity, their respect, and their ability to come to a decision that not only helps them to deal with the practical realities, but also fits with their integrity.”

Ian Record:

“In the point you just made, doesn’t that argue for tribes ensuring that they develop a reform process that is distinctly theirs and that distinctly attends to their own local dynamics, as you laid out?”

Terry Janis:

“Absolutely. You cannot do it any other way. And there’sin this situation -- having me as an outsider come in -- there’s value in me being able to say, ‘I don’t care what you do. I didn’t draft this thing. I have noof my own self into it at all. What matters to me is you, as the people, make your own choice. Do you realize the power that you have? That’s what matters to me.’ So me coming in with that kind of outsider perspective, and also coming in with the history of really fighting for and having some losses and successes in supporting tribal sovereignty, that was the base. And we can have those conversations, and they could insult Erma Vizenor or the elected leadership and everybody else, and I’ll sit there and I’ll nod my head and I’ll let them give voice to that, and then we’ll try to turn to a deeper understanding of what this constitution says and the changes that it incurs. And without that conversation, without having the ability to sit through the emotions, and the local history that’s there, and understand it and take it in, and then incorporate that into a conversation about, ‘Look at the text of this language.’ And so all of those things are local, they’re about that local community, they’re about the people that are there and their personal histories and stories.”

Ian Record:

“I want to follow up a bit on this issue of power and politics that you mentioned. My sense in working with a number of tribes on reform is that yes, that is a huge dynamic that you have to wrestle with and that the approach that you develop in response to that has to be local, it has to be unique to that tribe, and it has to attend to those unique circumstances, but isn’t part of it also dealing with the reality and developing a process that deals with the reality? That, in many times when you’re dealing with fundamental sort of foundational change like constitutional reform, often entailsif you’re going beyond pro forma type amendments and really dealing with substantive constitutional change, you’re often asking the people of the nation to put up a mirror in front, and [to] look in the mirror not just as an individual citizen, but as a collective group and say, ‘Who are we, how do we want to govern, and what do we want our future to look like?’ And often that involves confronting a lot of colonial trauma, a lot of historical trauma, and that tends to contribute to a very organic and sort of messy process that you have to be ready for, does it not?”

Terry Janis:

“Right, absolutely, absolutely. And the fact that I can tell you with some of the folks that I’ve had conversations, how far spittle travels between you and that other person because that’s how pissed off they are and emotional, and that kind of anger and anguish and frustration and fear is very real. Me coming into this as an outsider with absolute respect for the sovereignty of an Indian nation -- and when you’re dealing with the fact that this constitution is going to move to a referendum vote -- that sovereignty lies within each individual. And so my job is to absolutely respect where that person is and where that person can move to. I can have a conversation with somebody about the colonial dynamics of the MCT constitution. If they say, ‘I cannot accept the idea of defining me as a 'citizen' or defining the White Earth Tribe as a 'nation,' we are a 'band,' I am a 'member,'‘ they insist on that over and over and over, my job is not, as an academic, to know better than them and say, ‘You’re wrong.’ My job is to say, ‘Okay. This is your choice. You are the sovereign here. Your vote is all that matters. Your decision and your opinion is all that matters. I respect that a hundred percent.’”

Ian Record:

“So then didn’t your challenge then become, in respecting their ability to choose, and that’s ultimately what self determination’s all about, that your job then became, ‘how do I make sure that they, when they do choose, that they’re making as an informed choice as possible in that they understand fully what this constitution says and more importantly what this constitution will do in terms of structuring how the government actually works and how it makes decisions, how it carries out decisions, etc.’?”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah, yeah. If you think about how Indian people come together and we talk, we learn things as much from laughter as from serious conversation. We learn things as much from getting into a fight and getting a bloody nose as we do by reading a text together side by side. And so that is a multi-faceted dynamic of the process, Indian people coming together and learning this kind of document, this kind of resource materials, this kind of system, systemic construct, it’s really complex.

The White Earth constitution is amazingly complex, how they all fit together and flow together; you are not going to achieve full understanding, period. What I realized is that each person is going to need a certain level of understanding in order to come to their own decision point and that’s my job, is they know how much they need to understand and I’m going to keep pushing everything at them with every vehicle and mechanism that I can. Whenever we came in and designed the educational strategy, there wasn’t going to be just one event in every community and the national symposium. We were going to have dozens. We ended up having over 50 across every single community, a national symposium, multi-media resources, videos, radio turned out to be incredibly important with Niijii Radio and other radio interviews and individual conversations, follow up with thousands of individuals, taking the time to have all of those conversations in as many ways as possible, talking with folks over dinner, over breakfast, in their houses, on the street, wherever. And so that’s just how we are. We as Indian people, we learn in a certain way and if you’re comfortable with that, if you can engage that, if you can get with that, then there’s the potential that you’re going to make the offerings and people are going to come at them in the way that they can come at them.

I never expected to find perfect understanding. The more I got into it, the more I realized I don’t have perfect understanding. There are so many nuances to this stuff that a relationship between this person and that person as a drafter, as an editor, as a voter was a much more complex and real sort of dynamic as well, but having respect for the sovereignty of the individual to make this decision because that’s where it really lies in a referendum, as well as the learning process of us as Indian people. It’s personal and being able to do that and willing to do that and enjoying doing that.”

Ian Record:

“Was part of your challenge trying to sit down in a community session or via multi-media and the many different tools and strategies and approaches you took, but was part of the challenge getting people to care about the role of the constitution in their lives? To say, ‘Okay, basically this current constitution we have, this is how it impacts you as a citizen. This new constitution we’ve drafted, this is how it will change the nation, this is how it will change the, potentially change the community, this is how it will change the role that you can play in the governance of the nation.’ And you talked about making it personal -- is that not part of the challenge?”

Terry Janis:

It’s definitely part of it. It’s not so much how do you get them to care. Again, it’swe’re Indian people, and in my experience, we care deeply; we just do. The question is, ‘What do we care about?’ And so that was the issue, trying to figure out what this person cares about or if it’s a group of five or 20 or 100 or 200, what is the sense of what they care about and then how do you take that and share the information about the text of this constitution, how it changes things and what it will mean? How do you then tie that into what they care about because it is tribal politics, and so much of that is personal? It’s going to be, ‘This person is an elected leader and I hate him or her. She did this or he did that,’ and that is a very real sense of care and is very personal and it’s got nothing to do with me, but it has everything to do with this educational process on this constitution. And so people that are working within their own tribal communities and try to engage an educational process about constitutional reform, you have to respect that, that somebody cares about this thing and that does tie into their ability to learn about the constitution. And as an educator, that’s what makes a quality teacher is finding a way to tie that in so that you’re using that person’s energy, what they care about, to help learn about this thing. Every teacher, every quality teacher that is perceived of as being a good teacher, that’s what makes them good. It’s just normal education. This is not new stuff. This is not unique stuff. In order to do this well, you need good educators and you need people that are grounded in tribal sovereignty.”

Ian Record:

“And ideally grounded or at least understanding of the community, right? As you mentioned and sort of the dynamics and the”

Terry Janis:

“Absolutely, absolutely.”

Ian Record:

“So you made reference to this a little bit earlier in discussing the new constitution and how different it is from its predecessor and how different it is from anything that the United States government would ever conceive of. From your perspective as an outsider, can you share with us some of the things that are contained in this new constitution that are distinctly Anishinaabe, that advance Anishinaabe values, that reflect Anishinaabe culture, governance principles? For instance, you made reference to restorative justice and the use of language and things like that.”

Terry Janis:

“I’m not Anishinaabe and I can’tI cannot communicate that from that perspective. What I can do is say that the preamble uses Anishinaabe language and that is referenced throughout the constitution. The judicial system places a very real emphasis on restorative justice rather than the punishment model of a judiciary. That language ‘restorative justice’ is not in Indian language, but the heart of it, the substance of it, that is all Indian, whether it’s Anishinaabe or Lakota or whatever, that is about that community and the way they’re going to implement it is going to be all Anishinaabe, it’s going to be all Ojibwe.

Whenever you look at...the constitution allows or provides for, requires, three advisory bodies, formal advisory bodies that have direct advisory responsibility to the legislative council and the office of the president, an elder’s council, a youth council and a community council. The constitution establishes them specifically and it states specifically certain aspects of Anishinaabe culture and tradition that that elder council is responsible to give advice to the legislative body and the president on. You don’t see that in other constitutions, period. So it structurally establishes a mechanism for that to be in there, but it also, at the same time, is an advisory body. So it’s not a full shift over to a traditional model of governance where the chiefs are making decisions in that process. It’s a unique sort of mechanism in that regard.

The last one that I think is most unique is if you think about a governance, you’re really talking about the ability of a representative to truly represent their community. That’s where so much of the gap is. In this country, what is the percentage of American population, voting age population that actually votes? It’s a huge gap because the representatives that we can vote on to represent us don’t represent us. Here, in this constitution, the people themselves organize their own voting districts. They are responsible for organizing those voting districts and if they’re the ones that have to carry that burden, there’s a greater potential that they’re going to organize the voting districts that actually mean something to them and if it does, then they’re going to select a person to represent them and then there’s that connect. That is f*cking awesome. It really is. And it is so problematic. How do you actually implement that? Nobody’s ever done that before.”

Ian Record:

“But I would argue that that is righting one of the greatest wrongs of, in particular, the IRA system, which”

Terry Janis:

“Absolutely, absolutely.”

Ian Record:

“It either corrupted, or displaced entirely, these traditional governance systems that, as you mentioned earlier, centralized power. And really what are you talking about when you talk about power? You’re talking about decision-making responsibility and basically where in most, if not all, traditional Indigenous societies everyone had a valued role to play, everyone was expected to contribute to the governance of the nation in some respect, and it wasn’t called the governance of the nation back then, it was called something else, but basically that’s what it was: young people, old people, elders, everyone had a role. And now from what you’re saying is that White Earth has made a conscious decision to return some of that decision-making authority directly to the people so that they can once again have a valued role.”

Terry Janis:

“I think that if you really apply this accurately, this is the whole ball of wax. If this constitution is going to be effectively implemented, the people themselves are going to organize their own voting districts. That’s the only way it’s going to move forward. And in order for that to succeed, they have to be engaged much more broadly, much more actively, much more dynamically than they have now. The strategy for full ground up, bottom up community development to implement this, requires that kind of engagement for them to really understand that and to organize their own voting districts so that it means something to them. And the constitution provides that they can organize it based upon population centers, historic associations, clan systems and their understanding of that, ‘What does that mean?’ is what defines it. The constitution uses these broad, open words. They have to be defined and the only one that can define them under this constitutional form of government is the people of White Earth and that’s just exciting.”

Ian Record:

“That’s cool. So I want to turn now to the process and that’syou were involved with the process because, as you mentioned, you came on board after the constitution had been drafted, and your job in part was to work with citizens that had been designated by the tribe, employees, etc. to figure out what’s the best approach to actually teaching the people about what this constitution says, what it does. Can you give us a brief overview of the campaign, the comprehensive citizen engagement, citizen education campaign that you guys launched and continue to implement?”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah. We went over it just in the fundamental way. On a most basic level it has to be personal. In order for it to be personal, you have to engage in multiple venues, multiple formats, multiple times. And so small gatherings, unique gatherings, having as active and dynamic a calendar that if they miss this one, there’s going to be another opportunity and another and another. And so really playing that out so that it’s personal in that regard.

Secondly, if you’re going to do this, it really has to engage multiple medias. The majority of the population does not live on the reservation and so we had events not only on reservation, but in the Twin Cities, in Cass Lakes, on the Iron Range and other places where major populations are, but we didn’t go outside of the State of Minnesota, and there’s a huge White Earth population outside of Minnesota as well. And so having the website, having different resources and materials on the website, videos. We did the whole training, a whole two-hour session over each article of the constitution and posted that on the website as well, and then having a symposium that was live streamed on the website; accepting the offer of another entity, Truth to Tell, to host an event on the reservation. The chairperson, the primary drafters of the constitution, all came together and participated on that and had a raucuous good time. It was like really intense.”

Ian Record:

“I watched it -- very intense. I’ll ask you a follow-up question about that.”

Terry Janis:

“And it was real. And so just multiple mechanisms for doing that and making sure that number one, it was personal. Number two, that there were multiple mechanisms for doing that. And then number three, there was absolute certainty that we were neutral, that we presented the materials with, as best as I could, with no offer of an opinion one way or another, good or bad, up or down, a complete respect for the sovereignty of that nation, which in this process meant the sovereignty of the individual to come to their own decision, to make up their own mind with their own process. And my job was to provide as much resources for them to do that as possible.”

Ian Record:

“That Truth to Tell forum, which was live streamed, that was quite athat was on our ‘Must See TV’ list for quite a while. I remember watching it and then saying, ‘You guys got to watch this, you got to watch this.’ And they hadI know they posted the first part first and then there was a little lag and then the second part and we were all waiting with baited breath. And it was interesting the conversation that we had internally because some folks among us said, ‘Oh, man, look how crazy this was. Look howlook how ugly it got at times with people beingraising their voice and calling people out.’ And I made the point, I said, ‘Having watched enough tribes struggle through constitutional reform, seeing some succeed and some fail, that this to methe beauty of this forum that you guys had and the way you did it and the fact that it was so open and it was so transparent,’ I said, ‘to me, that is the most important thing is because --aside from what’s being shared in that forum -- the nation and the project in particular are sending a message to the White Earth people that ‘we want to be transparent in this process, we are doing our part to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard.’' And isn’t that the most important thing, is that you’re giving everyone in the community every possible opportunity to make sure that their voices are heard so at the end of the day nobody can say, ‘I didn’t have a chance.’”

Terry Janis:

“And the reality is, whenever you get to learn of a community, after you’re there for a while, you realize people gather at this one place on a regular basis. If I had known that, I would have incorporated it into our strategy and done that. So being very open to the possibility that somebody else is going to come. This was not organized by me, or the tribe, or anybody else. This was organized by Niijii Radio with Truth to Tell and TPT; they did all the structuring of it, they paid for it, they put it all together, they decided on the format. I contributed a lot in conversations with them about the participants and everything else, but to accomplish their goal, having a balance between people that were supportive of it and people that were opposed with strong voices on both sides, even though we didn’t necessarily have strong voices in every situation. Some people didn’t feel comfortable in that environment, but it was their agenda and their show and their program and that kind of transparency is what the tribal council and Chairperson [Erma] Vizenor and Secretary Treasurer Robert Durant committed themselves to. They never interfered with our process at all and were very supportive of that.”

Ian Record:

“I’m glad you bring that up because with another nation we worked with over the past decade or so, they went through constitutional reform about seven or eight years ago now, and they attribute the success of their reform effort to, first and foremost, the fact that they went to great lengths to ensure that the process maintained what was termed an ‘aura of independence.’ Meaning that yes, the politicians, the elected leadership have a role to play and whether it’s funding the process, setting up the body that will lead the process to see it through, but once that’s done, it’s imperative that the politicians take a back seat, that they don’t come to dominate the process, or at least appear to be dominating the process, because it’s imperative that the process itself espouses the kind of principles that you’ve been talking about, which is, ‘It’s not my job to take sides, it’s not my job to champion this, it’s my job to make sure you understand what’s in it.’”

Terry Janis:

“There were people thinking about that in the hiring process. And as many times as I was attacked for not being Ojibwe, this outside guy -- especially a Lakota guy, we’re enemies -- coming in and taking one of their jobs, as many times as I was attacked there was somebody in the audience always who said, ‘This is the best way to do this. There’s no other way we’re going to have an objective look at this and give at least that a chance.’ And so even for the people in the hiring process and the selection committee -- you have to ask them what they were thinking exactly -- but I heard it over and over and over in the community as well.”

Ian Record:

“You talked about some of the strategies that you guys implemented in making sure that you were generating broad community awareness of not just what was in the constitution, but the choice that was before the people about this process, you talked about some of the strategies that you guys implemented in making sure that you were generating broad community awareness of not just what was in the constitution, but the choice that was before the people, individually and collectively. I’m sure not everything went according to plan. You’ve talked about some of the things that you didn’t anticipate when you first set out. Can you share what, from your view, were and are some of the biggest challenges to both, I guess, the process leading up to the vote and then now? And then, what did you do or what are you doing to overcome those?”

Terry Janis:

“On the one hand, you deal with the situation that you have and you create the best strategy you can realizing that you’re going to change it as you get into it. So all that being said, they finished the drafting in 2009 and had quite a few years of not a lot happening. If they could have done a level of this kind of process starting in 2009 leading to a referendum vote on November 19, 2013, that would have been awesome, but they didn’t. And so havingnot having that gap in time -- because you have to make up a lot -- the kind of impetus of coming together and drafting a constitution and then nothing happens and people forget, you lose momentum, you lose context, you lose memory, you lose priority. And so that had to be dealt with and energy created and generated in order to get interest and get everybody back on the same page as far as, ‘This is a priority,’ and ideas and tactics for doing that. That’s what we had to deal with. If something could have been done differently, it would have been changed in the past and have some process engaging from 2009 to the referendum vote.

It also is a really complex document and we put a lot of energy into reading it, working with educators, curriculum developers, the education department at White Earth, Joan Timeche who is the director [of the Native Nations Institute] -- she was really helpful in all of this -- my experience with curriculum development, etc. and thinking through, as adults, what sort of resources and tools can we bring to the table to help somebody work through a hugely complex document. And so reorganizing it, simplifying the language, creating summaries, creating a workbook, getting the text out, really emphasizing the text itself that even though this summary is a summary it’s in a useful way of introducing yourself to it, really being willing to sit down there and go through it word by word as well.

If there was something that we could have taken from that and learned from that, I think it might have been a broader range of stuff. Where if there was more time, really do a pre-K through full adult, develop an educational resource mechanism and tools and strategies to cover that whole broad range because developing a coloring book for a pre-K kid is going to help an adult with that education process as well. And because you’re doing it for a pre-K kid, it’s not insulting to that adult that is actually going to benefit from that. You see what I’m saying? But because we didn’t have that much time, we didn’t develop that full scope and full range of educational resources and tools and have the time to implement it at that scale.

But dealing with a very complex document that is the genesis or basis of a very complex system really would have benefited from more time, a broader-scale approach that engaged non-voting age members and voting age members in an equal sort of basis because everybody votes frombenefits from all of those resources being available to them. That’s just the reality of it. We didn’t have that time. We didn’t scoperamp it up to that scale and that scope of it right away just because of the timing issues. But if we were going to do it over again with more time, especially not losing momentum from the initial 2009 completion of the draft drafting process, I think that’s how it would have gone.”

Ian Record:

“Isn’t that couldn’t you argue that that’s the challenge now before the White Earth Nation is, ‘How do we now actually live this new constitution?’ And isn’t part of that challenge, of figuring how to live it, is this tribal civics challenge?”

Terry Janis:

“Oh, absolutely.”

Ian Record:

“of engraining in our people young, old”

Terry Janis:

“Absolutely.”

Ian Record:

“of all ages not only what the constitution says, but this is who we are, this is how we govern, this is how we make decisions, this is the future we seek for ourselves?”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah, and whenever people think about this kind of constitutional change, one of the easiest things to think about is, if you understand what an IRA council is, an IRA constitution and the tribal council and business committee that comes out of it, their kind of authority to make decisions into the most minute things. ‘Oh, you can’t fire that secretary’ or ‘cut their pay,’ or whatever. The council is integrating themselves in every single decision because that is the scope of power that they have; there is no limits on authority or separation of powers. And so for the new legislative council, once it gets organized, to really learn what it means to legislate, to legislate; for the office of the president to really know what an executive authority and role is, the limits and scope of that; for the judiciary to really believe that they’re fully independent. In order for that to happen, the training and education process have to happen from today. As we get resources and tools out there or White Earth gets resources and tools out there to help the people organize their communities, their voting districts, that education process has to happen at that scale.”

Ian Record:

“And doesn’t it also have to be. you mentioned. White Earth has to be sure that the chief executive, whoever that may be, whether Erma or someone else, that they fully understand”

Terry Janis:

“Exactly.”

Ian Record:

“what their role is under this new constitution. The constitution and the limits of that role, where it begins to get into thatoverlaps into someone else’s role and where they need to think twice and vice versa the legislative side.”

Terry Janis:

“And whenever the kids in the community and the people that aren’t going to run for those elected offices, if they understand it.”

Ian Record:

“Well, I was just going to say, that’s critical because they’re the ones that apply pressure, healthy or unhealthy, on those people”

Terry Janis:

“And who are organizing those voting districts and the representative that comes out of those voting districts is going to be one of them. And so they’re going to be selecting somebody based upon an understanding that they have. It’s a true ground-up, building-a-nation process that depends upon education at that broad scale.”

Ian Record:

“I want to switch to one of the strategies that you guys employed and, I think, were more aggressive, I would say, than we’ve seen with other nations that have gone down the reform road and that’s the use of multimedia. And you mentioned that you guys -- and I’ve seen the videos you’ve done. The website is very robust. It has a series of videos featuring you and some other folks talking, sort of, as you mentioned, breaking down the constitution, making it accessible, talking about constitutional, often very legalese-style language and breaking it down and talking about it in very accessible, laymen’s terms for somebody with a 10th-grade education, for instance, trying to make it make sense to them. How did the community respond to that, to that particular strategy of, ‘Here, we’re going to tell you a story about this particular aspect of the constitution and we’re going to use this visual media to do it’?”

Terry Janis:

“The only way that I can really respond to that is the few positive responses that we got. ‘I watched it. It was great.’ All of that was good. I think more importantly though is we put a lot of energy and thought into not just having a strategy and design for doing it, but doing it, constantly, persistently and not only in creating these multimedia things and getting them out there, but doing the community events, but also being absolutely responsive to everybody that called, everybody that walked up, everybody that wanted to talk, that responsiveness -- so returning 20 phone calls a day and having 40 -- and so that kind of response. I think it was the whole thing. And so from day one, building that on an increasing basis, feeling the tension ramp up because there was a growing interest and a growing desire for more information, a growing process of people actually making up their mind and caring about it and getting aggressive about it, and trying to convince their friends and their relatives and other people about their position, that’s all we wanted, that’s all we pushed for. And the only way that I definitively noticed success is when I felt people get more impassioned, more opinionated, and more aggressive about it. The more fights we had, the more I was excited.”

Ian Record:

It’s interesting you bring that up because on one hand you would think, ‘Oh, going into this, I want to avoid anxiety, I want to avoid tension,’ but”

Terry Janis:

It’s just the opposite actually.”

Ian Record:

“You want the opposite.”

Terry Janis:

“It has to build.”

Ian Record:

“Because you want passion and interest and you don’t want apathy.”

Terry Janis:

“Exactly. Exactly. And that’s how we knew we were being successful is because it did grow. And by the time it came to the referendum vote itself, it was a crescendo. It was so intense. It was like, ‘Ah!’”

Ian Record:

“So where does constitutional reform at White Earth stand today, if you can just give a quick snapshot?”

Terry Janis:

“A quick snapshot is passed in the referendum vote; the current process of deciding what the relationship is between White Earth and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. So what the elected leadership at White Earth decided from day one of my participation there, my contract there, was that they want to remain a part of MCT, if at all possible, to organize under this new constitution, if it gets approved, and negotiate with MCT to remain part of MCT. So that’s what they’re doing right now, a good-faith effort on their part to have conversations with MCT. And because the changes in this new constitution compared to the MCT constitution are quite profound, and how that’s really going to happen, one of the initial thoughts is to request from MCT to sponsor a secretarial election that would change the MCT constitution that would allow each Band to establish their own constitutional form of government, and there’s other options for negotiating that as well. So those things are happening right now. They’re pretty tough; MCT doesn’t want to change. I described to you a completely unrepresentative form of government. The smaller bands that are benefiting from that, why would they want to change? They’ve got their own issues internally within their own governance. The system that they have benefits their current leadership. There’s going to be changes, etc. So it’s a broad dynamic. Whether that succeeds or not and how long White Earth commits to those negotiations is a decision of the elected leadership at White Earth right now, and they haven’t given up yet.

If it moves away from that, then you’re really talking about withdrawing from MCT and issues of secession. One of the issue points with the Bureau of Indian Affairs is this is their baby –- MCT -- and they set up this broad infrastructure to maintain and sustain this thing that they created. BIA initially doesn’t want to see this thing changed as well. They can see the arguments for it and against it, etc. There’s a very clear sort of distinction. One of the concerns that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is naturally going to have, as a broad bureaucracy, federal bureaucracy is, what is the ripple effect? So if White Earth withdraws from MCT, the federal government is supportive and recognizes their right to do so and establish their own form of government. Does that open the door for another entity to do the same thing?

San Xavier as a district on the Tohono O’odham Nation, Sandy Lake at Mille Lacs, situations where there isn’t the history of treaty recognition and treaty establishment, for example, White Earth and the federal government. San Xavier necessarily doesn’t have that kind of relationship, or maybe they do, I don’t know their story that well, but there are some things about this that distinguish it in a very real sort of way, not only the treaty relationship between White Earth and the federal government, but at every level, legislative, judicial, executive that recognizes White Earth as a distinct, federally recognized tribe independent of MCT and treats them that way and operates that way. So that kind of historical and practical federal recognition that exists in MCT and doesn’t exist in other places can argue or should argue that there’s not going to be the slippery slope sort of situation that is going to cause a problem to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the reality is, it will and those are very practical realities for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So that’s the other thing.

A bottom line for the elected leadership at White Earth right now is they are not going to do anything that jeopardizes the relationship, the federal recognition relationship between White Earth and the federal government. They are not going to do anything that would jeopardize their funding, their relationship, or their status. So that’s got to be resolved before they actually withdraw from MCT. That’s a pretty sticky situation.”

Ian Record:

“Yeah, it’s uncharted waters. It’s hard to find another parallel in the United States.”

Terry Janis:

“There’s none. MCT has no parallel in the country, period. And you can make an argument for that and I can call youI can describe 10 times as many reasons why it’s distinct because it is.”

Ian Record:

“So let’s turn to your own tribe for a second. As I mentioned at the outset, you’re a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, often cited as one of the poster children, if you will, of IRA, the Indian Reorganization Act in that”

Terry Janis:

“I thought you were going to say something else, but I actually”

Ian Record:

“Well, no, in that there’s been a lot ofthere’s been books written about IRA formation at Pine Ridge and the process and you’re quite passionate about IRA, a lot of people are, and I’m wondering, you’ve beenyou’re working with a nation that just basically jettisoned -- or you could argue based on what you just said is still in the process of trying to jettison -- their IRA system, and your own nation still operates with one.”

Terry Janis:

“Yeah.”

Ian Record:

“And being that you’re sort of in this unique position, in that you’re sort of a student of your own nation and its governance system and then you’ve come to learn so much about another nation and their governance system and how they’ve changed it, I guess, if you can sort of try to meld those together and, I guess, what does the White Earth experience say to you about Oglala Sioux and its own governance system and potentially what the future of that could hold?”

Terry Janis:

“The political history of Pine Ridge has had a fairly consistent policy of holding the Bureau of Indian Affairs accountable for its trust obligations. That’s a stronger way of framing this idea and that has been the position of Pine Ridge virtually my whole life. I have argued with them about this a lot, that Pine Ridge should be contracting every function that we can...taking over all obligations, responsibilities, and if it costs us more money, we’re going to do it 10 times better than the federal government will. But the policy position of Pine Ridge is to not let them get away with doing a bad job, to hold them responsible to their trust obligation. That’s how their positioning it. I’m hoping that if they continue with that position that will actually change the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the federal government because that’s what it’s going to require. In order for Pine Ridge to succeed with that, they’re going to have to change the Bureau of Indian Affairs and move it away from a colonial, paternalistic structure to a service entity. That change is not coming any time soon that I’m aware of.”

Ian Record:

“I would agree and looking more internally though, because basically what you’re getting at is that they’ve taken a very staunch position, and I agree with you based on my work with them that that’s my impression as well, but looking internally, this sort of deep self examination that White Earth has gone through in terms of looking at their own governance system, do you feel inspired or encouraged by the White Earth experience to think that Oglala Sioux will engage in that full examination of their own governance system and perhaps identify a better way?”

Terry Janis:

“No, only because Pine Ridge is Pine Ridge and White Earth is White Earth. We as Oglalas are going to chart our own course. For me it goes back to, ‘Do I respect tribal sovereignty or not?’ And I do. And Pine Ridge, Standing Rock, any other reservation has an obligation to assert their sovereignty and make that decision for themselves. I think that Pine Ridge is wrong in that position in regards to the trust obligation and their ability to really change the federal government. I think it’s a lack of recognition of what the federal government is vis-á-vis Indian nations and that relationship, but given that that has been their position and the strength of it -- that’s why I don’t speak in weak terms in that regard and I speak in strong terms -- that it is the policy of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to require the federal government to live up to its trust obligations, period. That is a strong statement, an assertion of tribal sovereignty and it puts the obligation for improvement and reform on the federal government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in particular. And that’s the best I can do with that.”

Ian Record:

“Final question. You’ve been immersed in the White Earth constitutional reform process for about a year. What, and I understand your point that every tribe is distinct in the way it chooses to express its sovereignty is unique, but aren’t there lessons from the path that White Earth has traveled and is traveling right now that other nations who are feeling like their constitutions and their system of government aren’t up to par, that aren’t reflective of who they are, aren’t there lessons that they can learn from the White Earth experience?”

Terry Janis:

“Absolutely. The bottom line is, White Earth is doing it. You saw the Truth to Tell; you saw the level of opposition to this thing. White Earth is doing it and the vote that the referendumI was sitting there when the count came in. I was completely shocked. We had a registration process that had a larger percentage of registering voters than has ever turned up to an election before, over double the normal turnout and of that, 80 percent of them voted for it. I was stunned. I didn’t expect it to be that large. Given thatand one of the things that you, if you have a conversation with the folks at Osage, for example, the kind of opposition that you saw in Truth to Tell that I saw every day out there, that they saw at Osage as well, whenever you’re thinking of a fundamental and profound change like this, there is going to be opposition. There has to be. You have to accept the reality of this colonial history and that people actually benefited from it and they’re not going to give that up without a fight, period. And that fight is going to be intense and you’ve got to stick with it and you’ve got to make it happen and see it through and let the people decide in as full and honest as a vote as you can get. And if they reject it, that’s great because that then leads you to another conversation and to draft a constitution that they really do want. That’s all that means.”

Ian Record:

“I’m glad you brought that up because I’ve heard a number of folks who’ve been directly engaged in constitutional reform say, ‘There’s no such thing,’ or something along these lines, ‘there’s no such thing as a failed reform effort.’”

Terry Janis:

“Exactly.”

Ian Record:

“For instance, Lac du Flambeau just went through a referendum vote on some pretty important amendments and they were voted down. And I think that if you talk to the people that led that effort, they might be discouraged a little bit, but they’re not giving up and I bet you they would say that, ‘We came out of this process with a greater understanding of what’s at stake and what the role of the constitution is in the life of the nation than we did before and that’s a good thing.’”

Terry Janis:

“And that’s the bottom line that I take from this experience. White Earth is doing it, an Indian nation, a tribe that wants to define their own governmental system. You don’t accomplish that without doing it. Whether it succeeds the first time or the 20th time, it doesn’t matter because each time you do it, you’re informing your population, you’re engaging the conversation and you’re building that base and that is nation building.”

Ian Record:

“Great way to end. Well, Terry, we really appreciate you taking some time to share your thoughts, experience and wisdom with us.”

Terry Janis:

“It was a pleasure. It was good seeing you again, too.”

Ian Record:

“Yeah, good seeing you. That’s all the time we have today for Leading Native Nations, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Leading Native Nations, please visit the Native Nations Institute’s website at nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us."