Campaign 2004: Presidential contenders differ sharply on recognition
Dean and Lieberman fought against tribes
Posted: January 30, 2004 - 12:19pm EST
by: Jim Adams / Associate Editor / Indian Country Today
WEBSTER, Mass. - Leading presidential candidates might sound alike in
bidding for Native votes in the Feb. 3 round of Democratic primaries, but
back home their records differ like night and day on one major Indian
issue, tribal petitions for federal recognition.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., now considered the front-runner, wins praise
from Massachusetts tribes now nearing final recognition decisions from the
BIA. But former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman,
D-Conn., have been part of a state opposition to recognition so vehement
that the National Congress of American Indians has declared that it
violates the international Anti-Genocide Treaty.
In the last two sessions of Congress, Sen. Lieberman co-sponsored an
amendment to impose a moratorium on tribal recognitions by the BIA's Branch
of Acknowledgment and Research (now the Office of Federal Acknowledgment).
The measure, drafted by U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., ostensibly
increased funding for the BAR but would have withheld the money until the
Secretary of the Interior adopted even more rigid standards for
recognition. On the one time the measure came to a floor vote, in 2002, it
drew support from only 15 senators, two of whom were defeated for
re-election later that year.
During most of his terms as governor, Dean fought strenuously against both
state and federal recognition for the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the
Abenaki Nation of Vermont. The battle in fact became something of a family
feud against the late Abenaki leader Homer St. Francis and his daughter
April Rushlow, now chief of the band. The St. Francis/Sokoki Band pointedly
endorsed Gen. Wesley Clark for president, saying he was the only one of the
candidates who gave them a full hearing.
By contrast, the Nipmuc Nation headquartered here answered a query from
Indian Country Today with praise for Sen. Kerry, and other state and
federal political supporters. Nipmuc Chairperson Fran Richardson Garnett,
said in a written statement, "Senator Kerry - along with Senator Kennedy,
Congressman McGovern and our entire Congressional delegation - has been
totally supportive throughout our arduous federal recognition process. They
know our history and contributions to the fiber of Massachusetts over the
centuries. They have corresponded with the BIA and the BAR (now OFA) to try
to ensure that deadlines are met; and have always been available when we
have needed them. Like our state house delegation in Boston, they believe
in us."
At least one unanswered question of interest to Indian country still
follows Kerry. Like President Bush he is a member of Skull and Bones, the
secret society located at Yale University that is believed to hold the
skull of Geronimo. The Bush administration has failed to answer questions
on the subject. It remains to be seen whether Kerry will offer his moral
and legal positions regarding the desecration of Indian burial grounds and
the theft and display of human remains.
Observers are somewhat at a loss to explain the dramatic contrast in
political atmosphere between Massachusetts and its southern and northern
neighbors, although some historians trace it back to the early 1600s. There
is little question though that state and federal politicians in Connecticut
are as hostile to federal recognition petitions as those in the Bay State
are supportive.
Going beyond Sen. Lieberman's moratorium proposal, Connecticut Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal has repeatedly gone to court to fight the
petitions of three state-recognized tribes. He is appealing the positive
finding for the Eastern Pequots, issued two years ago, and has used a
variety of tactics to stall a decision on the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation,
which was due under a federal court deadline on Jan. 29. The state fight
against the Golden Hill Paugussetts has lasted for more than a decade,
since its frustrated leaders brought a series of land-claims suits against
private homeowners.
A number of towns with tribal neighbors have appropriated funds to contest
their petitions, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., even proposed an
amendment to the BIA budget to give federal funding to these challenges.
Exasperated by this protracted fight, Eastern Pequot delegates at the
November 2003 NCAI meeting in Albuquerque successfully offered a resolution
stating that the use of public funding to destroy the existence of tribal
governments violated the international Anti-Genocide Treaty. (Its formal
title is Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide.) Resolution ABQ 03-135 adopted by the NCAI declared, "federal law
implementing the Anti-Genocide Treaty prohibits the use of legislative and
administrative processes to facilitate the eventual disappearance of an
identifiable group (such as American Indian tribes) protected under the
treaty."
In spite of the shock value of the resolution, however, spokesmen for the
federally recognized tribes in Connecticut say that Lieberman has mellowed
over his career and that he has good personal relations with tribal
leaders. After Al Gore selected Lieberman as his vice presidential running
mate at the Democratic Convention in 2000, a widely-circulated picture
showed then Mashantucket Pequot Chairman Kenneth Reels enfolding the
senator in a bear hug.
Indian organizations in that campaign criticized Lieberman for an earlier
bill that would have imposed a moratorium on all Interior Secretary takings
of land into trust for Indian tribes. In 1997 he proposed an Indian Trust
Lands Reform Act, to limit the ability of "economically self-sufficient"
tribes to take over land "for commercial purposes." The bill responded to a
local dispute between the Mashantucket Pequots and their neighbors, but its
vague wording would have hurt tribes around the country. It went nowhere,
and, observed John Guevremont, then the Mashantucket Pequot man in
Washington, Lieberman never re-introduced it.
Connecticut tribal leaders have also noted that their nemesis, Attorney
General Blumenthal, is following a "template" of issues developed by
Lieberman when he was state attorney general in the early 1980s, namely
consumerism, protection of the environment and hostility to tribes. But a
close observer of state and tribe relations, who asked that his name and
tribal connection be withheld, said that Lieberman changed his perspective
when he moved to the federal level.
"Governors and attorneys general are virtually natural enemies of the
tribes," he said. "When they make the move to federal jurisdiction, it's an
entirely new ballgame.
"When Lieberman went to the Senate, he definitely changed his perspective."
Howard Dean changed his tune on Indian issues as well when he began his run
for President, but it was an even more wrenching transition. In an
appearance at the November NCAI annual meeting, he promised to support
national Indian gaming. But through most of his term as governor he opposed
state or federal recognition for the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki on
the grounds that it would open the state to a casino and land claims suits.
In a January 2002 press conference, he spoke against a proposed Joint
Resolution in the state legislature to grant the Abenaki state tribal
status. According to a transcript, he said the measure would "allow them to
open gambling casinos without any input from the state essentially. It
would also paralyze anybody from getting a mortgage or selling their house
for the foreseeable future."
The Abenaki denied that they had either a casino or land claims suits in
mind. According to their historian and spokesman, professor Frederick
Matthews Wiseman, the tribe has no outside financial backing because the
Montreal casinos already dominated the regional market. The resolution, he
said, was needed to allow Abenaki craftsmen to sell traditional work
without violating the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
Although the brunt of the fight against Abenaki recognition was born by the
state Attorney General's office, Dean stepped in personally later in 2002
in an issue charged with deep emotions.
Through the summer of the year 2000, excavations for a subdivision near
Swanton in northern Vermont began to turn up human remains. The work on
Monument Road had blundered into a burial ground spanning centuries of
Abenaki history. (The street name referred to a historic marker at the site
of a famous Jesuit mission from the 1700s. Some of the remains had clearly
been buried with Christian rites.)
Although Dean's administration did buy one of the first lots to protect the
remains, it soon made clear that it had neither the money nor the will to
intervene as further digging uncovered many more skeletons. By the end of
the summer, the Abenaki had gathered the remains of 19 individuals,
preserving them on buffet tables in their community center. After first
ordering a blockade of Monument Road, tribal chair April Rushlow went to
state court to seek an injunction. But the state government rebuffed her
pleas to intervene, or at least to prosecute the people responsible for
disturbing the graves, taking the position it was a local matter.
Remarkably, the tribe went to the local governments and found a solution. A
joint Monument Road Working Committee worked out a protocol to be followed
in the discovery of future unmarked graves. In January 2002, local
legislators introduced the protocol as a bill, "An act relating to the
discovery and management of Native American remains." Yet the Dean
Administration's critics charge it did all it could to scuttle the bill.
According to Wiseman, Commissioner of Housing and Community Affairs Greg
Brown, Dean's point man on the bill, later explained to the Working
Committee why the governor had killed the measure. First, it included the
Abenaki Tribal Council as a party. Second the state feared that mention of
the Abenaki in state documents would strengthen their case for federal
recognition. Third, the modern Abenaki community is not a descendant of the
historic Abenaki tribe. Fourth, if the Abenaki received federal
recognition, Vermont would be beset by casino gambling and land claims.
The campaign against recognition reached its culmination in December 2002,
when state Attorney General William Sorrell issued a 250-page report
rebutting the St. Francis/Sokoki Band petition to the BIA. Although the
Attorney General is an independently elected official, he is closely allied
to Dean, and one of his staff is reported to have told an academic critic
that Sorrell saw the last weeks of the Dean administration as the "window
of opportunity" to publish the report widely. According to Wiseman, the
Governor's Commission on Native American Affairs received orders from David
Rocchio, the governor's counsel, not to dispute the report.
Unlike the established Connecticut tribes, the Abenaki have not been
understanding about their former adversary's conversion on the federal
stage. When candidate Dean outlined an elaborate program on Indian issues
to the annual NCAI meeting last November, Chief Rushlow called his
appearance "a joke."
This article can be found at http://IndianCountry.com/?1075483421
Now repeat after KevinA, Koz, and the rest of the nitwits: there are no indians, they don't have money, and no body cares anyhow.
