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C-SPAN’S report from the 2008 Iowa caucuses. The 2016 caucus is Monday, Feb. 1.
This week it’s the Iowa Caucus.
The first state to vote in the presidential nomination contest. This is Trahant Reports.
Iowa uses the caucus system to elect its delegates to the Democratic and Republican conventions. People from various towns meet, debate a bit, and then stand with their candidate. Two things to note: Not that many people have the time to participate, usually it’s well below 1 out of five voters. And, second, IOWA IS 92 PERCENT WHITE and the STATE’S AMERICAN INDIAN POPULATION IS one half of one PERCENT.
The media surrounding the Iowa caucuses reduces the story to one theme: Who’s winning and what does that win (or loss) mean for the New Hampshire primary? Lost in the coverage is a thoughtful discussion about issues and policies. So we get political promises that might fit better in cartoons than in governing papers.
But that’s not the whole story.
There are 1,400 enrolled members of the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa/Meskwaki Nation located in central Iowa. And in Tama County, the population of American Indians exceeds 6 percent of the population.
The Sac and Fox Tribe Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa/Meskwaki Nation. Members of the 1,400 tribal community will be among the first to cast their vote for president on Monday night.
There is even a hot issue that ought to surface in a presidential campaign. The Iowa Senate last week enacted a resolution to end state criminal jurisdiction over tribal members, essentially repealing Public Law 280. Tribal members have been supported such a bill for several sessions with the goal of tribal jurisdiction.
This would be a great presidential campaign discussion. We all know the United States goes through dramatic swings when it comes to federal-Indian policy. Congress enacted Public Law 280 when the idea was to break up reservations and assimilate tribal people into the states. That policy, of course, was nonsense. And eventually rejected in favor of the self-determination policies of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. But here’s the thing: The underlying legislation that promoted assimilation remains the law.
Congress never repealed its termination resolution, nor PL 280, but left them on the books as a legal layer that causes confusion. That’s why the Iowa legislature is enacting a repeal; It’s ahead of the Congress on getting rid of a failed policy.
The Iowa House will take up the legislation next.
And then Congress? Well, we shall see. But it would have been a great topic for the Iowa presidential campaign.
The only candidate to campaign on the Sac and Fox settlement was Bernie Sanders. In September he held a rally and answered a few questions about federal-Indian policy. The Des Moines Register quoted him: “.. the U.S government’s relationship to Native Americans has been a disaster from day one. … Everything else being equal, we want decisions being made by the peoples themselves, not dictated by the government.” Hillary Clinton also met with the tribal council, but there was no press and she did not bring any attention to Native issues.
And for the Republicans? The Democrats met at the tribal center for their caucus. The GOP met at the Tama Civic Center. One reason for that might be in 2012 not a single person attended the Republican caucus at the precinct representing the tribal community.
I am Mark Trahant reporting.
