Native American Press/Ojibwe News

Buying the status quo is killing us

October 25, 2002
With elections for federal, state and local offices just a little more than a week away, it is important for our readers to know what’s going on behind the scenes. The information about campaign contributions published in Press/ON over the past few weeks has not usually been publicly disclosed in Indian country. This week’s issue includes additional information about tribal PAC contributions, and next week we plan on publishing a summary of the campaign finance reports slated to be released in the next few days.

Tribal members have not often had access to tribal financial information, and have had little or no information about which policies, agendas, and candidates are going to be supported with tribal money. In Indian country, these decisions have usually been decided behind closed doors.

I think that almost all of us have been ‘turned off’ by the seamy financial underside of recent political campaigns. With widespread charges of financial improprieties, soft money, PAC money, voter registration and polling frauds, and the generally non-public nature of campaign financing, it seems that American democracy is rapidly eroding into public manipulation and slick marketing of political candidates instead of the genuine mandate of the people upon which democracy depends.

We understand that this is the way politics are played in this country, and that Indian people have a right to play a role, like anybody else, in buying politicians. But spending tribal money to buy political influence should represent the interests of tribal members, and not just the personal interests of a few tribal politicians and their cronies.

Indian PAC money is usually spent either to maintain the status quo or to entrench the power of the tribal government, which is not in the best interests of the majority of Indian people. Drugs, crime, gangs, and the whole gamut of social problems have steadily worsened as high-stakes gambling income has increased the influence-buying capabilities of tribal governments. Although the policies of “sovereignty” and “strong tribal government” promoted by perhaps well-intended politicians and policy-makers might sound like an honorable remedy for past wrongs, the reality is that the state and federal government are actively imposing unaccountable, utterly unconstitutional governments on Indian people.

Once fostered by the United States and well-established on reservations, strong tribal governments tend to consolidate and amplify their own power. They have been consistently buying politicians who support ever-expanding “sovereignty” for “strong tribal governments.” In fact, these allegedly “democratic” governments are resisting community mandates for the changes needed to deal with the runaway social problems on reservations, and to underwrite open and accountable government. Among the changes demanded by the Indian community are enforceable civil rights, accountability, and open government. Tribal governments are using PAC money to buy Congress, and in many cases also buying federal and state administration.

The only branch of government which has recently attempted to address the problems of tribal sovereignty is the courts. But now, the tribal governments are trying to buy congressional action to override the courts, to amend decisions like Nevada v. Hicks and Atkinson v. Shirley. The real irony is that while Indian tribal governments are entrenching their own power and expanding the grasp of gambling and other vested interests, tribal members are the ones paying the price for campaign contributions, PACs, lobbyists, and other modes of political influence that, as you can see by visiting most Indian reservations, almost never benefit the Indian community.

In the last few elections over the past few years, despite what looks bad, we have seen signs of encouragement. In recent tribal elections, tribal officials at Red Lake, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, White Earth, and elsewhere were thrown out of office through democratic action and community organization by the people, because tribal officers spent too much of their time and money playing professional Indian power games with whites rather than staying at home working with their own people to improve conditions on the reservation.

We have seen far too many Indian politicians buying influence, playing the role of Indian at the people’s expense.

People think that tribes should be able to do the same thing as everybody else. They want to be “sovereign” and “wards” both, but the real problem is that tribal governments have almost unlimited power over tribal members on the reservation. They do not have to comply with the U.S. constitution, and tribal members are not protected by a Bill of Rights. None of the tribes in this state have seriously and effectively addressed these problems. Mille Lacs claims “separation of powers,” but for all intents and purposes, it is a myth and ineffective.