President Obama's American Indian adviser on tribal policy

Any suggestions? There is still hope that despite whoever takes the BIA helm or the OST helm and is still subject to Federal Oversight and Federal Program Managers, we might still have a chance at an appointment who will be our voice. I believe that tribes would do well to assemble a top-to-bottom consensus for who we think might be a good choice.

A nationally elected representative might be a good place to start. Those scholars who have visited our tribes preaching the gospel of sovereignty from our Universities might be a good choice. Some people who have the ground-level view of how Federal policies have affected us might be a good looking place.

The venerated warriors who have suffered through the indignities of our struggles to retain hunting and fishing rights may yield some cheers from throughout Indian Country. In the end, the person who has a personal stake in assuring Indian Country has a voice in how the Federal Government Policy is affecting us, who can both speak with and hear from the general Native American Populace is a good sure bet.

Some of our warriors who are elders may be the ones to listen and speak for us. Afterall, this position is an advisor. They are there to tell our side. In any population, the best ones to do that are the Elders who speak from several generations of experience. The re-hashing of an old trick will do no one well. The voice of experience has the most valid argument, not from what is thought to be happening, but from the trenches where sovereignty's dignified warriors presented themselves as obstacles to those who would have taken everything from Native Americans nation-wide.

In a cultural-reawakening it would be appropriate that the People begin to ask which elders among us can sit in the position best suited to mentor a government in its task to honor the treaties made by our ancestors.

Majel Russell Part Deux?

I am wondering if there is any chance Majel Russell might be seeking to get back into Carl Artman's office? Does she still have the keys?

I am in the earnest corner of "I hope she doesn't" because my opinion is that her stance on sovereignty thus far has not been within even the lightest shade of what True Sovereignty should be.

And because so many are oblivious to the facts surrounding her recent stint as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Bureau of Indian Affairs means that not all Native Americans are the best judges or the best references for Majel. Instead ask Eugene Little Coyote of the Northern Cheyenne Nation what his opinion on Majel Russell may be. (she signed an order recognizing a new Northern Cheyenne President in opposition to a Northern Cheyenne Constitutional Court Opinion). Ask members from California's Table Mountain Rancheria whose sovereignty was wiped clean by the efforts of an enthusiastic lawyer (Majel Russell) as their leadership was being turned upside-down what their opinion is on her view of Sovereignty. All this happened as she and her clients sought to "peacefully take over leadership." (Again she was party to a leadership dispute under circumstances which at least in part appears to have been undermining tribal sovereignty, as she tried to figure out who had jurisdiction on the reservation? duh! Tribal police: think "Sovereignty") At the heart of the matter is that both the incumbent and the "dissident" faction on the Table Mountain Rancheria had the reigns put on them by the Tribe. They wanted to decide who would lead them together, AS A WHOLE TRIBE. They did not need the outside "expertise" of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or some fancy lawyer who was not mediating, but instead intimidating by throwing the "Casino Percapita Bone" out in front of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In an unexplainable move, Kevin Gover, the BIA Secretary at the time, issued recognition for the dissident faction, because of violations of a gaming allocation plan by the incumbent Tribal Chairman. Funny, I never knew the GAMING ALLOCATION PLAN would trump a LEGAL ELECTION by the people. (funny, just like the Northern Cheyenne's overturning, the Tribal Constitution is what should have prevailed, not the opinion of an outsider like a lawyer from another tribe, or an Assistant Secretary who didn't set up the Tribes' Constitutions)

Remember one of the glaring points of this blog is that "right does not necessarily mean it's good." Follow the rules until following them defeats the entire purpose (in relation to the trust responsibility and the benefit to the tribal member). The American Indians have a long trail of Federal Court rulings that we will all tell you are not ethical or beneficial to us as Nations. Just because you followed a case in a court of law does not mean it is necessarily beneficial or ethical. I tend to believe Aristotle's and Socrates' view that True Politics meant the pursuit of the "Common Good."

"Common Good" for Native Americans should mean equal treatment across the board, and the best and most economical treatment should be to let tribes decide for themselves to exercise their own sovereignty. And in the absence of them exercising sovereignty-in-action, let that remain as one of their options. Everything comes to an end eventually. It doesn't take a lawyer from outside a tribe to end a dispute. I believe talented people like Majel Russell may have a place in some courts for the Tribes. Her accumen has been sharp thus far, but like Saul, maybe she needs to take the talent she's been given and pour it into a new direction, a better direction, in support of True Sovereignty. Maybe. Maybe like life, the tribal disputes across the nation will run their course and lessons will be learned from the snail's-pace flow of action. At any rate, tribes do not need a court to define sovereignty. In fact, if you start to define sovereignty, you begin to limit it.

The day you tell someone what sovereignty is you should not stop talking...forever, (the definition is infinite) or you should just hand over the keys to your leadership office. Well in light of the fact that, in a small part of the Native American Public Opinion, Majel Russell stepped all over sovereignty in the Northern Cheyenne Nation just recently, I would hope that the whoever gains the Presidency would ask a very short list of people for references if she ever seeks another leadership position at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or Office of Special Trustee, or the Department of the Interior. I'm hoping we don't hand the keys to our BIA leadership offices over to her if she ever pursues a leadership position under the next Administration.

Majel Russell's Background Check

Majel,
our little darling. She certainly had our eye when she was among us. She had us all fooled I think. She earned the trust of so many Natives.
Advocate.
Fighter.
Leader.

On March 28, 2006, there she was testifying before the Senate on the Probate Reform Act of 2005.

1. She argued for the protection of Tribal sovereignty.
2. She said, "I believe strong, effective Tribal governments will insure that Indian people remain distinct political groups"
3. "I remain interested in the “one-stop shopping” concept,"she said.
4. She told the public that, "the Crow Tribe has been surveyed three times about the willingness of individuals to sell their fractional interests in land. All three surveys overwhelmingly indicated that Crow Indians who owned small fractional interests of lands preferred to sell the lands and in some cases to even donate the interests to the Tribe."
5. She further said she would, "propose expanding land consolidation efforts to include financing for individuals to purchase fractionated interests. Developing mechanisms for individuals to consolidate lands, invest capital and practice good stewardship of land would most effectively protect trust land while also benefiting Tribes through stabilizing and protecting the reservation land base."

• Contrasting Point 1: In RECALLED TABLE MOUNTAIN LEADERS WANT NEW VOTE POWER STRUGGLE CONTINUES AFTER THE SECOND REJECTION OF A RECALL APPEAL reported by DOUG HOAGLAND & STEVAN ROSENLIND in the FRESNO BEE (Originally published 1998-10-06) The dissident faction says the law is on its side and that it is time for the incumbents to relinquish control of the 150-acre rancheria. "We are now working to negotiate ways to peacefully take over the tribal leadership," said Majel Russell, a Montana lawyer representing the dissidents. Those efforts have, to date, been unsuccessful, Russell said. Yet in December 28, 2007, Elected Tribal President, Eugene Little Coyote was forcibly removed from his office by a team of BIA SWAT officers. Since then a series of Appeals have come to a dead end when Majel Russell, Principal Deputy Secretary, Bureau of Indian Affairs, preempted the Interior Board of Indian Appeals process (taken from The New Front Line) and denied an appeal by Eugene Little Coyote. One may argue that it is merely a personal matter, but with the world's largest undeveloped Coal Bed Methane Gas Field underfoot, the Northern Cheyenne may have more than a personal matter to look for. So in 2006 she is on the side of the dissidents and requests that the BIA step all over Tribal Sovereignty and recognize the new government? And then in Dec 2007, she again, now as the boot-heeled oppressor, steps all over Northern Cheyenne Sovereignty and declares the people-elected Presidency null and void? And then denies them the basic procedure of having their issue addressed by an objective institution (the Interior Board of Indian Appeals)? It may be some weird stretch of somebody's imagination to say she is really protecting Tribal Sovereignty when she, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs ignores the Northern Cheyenne Tribe's Constitutional Court Decision to uphold the People-Elected President, Eugene Little Coyote.
  
• Contrasting Point 2: I would say she is 0-2 in this pursuit based on the above bullet. Rather to the contrary, she seems quite adept at disrupting Tribal Governments in a come one, come all paternalistic attitude.
  
• Contrasting Point 3: I have to admit, there is no contrast here. We will see that she does believe in One-Stop-Shopping, as long as she is allowed to cruise aisles haphazardly with carte blanc privilege.
  
• Contrasting Point 4&5: No argument here. She does believe that many fellow tribal members, family members and the like, would love to sell land back to the tribe; she just does not seem to think that the Tribe should shoulder the bill. She has also proposed to make land acquisitions by providing financing for individuals to buy fractionated interests. Unfortunately, instead of acting like a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she is really acting like a lobbyist for only the Crow Tribe by proposing that the U.S. Government set aside 380 million dollars for land acquisition and consolidation of fractionated interests on the Crow Indian Reservation (as reported by the Billings Gazette). I'm Crow and I have land to sell but I can't find a buyer. I'm Crow and I have an urge to buy land, but I don't have money. Can anyone help us? Enter Stage Right, Majel Russell. Despite the limits of funding opportunities available she would seek to lobby for 380 million dollars for Just One tribe (hers) to consolidate and acquire land interests. One Stop Shopping made simple when you hold the keys to the store.
  

And now they think she might be a good interim leader for Bureau of Indian Affairs? A little bit of homework would fix that thought...