The Confirmation hearing of Larry Echo Hawk held in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee chambers is really not a confirmation hearing as much as it is a re-confirmation hearing. This is an assumption based on the witless list prepared by.....whom? Who knows, who cares? It is obvious that the confirmation has already taken place based on the fact that the list is a fairly short and lonely list. It lacks objectivity, it lacks an outside view, it is probably the best that anybody could come up given the extreme views of their wonder-boy Larry. I just hope the the vetting will take place someplace back here in the real world. It's somebody's idea that this is going to settle the question Indian Country-wide of whether Larry will continue to serve the Morman (sic, yes I know) beliefs that the tradition of gaming which pre-dates any European church does not fall under the Sovereignty of the Tribes to decide their own fate. This is supposed to settle the question of whether Larry still believes that Tribes should deal with states instead of the Federal Government--never mind that Tribes never made treaties with states, never mind that Tribes are still in the midst of Trust Issues that have never been fulfilled and continue to be neglected. This is supposed to settle the question of whether Larry was really sincere in his silent apologies to the Tribes in this area. Never mind that the minutes from his "Last Stand" against Tribal Gaming taking place in Idaho are on file at the University of Idaho Law Library, and that they clearly show he and his staff were absolutely taking a stance against Tribal Sovereignty. His excuse was that he had a "duty" to the state. What is never discussed is that his duty was to point out ALL options for the state of Idaho in its reaction to the Tribal Gaming Stance. He never points out to "his" state of Idaho that one of the options was to honor the sovereignty of the Tribes in Idaho and allow the gaming to take place under the current wording of the law that Idaho had set for its own state non-tribal citizens. Instead he made a case that it was of the most importance that the will of the people of the good state of Idaho be shown by the legislators and that they pass the end-run around their own law to effectively ban the tribal gaming in Idaho. Surprisingly (really?) the people of Idaho passed their own initiative which allowed the same gaming which Larry Echo Hawk sought to ban.
But then I'm sure that all of this will come out in the re-confirmation hearing of Larry Echo Hawk when Alonzo Colby and Larry himself speak to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Amen to expressing a Native American's point of view
The politics of Larry Echo Hawk's vetting
A further review of Larry Echo Hawk's reaction to state-tribal sovereignty disputes
Larry Echo Hawk urged Tribes toward an intergovernment relationship with ...STATES
Larry Echo Hawk's record on Indian Casinos
Larry Echo Hawk
More on Larry Echo Hawk
Larry Echo Hawk a poor choice among many great ones
The Sovereign masses
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved the nomination of Larry EchoHawk to be assistant secretary of Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior.
The committee approved EchoHawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, by a near unanimous vote.
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