THE NEW BLACKFEET CONSTITUTION: NOT QUITE THERE, BUT CLOSER

Harry Barnes, Chair, in the middle

This article was published in the Flathead Beacon on June 15, 2016.  It was written by Justin Franz

The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council has backed an effort to rewrite its tribal constitution in a move that would drastically alter its government.

On June 15, the tribal council voted to submit a new Blackfeet constitution to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for review. If the new document passes muster it will be presented to the entire tribe for a vote.

The new constitution would replace the tribe’s current form of government with three branches, including executive, legislative and judicial branches.

“It is a drastic change from what we have right now,” Chairman Harry Barnes said. “It would be an historic change.”

The effort to overhaul the Blackfeet constitution comes three years after the tribal government fell into shambles. In 2012, the tribal council split into two separate factions and tribal employees were unpaid for weeks at a time. The government shut down multiple times. One of the biggest criticisms of the current tribal government, as established by the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934, is that there is no separation of powers and the council has the ability to control everything, including what judges serve in tribal court.

A citizen group that met weekly for more than a year wrote the new 38-page constitution and bill of rights. The document calls for the creation of a three-pronged government to replace the nine-person tribal council. The executive branch would manage the tribe’s day-to-day operations and have a president and vice president that each serve three-year terms. In order to qualify to run for president or vice president, a tribal member would have to be 30 years of age or older, have been a resident of the reservation for at least five years and must have a high school degree or higher. There would be no term limits for the executive branch.

The legislative branch would have 13 representatives from around the reservation and meet twice a year to enact new laws. The reservation would be separated into districts, with six representatives from Browning, two from North Browning, two from Seville, one from Old Agency and two from Heart Butte.

Lastly, the new constitution would create an independent judicial branch with a tribal court and appellate court. An elected chief justice would oversee the judicial branch and appoint associate judges.

The new constitution was completed earlier this month and brought before the tribal council on June 15. The council supported sending it to the BIA for formal review in an eight-to-one vote.

The BIA will ensure the document does not violate federal law. Once it is reviewed by the agency, all tribal members will vote on the document. Barnes said a special election could be held this year.

If voters approve the new constitution, it would be implemented in 2018.

Barnes, a longtime supporter of constitutional reform, said the new constitution would be one of the biggest events in the reservation’s history. The Blackfeet first tried to rewrite its constitution in the 1940s and later in the 1970s and early 2000s, but those efforts failed.

“We want to give the people a chance to vote on these reforms,” he said. “(If they approve it) it would change the course of history for the Blackfeet Nation.”

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I’m not Blackfeet, but I’ve been around this Blackfeet Rez since 1961.  In the Sixties I taught school and was with Bob Scriver, who at that time was a Justice of the Peace and City Magistrate.  His father came in 1903 and Bob himself was born in Browning in 1914.  

The Sixties were tumultuous, rather like now, but the town was considered an island under Montana State Law, while the reservation was federal.  Most businesses in town were white.  At the time the tribal government was modeled on corporations, considered the wave of the future.  The tribal council was like a Board of Directors with all tribal members as share-holders.

You may want to consult the post on this blog on 5-3-05  “NOTES FROM PAUL ROSIER’S “REBIRTH OF THE BLACKFEET NATION, 1912-1954”

Now I quote myself on this blog on 11-13-10.

“In 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act, which was part of the New Deal, created the present form of tribal government. Out of roughly a thousand Indian families, 747 were receiving federal welfare assistance and 138 were making it on their own. By 1935, with Warren O’Hara as superintendent, the Blackfeet Tribal Constitution had been prepared and the Tribal Charter was approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1936 the superintendent is C.L. Graves. An inventory shows that the tribal goods and equipment have been quietly looted -- the value of the missing things is estimated at $100,000. In 1939 an attempt to balance the Council’s cashbook couldn’t succeed because entries between January first and September first had not been recorded, nor had Nancy Goss, the treasurer, been making receipts. Hazlett was the chair, a controversial figure as always. Brian Connolly, Wright Hagerty and Levi Burd are on the council.

“Paul Rosier’s “Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912 - 1954” is a careful, detailed, evidence-based account of what was happening through this period. It may seem dry to those who don’t know the people involved, but for we who do recognize individuals -- might be related to them -- or for the individuals themselves who are still living, this book deserves careful reading and discussion. This is the time period when the idea of a reservation for a dying and essentially different people has to be replaced by the idea of people with a special heritage who are entitled citizens like everyone else. Denial dominates strategy. The larger world has never admitted this shift. They want ghost Indians, not real players.”

Now everything is quite different.  White people are mostly gone, partly because of Indian preference for federal jobs and partly because of demographics unfolding.  Many men who had come after WWII to start businesses had aged out and died without handing down their businesses.  Teachers were Native American.  Many small changes created a big one.  But a complex and emotional one.

The original political system of people on the prairies had evolved organically into clans or bands.  With a core of genetically-related and raised-together people, a penumbra formed from various sources: marriage, partnerships, affinities until the natural basic number was reached — maybe a hundred.  Governance formed as needed out of personal qualities and the needs of the moment.  War chiefs, old women of virtue, problem-solvers, the young and the restless.  They sat down together and talked things through — mostly.  This pattern still underlies everything else.

Today there are about 8,000 people on the rez and about the same in the diaspora through the world, including foreign countries.  The indigenous people of the planet are in conversation and sometimes in partnerships outside the federal context.  The BIA, who had been charged decades ago with making themselves obsolete, continue to have enormous power without the intent or ability to respond locally.

It interests me a great deal that Justin Franz across the Rockies is the reporter most interested and eloquent about rez matters, while the local east side publisher (who owns the weekly papers in four towns) seems only interested in scandal and discontent.  Maybe a little bit of tourist color.

THE GLACIER REPORTER REPORTED, JAN 7, 2015

Persons who are wanting to follow the governmental aspect of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana (Amskapi Pikuni or Southern Piegan) probably ought to either subscribe to the Glacier Reporter as a paper or to sign up online at http://www.cutbankpioneerpress.com/glacier_reporter/  The Glacier Reporter is owned by the Cut Bank located Pioneer Press with all that implies consciousness-wise and economically.  There has been no newspaper indigenous to the rez for years.

Maybe you’re “just not into” all that anyway, so I’ll quickly note two elected reform leaders, Harry Barnes who is the present Blackfeet Tribal Business Council chair, and Joe McKay, Glacier County Commissioner as well as a convener of a group working on the Blackfeet Constitutional reform.  As well I want to note two other off-rez sources:  Bob Juneau, whose formal organization goes by the acronym of BEAR (Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform),  and Saokio Heritage, based at the University of Montana and publishing daily on YouTube, which is video instead of print.

Harry Barnes and his "captured" cavalry hat

That Blackfeet purists made him give up.

HARRY BARNES

The council has established three goals for recovery:

1.  Reduce the cost of operations.

2.  Find new revenues.

3.  Consolidate debt.

These are meant to reunify the political split that has so paralyzed and confused everything, to say nothing of plunging the tribe into debt.  To look at the audits go to Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) at govs.fac@census.gov, then go to the bottom of the page and click on “Find Audit Information.”  Next click on Option #2, “Entity Search,” enter “Blackfeet Tribe” and this will present all audits from 1997 to 2011.  2012 is being checked by the government.  (The BTBC is closely monitored and controlled by the BIA.  One wonders where they’ve been in recent years.)

A new Dialysis Treatment Facility and an associated new nursing home are in planning stages.  Negotiations are underway to work with the Blood Tribe Agricultural Program (BTAP) which employs 202 up there.  There are unique opportunities related to things like marketing timothy hay pellets.

Harry Barnes is a good writer and his column is a pleasure to read.

JOE MCKAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqZUdsdENvw

Screen grab of Joe McKay

Joe’s column, “Legally Speaking” is full of facts and figures about the tribe’s enterprises.  It’s a BUSINESS council, after all.  He lists them and gives the figures, as follows:

Glacier Peaks Casino is not a gold mine.  Net last year was $1,037,274 with $611,553 left to pay on its long-term loan.  The winnings are mostly going OUT of the community.  Probably they will never sustain per capita payments.  Anyway, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and close BIA supervision reject that idea.  But profits can legally be contributed to tribal debts.

Siyeh is a wholly owned corporation within the BTCB portfolio with its own council, which is meant to shield it from benefiting private family interests.  In turn, this sub-portfolio includes several enterprises.  One is Glacier Family Foods, which opened about two years ago.  Though Teeple’s IGA is a major profit-maker and the original store for the state-wide Teeple corporation, Glacier Family Foods is not making money, so far.

Holiday Inn Express Hotel, managed by Blackfeet Hospitality, Inc., is also not a money-maker yet.  $2 million of the original cost came out of Blackfeet Housing and will have to be paid back to them.  Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is a common business practice, but a tricky one to keep track of.  It was interesting to read about the cost of the “Holiday Inn” franchise: $275,000 per year.  The Confederated Salish and Kootenai have dropped their “Best Western” association and they are better situated in terms of population density.  The cooperation with the Casino does not seem to have developed as was planned.

The statue is "An Honest Try" by Bob Scriver

who  originally built this building.

Three smaller sub-enterprises managed by Siyeh are Starlink Cable, Oki Communications and the Blackfeet Heritage Center in the former Scriver Museum building.  All are taking a loss.  I know first hand that so did the Scriver Museum in the beginning.  In fact, the 1964 basically eliminated all income from the Museum since there was NO tourist traffic.  Bob borrowed from his mother that year.

Most of these ideas are based on assumptions from the 19^th century or from small white communities around the rez, without real investigation or reflection.  One of the keys to renewal has to be reconsideration of some of those ideas.  

BEAR

Bob Juneau is focused on Blood Quantum, not so much the idea of a special kind of blood in the circulation of individuals, as the idea of provenance and inheritance according to parentage, usually descended from 19^th century white record-keeping.  The idea of the half-breed has been incendiary and confusing in terms of identity, but we’re way past that now.  People are “one-sixty-fourth” and a person can have children and grandchildren, half of whom are “enrolled” and half of whom are not.  As the generations disappear over the legal limits of membership and quantum-defined access or funding for education and other program, Juneau figures the tribe will be extinct and lose their land base by 2080.  That was the frank goal of the government whites who set it up.

He calls his organization BEAR, Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform, which can be accessed on Facebook at Blackfeet Descendants Group. 

SAOKIO HERITAGE

Rosalyn LaPier is looking at history in a different way, extending the cultural work of the Piegan Institute and the National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian in 2004 by using YouTube.  One subscribes to the daily vids.  The vid of each word is only twenty seconds or so.  Shirlee Crowshoe pronounces the words for you.  You could print it on a 3X5 card or record it on your own Smart Phone and use the word until you’ve got it safely tucked in your brain and on your tongue.  You can contact the group by email:  saokioheritage@gmail.com.  This sort of effort comes and goes over the decades and centuries, but this one seems to be sticking.  I so enjoy using Blackfeet words among white people.

REFLECTION

Tribal council at the agency about 1900.

Looking back over this material, I see two built-in conflicts or confusions.  One is that the BTCB is operating a mixture of entrepreneurial capitalism aimed at making a profit from the tribe’s assets and on the other hand is operating service organizations for the sake of the welfare of the population, which would tolerate breaking even or a slight temporary loss.  Some of these things are mixed, for instance the Casino, which quite apart from the gambling, has proven to be a kind of public square where oldsters can sit by the fireplace to watch people come and go, meeting space with food service, and a landmark.  

It’s interesting to note that Harry Barnes has experience with both his successful building supply business and as a board member for 3 Rivers Communications cooperative.  3 Rivers has been problematic in my view.  I’m aware of how they struggle with people who can’t pay their phone bills and demand high deposits as compensation.  They tend to be very “white” and conservative.  Their service to Valier is always behind the curve.  When I taught in Heart Butte in 1990-91, it was a scandal.

Chief Mountain is on the 49th Parallel

The other difference I see is between official (you can’t get more official than the BIA) and person-anchored groups.  The former is often secretive and located across the continent.  Their resources in terms of money are nearly limitless.  The latter is often emotional, connected to friendship networks, and in Montana but not on the rez and sometimes in university towns.  Not much money is involved.  There are some other “players,” for instance churches and other foundations interested in helping, however they interpret that, but I don’t know much about what they’re doing.