Native Voice One

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A Question of Spending

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Let’s talk about the challenge to spend billions of dollars. 

 

This is Trahant Reports.

 

The premise sounds absurd. How do governments — namely the United States and some 500 tribal nations — spend billions of dollars to try and limit the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic? The money was in a spending pipeline before there were clear rules about how to even distribute those funds. 

 

The need is clear. The economic activity that supported jobs, social services, and growth all came to a halt last year. Congress responded with an unprecedented investment in Indian Country targeting money for relief.

 

But how?

 

A lot of tribes came up with different answers. Some created their own version of individual relief efforts, urging tribal citizens to apply directly for funding 

 

And now, nearly a year after Congress passed that bill, some tribal governments remain in legal limbo over what’s been distributed. 

 

The issue didn’t become any clearer for three tribes that argued during a federal court hearing last week. They said the formula used to dole out a portion of the $8 billion set aside for tribes based on the inaccurate  tribal populations are counted.

 

The Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida were among those given the minimum of $100,000 because U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data showed they had a population of zero.  Zero. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas has argued it should have received $7.65 million more than it got, based on its own enrollment data.

 

And a Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress, published a report in February that called for Washington policymakers to use tribal enrollment data instead of census information in order to fix this problem. 

 

Yet Congress is pushing ahead with another coronavirus relief package. The House bill includes  $20 billion directed for tribal governmental efforts, money distributed by a formula.Another $8 billion will go directly to federal programs that serve American Indians and Alaska Natives, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service. 

 

Will this be enough to make tribal economies whole again? Tough to say. On one hand tribes are ahead of the curve on vaccinating populations. On the other hand it remains clear that we have a long way to go before the economy is back to some kind of normal.

 

One study looking at the Wisconsin economy found that tribal enterprises — casinos, hotels and restaurants — lost 80 percent of their business in 2020.

 

So even with the latest relief bill from Congress … It will take a long time to make up for a financial collapse of that magnitude. 

 

I am Mark Trahant.

Historic Haaland Confirmation Hearing

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Confirmation hearings for Rep. Deb Haaland begin this week in the U.S. Senate.
This is Trahant Reports. 
She’s the first Native American to ever go through a confirmation hearing for a cabinet post — and if confirmed by the Senate she will be the first ever tribal citizen to run a major agency, the Interior Department.
And there is a lot of history unfolding. 
Rep. Haaland stood with the water protectors at Standing Rock. She has stood with those opposed to oil and gas development in her own home state in New Mexico and she was once a government witness in a hearing about sacred lands on the U.S. border.  At that event she told the Trump administration and the U.S. Border Patrol:   “I don’t know how you can sleep at night.”
Haaland is a citizen of Laguna Pueblo.  She is 60 years old and her job would be extraordinary. The Interior Department has a remarkable mission, managing the relationship with tribal governments, administering mineral rights, national parks, wildlife and endangered species, and approving oil and gas drilling and mining.
And that is the issue that is bringing out the opposition. Republicans generally favor oil and gas development on federal lands. The Biden administration has said climate change — not energy independence — will be its touchstone.
A lot of eyes will be watching Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia. He’s chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a long time supporter of the oil and gas industry. After a vote earlier this month, he reaffirmed that support. He said: “My position on the oil and gas industry has not changed. I have always been and will always be an outspoken advocate for an all-of-the-above energy policy that includes fracking and responsible energy infrastructure development, like the Keystone XL pipeline.” 
One early opponent is Montana Sen. Steve Daines. He has said Haaland’s positions are radical, citing the Green New Deal and her opposition to fracking. 
He recently tweeted that Rep. Haaland’s nomination is “extremely alarming. Rep. Haaland has called for the elimination of oil, natural gas AND coal. America can not afford this radical transition away from reliable energy.”
Daines has said he will use procedural powers to slow or block her nomination.
 Still, if Chairman Manchin, and all of the Democrats vote together, Haaland will be confirmed. 
The Haaland nomination is also a key indicator about the role of tribal nations in the Biden administration. And tribes have high hopes. There are so many issues that have never received full attention from the federal government, ranging from the co-management of public lands and wildlife to the actual return of lands taken illegally. 
Tribes will be expecting a lot more than just window decoration; pushing for a secretary who understands tribal issues and is ready to act accordingly. 
But first she has to get past the Senate.
I am Mark Trahant.

Vaccines

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The headline in a story last week from Alaska Public Media that caught my eye: “Eligibility differences between state and tribal health systems frustrate some Alaskans waiting for vaccines.”

In other words: People are jealous of the Indian health system.

 

Seriously.

 

This is Trahant Reports.

 

There is a lot of background to the roll out of coronavirus vaccines in Indian Country. The pandemic is still lethal. The rates of infection in Indian Country are significantly higher than in other communities. A new study by the Urban Indian Health Institute points out the incidence rate among American Indians and Alaska Natives is 3.5 times higher than that of non-Hispanic Whites and the mortality rate is 1.8 times higher. The reasons go far beyond this pandemic: Chronic diseases, crowded housing, the lack of clean water and healthy foods as well as an underfunded Indian health system.

 

Tribal communities were hit hard early. There was not enough data, equipment and medical teams available to treat the pandemic.

But tribal governments were far more inclined to implement public health orders, including lock downs and mask requirements.

 

The thing is tribal governments, unlike their state counterparts, already have a culture of public health.

 

One clear reason is that the Indian health system is just that, a system. There are mechanics in place to distribute vaccines efficiently to a population. That’s something that is missing from most of the U.S health system where doctors and hospitals are scattered about without any real logic.

 

A recent report by NBC News put it this way:  “All 50 states in the U.S. are reporting shortages as America’s fragmented administrative and health care systems struggle to distribute even the limited vaccine stocks that have been produced.”
**
The report said “what makes the U.S. especially troubled, according to experts, is that its health care system is not centralized, and the administration of President Donald Trump failed to build a proper national vaccine rollout plan to fill the void.”
**

But Indian Country is different. The Indian health system — a combination of federal clinics and hospitals, plus those run by tribes and nonprofits — is a system serving a distinct population and so a distribution plan could be properly executed.

 

The Cherokee Nation announced that it passed its first 10,000 vaccinations, including a priority for first-language Cherokee speakers, and it’s now adding Phase 2 priority patients to its distribution. The Navajo Nation lifted its weekend lockdowns so that more people can take the shot. Already more than 40,000 have received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. And in Alaska more than 30 percent of all vaccines have been administered through the Alaska Native health system.

 

Then one key finding from the Urban Indian Health Institute study: Nearly three quarters of those surveyed said getting vaccinated is their responsibility to their community.

Sovereignty in action.

 

I am Mark Trahaht.

Hold up just a split Senate!

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Senators Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, Vice President Dan Quayle, and Senator Trent Lott managed the Senate when the numbers were tied, 50/50.
(US Senate photo)
Just how will a 50/50 Senate operate? That remains an open question .. but any answer ought to question the future of that body in a democratic society.

This is Trahant Reports.

The Senate is split 50-50, 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. And that means the Democrats are supposed to be in control because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast a tie vote. But Senate rules are complicated and there is now a fight going on about just what those rules are.

The last time the Senate was that divided was 2001. Senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle came up with a method to manage that tie. They wrote that it took several weeks of negotiation and “was one of the most difficult undertakings either of us faced in all the years we served in leadership.”

The country really doesn’t have several weeks for that kind of fight right now. Already the Biden administration’s plan for COVID-19 relief is on hold while the Senate waits to move forward. There could be challenges ahead with administration nominees as well as the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.

As Lott and Daschle wrote in the Washington Post: “The circumstances are more complicated today: The country is more polarized.” And, on top of that, senators from both parties don’t trust each other as much.

And, more often, it takes 60 votes not 50 to pass legislation because of the threat of filibuster. I say “threat” of a filibuster because that’s the way it works. These days no one has to stand and hold the Senate floor talking for hours and hours. Just the threat is enough to demand a 60 vote supermajority.

This supermajority has both worked for and against tribal nations. It’s helped kill bad legislation — and prevented really good ideas from becoming  law. 
Then 60 votes or not the Senate is an institution that really needs “structural reform.”

There have only been four Native Americans to ever serve in the Senate and no Native women. Ever.

Today a single vote from a senator from Wyoming is worth 68 times more than one from California. This imbalance is growing, not shrinking. The most recent calculation from Vox shows that Democrats in the Senate represent 41 million more Americans than the Republicans.

There are a lot of options that would make the United States more democratic. It could be a constitutional shift toward a parliament, like most countries in the world. Ideally a parliamentary ballot allows broad representation (another of our peculiar quirks is a system where candidates win with a bare majority, instead of fifty, plus one.) The Senate could even be proportional with states like California having more senators than just two.

The rules fight going on in the Senate is tied to this structural imbalance — and it’s the voters who come up on the short end. 

 

I am Mark Trahant.

Indian Country Today

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Indian Country Today remains in an expansion mode — and the goal is to change the narrative of the Indigenous world (by reporting on stories that would too often go untold.)
This is Trahant Reports. 
The year 2020 began with promise.
Indian Country Today  was in an expansion mode, hiring new reporters, the prospect of our first managing editor, building a business team, hiring a company president, and preparing for a national weekly news broadcast. 
The atmosphere in a newsroom is exciting. Television monitors keeping track of events in real time. Reporters on the phone talking to sources. Ideas being batted around. Energy.
Dalton Walker attended an Investigative Reporters and Editors training session in New Orleans. That’s when everything changed. 
Two days after he returned to the Phoenix newsroom one of the participants tested positive with COVID-19.
A couple of weeks later our newsroom was empty. I have been back a lot lately, and the quietness is still unsettling. Desks are empty. The phones are quiet. Even the television monitors are off. The lights are set to motion detectors — so the rooms are often dark.
But the thing is, we found a new way to work. The news did not stop, nor did our reporters, editors and broadcasters. To put this in perspective: Two years ago Team ICT was at three people. We ended 2019 with nine people. This year we begin with more than 20.
It’s funny. As fast as we have grown, nearly every day, we feel like we need more people. Our ambitions always will exceed our resources, so how do we best report on all of the important news in the Indigenous world?
And our readership remains an amazing story. We reached more than 5.9 million people this past year; nearly 8 million page views. Our demographics have remained consistent. More women than men — 56 to 44 percent — and we continue to be stronger with younger readers, 21 percent are ages 25 to 34. The geography of our readership pretty much spreads across Indian Country, including urban areas. And just seven percent of our readers come from Canada.
Over the year, just less than half of our readers find us through social media, mostly Facebook. About 650,000 people come to ICT directly. This is our version of subscribers, regular readers who check in daily (and some several times a day). 
Our broadcasting team continues to grow as well. Our plan, and budget, was to produce a weekly news show for PBS stations in the fall of 2020. But when the pandemic hit, our daily Zoom calls quickly morphed into a daily newscast. Now we are producing a news show Monday through Friday. 
This week that broadcast will evolve with one of our shows becoming a weekend offering for PBS stations.
This is how we change the story about the Indigenous world, by reporting on everyday events armed with the tools of journalism. 

 

I am Mark Trahant.

By the Numbers

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Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Northern Cheyenne, at a Senate Interior Committee meeting. Campbell was considered for Interior Secretary by former President George Bush. (Senate photo)

Let’s look at the numbers behind any cabinet appointment.
This is Trahant Reports.
The appointment of Rep. Deb Haaland — or any tribal citizen — to a presidential cabinet would make history. Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, would be the first Native American to operate a cabinet level agency.
Vice President Charles Curtis, Kaw, is the only tribal citizen to ever serve in a presidential cabinet, but he did not run an agency. Nor did he do much. He was rarely consulted. Attended only a few cabinet meetings and he did little to influence policy.
Haaland would be the first Native American to serve in the cabinet as an agency head, running the Interior department.
There have been roughly 750 cabinet appointments from 45 presidents.

The math here: One cabinet appointment out of 750 equals 0.133333333333 percent.

Bad. But extrapolate that beyond the cabinet, across government and the daunting nature of this representation is clear. There are 4,000 jobs that will be appointed by the next president. To reach parity with the population, it would require at least 80 such appointments.

There are zero Native Americans in the United States Senate. In the history of the country there have only been four, all men.

The people’s House where Haaland now serves has better numbers. There will be four members in the next Congress, or 0.91954022988506 perc ent. Since the Congress first began there have been 10,363 members since 1789 or 0.16404516066776 percent.

More numbers. There are currently 870 authorized judges; nine on the Supreme Court, 179 on courts of appeals, 673 for the district courts and nine on the Court of International Trade. There are two tribal citizens serving as district court judges. Or 0.22988505747126 percent. In the history of the country there have been three Native Americans serving as district court judges.

At the Interior Department, the agency responsible for the relationship between the government of the United States and tribal governments, there have been 53 secretaries. The math here is easy. Zero from 53 is still zero.

There was at least one candidate for the Interior before Haaland. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s name was floated to George Bush. Campbell is Northern Cheyenne. As then Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colorado, wrote about Campbell’s qualifications. “As you know, his work in Congress included time as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, and he did extensive work on issues important to the West such as water, forestry, public land management and resource development.”  Bush picked Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.
And Rep. Ben Reifel, R-South Dakota, in another era might have been considered. He took a lame duck appointment as commissioner of Indian affairs under Nixon, serving just a few months. Or even Brig. Gen. Ely Parker, Seneca, who also was commissioner of Indian affairs had to resign his rank in the military in order to take the Indian affairs post.

Then that was another time. At least that’s what we are told.

 

I am Mark Trahant.

Budget Deadline

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It would be nice to have some quiet time. A few days, or better, a few weeks where the country doesn’t face a major challenge. 
Of course in a pandemic that’s not going to happen. And lawmakers in Washington may make things worse. 
Really. 
This is Trahant Reports.
The deadline is December 11th. That’s when the federal government — once again — will run out of money. Three things could happen. First, Congress could enact a real budget for the year that already began in October. Second, there could be another temporary solution, a Continuing Resolution, in the language of Washington. Or finally the House, the Senate, and President Donald Trump could fail to reach a deal altogether. And if that happens … then once again the federal government will go into shutdown mode.
During a pandemic, no less.
So far the House and the Senate have different spending approaches. And after a deal is reached, then President Donald Trump will have to agree too. That might be complicated in a time when he still claims he won the election … “by a lot.”
This year’s spending bills are thorny because of the election results. Democrats want to spend more money on the priorities of the next administration. And, conversely, Republicans are hoping to protect as many of their policies as possible. Think border wall and immigration. 
Congress has a lot on its agenda beyond the immediate budget. There are loud calls for a new pandemic relief bill.
And states and tribes are looking for money to distribute vaccines, a task that’s huge given the size of the country. Imagine reaching 100 million people or more so they can take one or two shots.
More than 125 economists have called on Congress to act soon. They wrote: “The COVID crisis has caused some of the most significant and unequal damage to the U.S. economy in modern history, leaving families and businesses alike struggling to get by. Unless policymakers act quickly to respond to the crisis at the scale necessary, we risk the damage to the economy lasting much longer than necessary, particularly for those at the bottom who have been hit the hardest.”
Tribes, and some states, could also use more time to effectively distribute the already funded 
In the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act. That  $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed into law in late March, was by all accounts a successful factor in mitigating the economic impact of COVID. 
But tribes have asked for more time. Building up an infrastructure, while fighting the pandemic itself, has been particularly challenging for smaller governments. The money is supposed to run out at the end of the year.
So far there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus about what to do next.  Democrats are eager to pass something significant, while Republicans in the Senate remain cool to anything costly.
Congress returns to work this week and the deadlines are coming fast.
I am Mark Trahant.

After Election

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The election is over. You’d think that would mean a period of quiet. The time for planning so a new government can take office on January 20th at noon. Already there are lists of potential leadership jobs at every agency in government. Some 4,000 political appointees need to be vetted and hired, including those who run the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.

This is Trahant Reports.

Every story published  about the election gets an instant comment from supporters of President Donald Trump: The election is not over, they write. There are legal challenges ahead. The media doesn’t call elections, the courts will. 

That packs in a lot of ideas. The news media doesn’t really determine elections, that’s true. 

But we do report results. And the math is the math. It’s a system that has worked pretty well for more than a century. Yes, you could use the standard of certification … but most states take 30 days or more after the counting is completed and that could be mid-December. That’s the deadline for the Electoral College to meet and vote.

Waiting is a problem because it means less time to organize a new government. And, at all levels of government once the news media does the math … the transition planning begins. Even in this election, every single congressional race was “called” by the media, often moments after the polls closed. Not a single member objected. But this president is different. The damage he is doing is to the country and to the essential operation of government. 

The legal challenges are the political equivalent of a lottery ticket. Yes … he could win. Something that everyone who buys a lottery ticket says too.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect  Kamala Harris celebrated their win Saturday and are beginning a transition anyway. It’s worth noting about this as history: Harris is the first woman, the first daughter of immigrants, the first Black woman. She is shattering the glass ceiling. The Biden team promises more of that, assembling a diverse cabinet, one that could even include a Native American for the first time in history. The possibilities range from a Secretary of the Interior to the United Nations Ambassador. 
There is one more message from this election: The United States remains a divided country. More than 70 million people voted for Trump .. and 75 million voted for Biden. The challenge going forward is for the next president, and Congress, to govern with that fact in mind.
I am Mark Trahant.

President Votes

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Both campaigns are reaching out to Indian Country in the final days of the 2020 presidential election.
This is Trahant Reports.
The Trump campaign had an outdoor rally in Arizona last week. It’s a coalition of Native Americans for Trump, and the speaker was Donald Trump Jr. He talked about camping and fly fishing in the region and meeting with Navajo elders. 
Those supporters credit the Trump administration with moving forward with the task force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, funding in the Corona Virus Relief Act; funding for public safety, as well as recognition of the several tribes, including Montana’s Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa.
In general the Trump supporters say that the Trump administration is a better bet for economic development. 
As Shawn Redd, a Navajo who has run for Congress, told Indian Country Today, Native values fit well within the GOP. “Navajo people are very conservative by nature. They believe in a lot of things that the Republican platform embraces, such as strong family ties, self-reliance and liberty,” he said.
This latest move by the GOP comes late. Democrats, on the other hand, began organizing much earlier in this election. 
Earlier this month, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris met with tribal representatives at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. 
A video by Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez asked the vice president to send a message to the Navajo people. “Navajo Nation, stay strong; we need you,” he replied. “We need you, we need you, we need you because you’re going to have a seat at the table if we get elected.”
A seat at the table is very much a part of the Democrats campaign effort. There are multiple public roles, Zoom events, and committee meetings that have included tribal leadership. The campaign released a 15-page plan for tribal nations, that includes, among other proposals, more economic development, health care improvements, and making it easier for tribes to acquire sovereign lands. 
The Democrats also call for investment in clean energy in tribal communities with a goal of net zero emissions in thirty years.
The Democrats would also restore the White House Tribal Nations Conference; what was an annual event that has not happened during the Trump administration.
There are seven states, including Arizona, where the Native vote is larger than the margin of victory in the last election. The power of the Native vote in Arizona has been reflected over the years in state races (especially the governor’s office) and now both presidential campaigns see its significance. 
Speaking of breaking a record: More than a half a million people have already voted in Arizona — and more than 28 million across the country. 
I am Mark Trahant.

Navajo State

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Should Congress also consider the Navajo Nation for statehood?

This is Trahant Reports.

Recently Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, told MSNBC that he’d “love to make” both Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states. This could happen should Democrats win the election (and especially if there is a sweep of the House, Senate and White House).

The state of Navajo has been an idea that surfaces from time to time. And the idea of an Indigenous state has a rich history in the United States as well as around the world.

Statehood will not fix the problems facing the Navajo Nation but it would do two things: Add representation in Congress and open up funding.

We’re talking about two U.S. Senators and at least one member of the House.

The federal government has a different formula for how to distribute money to states than it does for tribal governments. So much so that federal dollars are the single largest share of every state budget (averaging about a third of all the money coming in). Nearly one out of every five dollars spent by Congress is shipped to states.

Some states do better than others.

New Mexico is at the top of the list. The Brookings Institute estimates the “transfer of payments” between the federal government and that state reach more than $3,500 per person. If that same formula applied to the Navajo Nation, the total funding would be around $600 million per year. (As a comparison the emergency funding in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act was $714 million. But that was a one time funding source (and the most ever spent on Indian Country).

There is no guarantee that a Navajo state would receive that much. But even if the state with the lowest percentage of federal transfers is used as a base number, it would still exceed $340 million a year. (Then so much of federal spending is based on Census data, including poverty levels. So a Navajo state is likely to be on the higher side of that equation).

There is an interesting history here. Congress considered the state of Sequoyah more than a century ago in what is now eastern Oklahoma.

There are also international examples ranging from Nunavut in Canada to Greenland.

There is also a question of representation. The territories of the United States, such as Puerto Rico, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (have marginal representation in Congress … a House delegate that can serve in committees but not vote). And even that is not equitable: The delegate that represents the Northern Mariana Islands with a constituency of about 55,000 people, less than a third of the population of the Navajo Nation.

A delegate in Congress does not go far enough for former Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch. She told me that would only be marginally helpful, you need people in Congress that can introduce legislation and carry that to the finish line.

I am Mark Trahant.

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