Critiques of Federal and Native Agencies
Hank Adams’s concerns about fairness, justice, and equality sometimes compelled him to turn a critical eye on institutions, organizations, and individual policy makers—be they Native or non-Native—when he believed they were violating the rights of Natives or their own organic charters.
In the documents that ensue, we witness Adams challenging and criticizing Native organizations like the National Congress of the American Indian, the now defunct National Tribal Chairman’s Association, and even one that he worked for in his early days, the National Indian Youth Council. And, of course, he continued to confront entrenched federal organizations like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others for some of their practices.
He was also willing to focus his attention on the actions of specific tribal nations if he discovered that their constitutions, membership requirements, or voting practices were in need of vital sunlight so that necessary reforms could be put into place. Importantly, his appraisals and critiques were also well researched and fully documented, as his attention to detail has always been one of the hallmarks of his modus operandi.
Essay
1970
Approaching a “Third Century of Dishonor”
by Hank Adams
The latest White House message on American Indians may create a new sense of accomplishment. It almost assures that nothing substantive will be done to alter conditions of life which the presidential statement properly ranks ‘at the bottom’ on ‘virtually every scale of measurement.’ Its policy rejection of termination of federal relationships is noteworthy; in context, it hardly matters. The old programs remain, threatened in proposal only be limited transfusion of ‘red control’ at local levels. Apparently no effective Indian political force exists to provide more. More organizations develop to consume Indian lives and to maintain distance from the issues and critical problems which have devoured too many such lives.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which repeatedly has credited itself with “killing the termination issue” while seeming preoccupied with the ‘dead issue’ most of its quarter-century existence, is already under contract to Spiro Agnew’s National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO) for $80,000 to begin “implementing the President’s plan” by holding sixteen $5,000 meetings. Another grant from Commerce’s Economic Development Administration is expiring. Additional to receipts from its 183 member tribes, NCAI is otherwise largely dependent upon a $200,000 grant from OEO’s Indian Division, Office of Operations, running two years from June 1, 1970. The grant is for “encouraging economic development on Indian reservations”; it also helps maintain their seventeen-member staff in dignified headquarters in Washington, DC, and Albuquerque, NM.
NCIO, whose white director Robert Robertson competes with the Indian members for credit as the “moving force” behind the presidential proposals, is itself product of Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order and Indian message of March 6, 1968. Its contract payment to NCAI will come out of its congressionally authorized $300,000 budget, as will funds for a number of Indian consultants being selected for task assignments from approximately fifty resumes volunteered to them.
The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), once a politically sophisticated group of activists, ends its first decade of operations in Washington, DC, entrenched for the summer under an iron-clad contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Their short-term $72,000 contract, mainly from BIA employment assistance funds, sustains forty college-age interns in shuffling between federal agencies, congressional offices and private organizations to learn how their government operates. Some are learning difference between sham and sustenance; others experiencing development of misplaced loyalties at $100 per week; with high take paying out at a hard-earned $1,500 per month. The interns move for a final two weeks of community and university program orientation in Gallup and Albuquerque, NM, where NIYC maintains headquarters and where a concentration of Indian organizations has built up under church and federal funding. In that area, besides NCAI and NIYC, are Southwest Indian Development (SID); Organization of Native American Students (ONAS); and the multi-purpose Gallup Indian Center.
A new Indian unit recently opened office in the Nation’s capitol under a six-month $72,400 grant from OEO’s Legal Services Division to provide a director, staff counsel, secretary and consultant to the American Indian Task Force, Administrative Services Corporation (AITF) (ASC). AITF is the by-product of the $120,000 project concluded by the white Citizens Advocate Center (CAC) to produce the well publicized, decimally-precise, sometimes-accurate report, Our Brothers Keeper: The Indian in White America (New Community Press, 1969), as edited by CAC Director Edgar S. Cahn with accompaniment of an Indian editorial board or listing. The new monies, in category of research and development (R&D), expire with the calendar; the corporate (recipient) status of ASC does not. ATTF director Judge Charles Lohah, Osage from Oklahoma, readily refers to their R&D designation when questioned on their purpose, which appears to be formulation of recommendations based on field inquiries and familiarizations now being undertaken; and to further capitalize on the impact of the $120,000 CAC report…
Another national organization has evolved from the resignation of LaDonna Harris from her expiring NCIO term, resulting in the spin-off creation of Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) and celebrated fund-raising parties at the expensive New York Plaza and in Southampton, Long Island, NY, in June and July. Mrs. Harris has shunned government funds for her myth-dispelling program, relying instead upon foundation support and the drawing power of celebrities like Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, and her own husband Fred, the US Senator from Oklahoma. So far, foundations have responded meagerly with a “couple small grants to get AIO started” in a Washington, DC office.
American Indians United (AIU), which fumbled around under restricted Ford Foundation funding for a year attempting to develop the first credible coalition of Indian-controlled urban centers and organizations, has momentarily dropped from view. Indian activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles have gained public visibility and some accommodation from news media, but remain lost in orientation to local issues and limited concerns.
Promising moments do occur; and fade. The newly-formed All Indians Coalition, comprised of groups which spearheaded the confrontations at Alcatraz and Pitt River in California, on Fort Lawton and salmon-producing rivers in Washington, in the Alaska land and revenue settlement issue, and at Ellis Island and the island chain in the St. Lawrence Seaway of New York and Canada, raised questions of national strategies and objectives at a meeting of convenience on July 1st. The next day, the groups marched on the Ford Foundation to demand examination of their Indian aid programs, particularly in area of legal assistance. Finding nothing objectionable in the eighteenth-month $155,000 supplemental grant to the California Legal Services (CLSI) disclosed to them, the groups backed off. An FF program officer later referred to them as “Panthers without a punch.” The All Indians Coalition settled down for the moment to organize a mutual assistance communications network.
The point for focus in the preceding and in the President’s message was perhaps most clearly stated at the coalition meeting by Dave Matheson, action director for Survival of American Indians Association (SAIA) of Washington. Matheson, who is turning down Selective Service deferments in favor of testing his claim to draft exemption under a Treaty of Medicine Creek provision and an April 25th Puyallup tribal ordinance prohibiting military service by tribal members in foreign or domestic actions under US command, declared: “It’s time we stopped America’s wasting taxpayer dollars in the Indian’s name and stop America from destroying Indian people in the taxpayers’ name. We must expose the irrationality of federal programing and the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and we must eliminate the irrationality of Indians betraying one another in that structure!”
Mr. Nixon does not propose rational programming for Indians, nor even offer minor reform for controlling the $626,000 federal expenditure obligated to be spent, ostensibly in Indians’ behalf, in Fiscal Year 1971. The $626 million allegedly serves 462,000 reservation Indians; there’s speculation that the new census will have found about half “America’s Indians” off the reservations, excluded from the federal programs, and spending.
The fictional character of service populations can be seen in a look at the education allocation of 221,000 Indian children of school age: slightly over 50,000 attend federal Indian schools; 89,000 attend state public schools with federal aid currently budgeted at the $20 million level under the 1934 Johnson-O’Malley Act; the others are absorbed in local state and church schools without special federal aid, with many not in school at all.
The cruelest implications for the Indian future comes in the President’s plan to “develop their economic infrastructure” with an Indian Financing Act of 1970, supplemented by continuation of the BIA’s Industrial Development Program. In noting that seventy-one commercial and industrial enterprises have come into operation in the last two years, Mr. Nixon dishonestly fails to inform the Congress that the 6,000 new jobs he mentions are the total established under IDP in the fourteen year life of the program, not just the past two. The BIA itself is continuing under a schedule that will add 6,252 additional employees to its employment structure by 1973 over the 16,177 it counted in 1968.
Other figures developed in 1968 showed non-Indians securing 56.6% of gross income from Indians’ non-irrigated agriculture lands; grossing $52,400,000 in lease of just 2.13 million acres of select Indian agricultural lands out of the total 44.2 million acres in use for range and dry farming. Now the government is asking general authorization for ninety-nine-year leases to encourage non-Indian industries to settle on the reservations, while treating the needs of an extraordinary number of Indian jobless with financial aids to white interests and non-Indian businesses.
By advocating return of 48,000 acres to Taos Pueblo in a non-economic move, Mr. Nixon could afford to remain silent on the question of an equitable claims settlement with the natives of Alaska, where the potential to totally eliminate poverty is readily possible. The July 16th measure passed by the Senate, even with a ten million land acres selection and billion dollars revenue provision, it is not directed toward that aim. Probably the best the natives can hope for in the House is action on the measure and a shortening of the cash payment schedule.
Most active support of the Alaskans was the New York based, Association of American Indian Affairs (AAIA), a white organization in the business since 1922 and now operating on a budget anticipating income of $522,000 in their current fiscal year which began in February. The federally-funded Indian organizations in the lower forty-eight states were noticeably inaudible and grossly underfunded.
In lieu of granting Indians command and functional control over their existing economic and monetary resources and fifty-five million acres of reservation lands, Mr. Nixon offers unit control over some lowest levels of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Funds could even be contracted to Indians to hire the bureaucrats now holding the jobs; the incentive for attracting quality personnel to such lowly undertaking: their federal civil service standing will remain intact.
In short, the government is advocating a general spread of the ‘Quileute Plan.’ There the BIA has tried to convince the Quileute Tribe of the seacoast town of LaPush, Washington, to sink the major portion of a $130,000 claims award into development of new freshwater sources to serve the thirty-seven white businesses to whom the Bureau has leased all the tribe’s shoreline and waterfront, including a river mouth boat harbor servicing hundreds of ocean-going charter fishing boats. The whites gross more than seven million in a six-month season while the tribe realizes a mere $8,000 in lease income and another $3,000 in landing levies per year. The BIA argues for the new water sources, which the Quileutes themselves do not need, with a promise to help the tribe establish and operate the first Indian business: a parking lot. The Bureau, in their wisdom, has advised, “If you control the parking, you control the economy!”
Memorandum
June 22, 1973
Memorandum Regarding the Nisqually Indian Community & Reservation
To: US Senator James Abourezk, Chairman
Senate Indian Affairs Subcommittee; et al.
I respectfully offer this informational memorandum to your offices for assisting in responding to requests recently addressed to you by numbers of Nisqually Indians from that Washington State reservation, and for raising the most pertinent questions with the Interior Department and BIA in helping to resolve the crucial matters at issue.
Nisqually Indians v. Interior Secretary Rogers Morton, Filed June 8, 1973, in DC Federal District Court by thirteen enrolled and non-enrolled Nisqually Indians, this lawsuit presents the fundamental issues and problems of concern:
A. Rights to Membership in the Nisqually Tribe of Indians;
(1) Under existing Constitution & Bylaws (September 9, 1946);
(2) As vested by the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek;
(3) As vested by the 1884 Nisqually Schedule of Allotments;
(4) As altered or preserved by 1934 Indian Reorganization Act;
(5) As affected by 1918 Condemnation of Nisqually Lands;
(6) As permanently denied by exclusion from 1965 Membership Roll;
(7) As extinguished by recent Constitution, Adopted July 9, 1973.
B. Dispossession of Individual and Tribal Rights as Nisqually Indians by wrongful construction of incomplete enrollments, and adoption of the new Constitution, through abuses of Administrative authority and approvals in “final” actions disregarding the controlling Tribal Constitution and Federal Laws and Regulations.
C. Denial of Treaty Protections to off-reservation “Lieu Lands”;
(1) Contrary to Articles 2 & 6, Treaty of Medicine Creek;
(2) Contrary to Article 6 of the 1854 Omaha Treaty;
(3) As wrongful consequence to dispossession and displacement of Nisqually families by 1918 Condemnation Proceedings.
D. Denial of Treaty Trade & Commerce Rights and Tax Immunities.
E. Surrendering to Washington State the Nisqually sovereign tribal rights to manage fisheries and control the taking of fish by, treaty Indians throughout its customary fishing domain as secured by Article 3, Treaty of Medicine Creek; and totally dispossessing numerous treaty Indians of all their treaty fishing rights.
F. Designed Derivational Irregularities in Constitutional Election.
II. The adoption of a new tribal constitution on June 9, 1973, is the matter of most immediate concern. Specific new provisions relating to present and future membership in the Nisqually Tribe, as well as those relating to the form of the day-to-day “governing body,” are the principal issues in dispute. However, the irregularities in the conduct of the federal election are challenged as issues representing abuses of federal administrative authorities having regular occurrence or frequency.
The Nisqually constitutional election—to revoke the 1946 Constitution and Bylaws, and to adopt a completely new constitution—was authorized by the Office of the Interior Secretary on February 26, 1973. As pointed out for attention in the letter of authorization, under 25 CFR 52.5 such authorizations become void after 90 days. Nonetheless, the election was held 104 days after the issuance of authorization.
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III. Rights to Membership and Entitlements to Vote: The Secretary’s Election Board considered only those Indian persons whose name appear upon a “Revised Membership Roll,” approved by the Associate Indian Commissioner on November 3, 1965, as being qualified Nisqually voters who could be registered.
The sixty-three Indian persons whose applications for voting registration were disallowed by the Election Board claimed their entitlements to vote under the explicit provisions for membership in the Nisqually Indian Community contained in the Nisqually “Constitution & Bylaws,” approved September 9, 1946, by the Office of the Secretary of the Interior.
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The Secretary’s approval form for the 1946 Constitution declares: “All officers and employees of the Interior Department are ordered to abide by the provisions of said Constitution and Bylaws.” Yet it is plain by the facts that neither the development of the 1965 “Revised Membership Roll” nor the June 9, 1973, secretarial election were controlled by the provisions of the present tribal constitution.
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It begs credibility to think that a tribal constitution formulated by the Indian Service and approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 1946 would define and determine the Indian people who were to be governed by it and who would give it application with reliance upon a census document which did not exist, or which could not be reasonably or correctly constructed. Also, the non-existence of the 1945 census roll, referred as the basis for declared membership and future membership, raises the question of how the 1965 revised membership roll could have been developed from a non-existent base.
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IV. Development & Use of the 1965 Revised Nisqually Enrollment: The Nisqually Indian complainants, some being included on the 1965 enrollment and some being excluded from it—but all being persons who unquestionably qualify for membership under the 1946 tribal Constitution, argued with the BIA and Interior Department that the central questions of rights to membership and entitlements to vote should be decided prior to an election on, or imposition of, a new constitution for the Nisqually Indians. If possessing tribal political rights before the election, by right or entitlement to membership, they reasoned that they should be permitted to vote in the election which would determine how their political rights were to be controlled or governed after, or as result of, the election.
Since 1965, federal and tribal actions relating to Nisqually Indians have been governed more fully, perhaps controlled completely, by the 1965 Revised Nisqually Enrollment, constructed under the direction of the BIA, than by the provisions of the 1946 tribal constitution.
The 1965 enrollment, in controlling governmental actions and relationships at all levels of government, effectually dispossessed numerous Nisqually Indians of their legal rights as Nisqually Indians, or as federally recognized Indians entitled to benefit from a range of federal programs.
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V. Subversion & Violation of the Purposes & Provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934:
The Nisqually Indian Community or Tribe was organized under Section 16 of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. Although, surprisingly, the Nisqually Indians did not become organized under an approved IRA constitution until September 1946—it was among the first tribes in the nation to vote in favor of becoming organized under its provisions.
The Nisqually Tribe voted on October 27, 1934, to organize under an IRA constitution. For that election, no absentee ballots were issued or allowed.
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The general reason given for not allowing absentee voting was that the available time between the election and its initial authorization and scheduling was too brief to allow either a clear determination of who should be eligible to vote or the issuance of absentee ballots. Although there was a first determination that the Nisqually Indians should “organize as a Tribe,” the failure to allow absentee voting was inconsistent with that determination under the provisions of the IRA law. (The Quinault Tribe in the same jurisdiction vehemently opposed absentee voting in deciding whether to be excluded from IRA organization. In their election, non-resident absentees overwhelmingly favored IRA organization and won the majority by a margin of less than a dozen votes of more than 600 cast. Withstanding tremendous federal pressure, the Quinaults subsequently never did organize and adopt a constitution under IRA.)
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VI. Misapplication of Secretarial Enrollments: In pursuit of its policy and plan to reduce the number of Nisqually Indians who might claim treaty rights as fishermen for the harvest of salmon and other fish resource, the Interior Department used its authority under 25 U.S.C. 163—a law authorizing the Secretary to establish and approve tribal enrollments to be used for the limited purpose of “segregating tribal funds” for division or distribution—to formulate the 1965 Nisqually enrollment. The 25 U.S.C. 163 law can only be considered to be tangentially related to the Indian Reorganization Act and its purposes, if at all related. While the law allows for such enrollments’ usage in distributing tribal funds to tribal members listed upon the, and under that law are declared to be legally conclusive as to the age and blood quantum of Indian persons listed, it is well-established that such enrollments are not necessarily to be regarded as being conclusive as to the rights of Indian persons not listed or named to be included in such enrollments.
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The Interior Department has misapplied or abused its enrollment authorities to deny Nisqually Indians their rights under their tribal constitution, including membership rights for many. This has been clearly volatile of the congressional mandates under the Indian Reorganization Act and of the standing which the Congress assigned to tribal constitutions.
Summary of Nisqually Issues & Aims:
The several score of Nisqually Indians actively seeking resolution of issues discussed in this paper and raised in the lawsuit against Secretary Morton do not seek to take anything away from other Indian persons. They only seek the small justice of ensuring that a number of Nisqually Indians themselves are not deprived or dispossessed of their rights as Nisqually Indians.
The Interior Department in the past decade has wrongfully applied or abused the existing law which should be controlling upon its relations with the Nisqually Indians. A basic fault in its actions and deficiency in its considerations has been the general failure or refusal to review pervious federal actions affecting the Nisqually Tribe or Indian community to determine their intended effects and impact upon future or succeeding federal actions.
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In the Nisqually lawsuit against the Interior Secretary, both the unqualified issuance of absentee ballots—and the extension of voting rights to eighteen-year-olds under the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution, contrary to provisions of the Nisqually constitution—are challenged in regards to the June 9th election. The absentee voting issue relates to conformance to the IRA. More significantly, the other issue questions (1) what constitutional standards are controlling upon the Interior Secretary’s relations with or actions affecting Indians, or conversely (2) what constitutional protections may Indians invoke as Indians against actions of the Secretary; and (3) to what extent may the US Constitution intrude upon tribal actions and decisions in the exercise of the powers of autonomous self-government?
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The succeeding questions, on separate page, are questions which need to be asked of the Interior Department, if the Nisqually complaints are to be adequately responded to.
Questions Which May Appropriately be Addressed to the Secretary of the Interior for Answering the Complaints and Understanding the Issues Affecting Nisqually Indians:
1. How soon is it expected that the newly-adopted Nisqually tribal constitution will be approved by the Office of the Secretary of the Interior?
2. Is there any likelihood that the new constitution will be disapproved?
3. Does your department or the BIA have knowledge of any Nisqually Indians who are entitled to Nisqually enrollment or membership under the 1946, or present, constitution who are not listed on the 1965 tribal enrollment?
4. Does the department or BIA have knowledge of any such persons whose application for registration to vote in the June 9th election was denied or disallowed by the federal election board?
5. For the constitutional election on June 9th, did the federal election board consider registration applicants who claimed entitlement to vote under the membership provisions of the 1946 constitution, or solely those applicants whose name appear on the 1965 revised enrollment? Did it register any Nisqually Indians not listed on the 1965 roll?
6. In organizing under the Indian Reorganization Act and constitution in 1946, did the Nisqually Indians organize “as a tribe” or as “Indian residents of a reservation”?
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10. Does not 25 CFR 52.5 require that constitutional elections be held within ninety days after the issuance of authorization by the Office of the Secretary, or otherwise that authorization becomes void? How long after the date of issuance of authorization from the Secretary’s office was the Nisqually election held?
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12. Inasmuch as the political rights of all persons entitled to be enrolled as Nisqually Indians shall be controlled by any new constitution, when approved, would there not be any merit or advisability in an action of disapproving the constitution adoption until after the central issues of tribal membership are resolved and all persons entitled to be members are added to the tribal enrollment?
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15. Would there not be merit or advisability in the Secretary’s rescinding the 1965 revised Nisqually enrollment, or its approval, in favor of developing a complete, accurate as possible, up to date, Nisqually enrollment prior to acting upon or approving any major constitutional action by the Nisqually community?
16. Did the major dispute over Indians’ treaty fishing rights in the Nisqually or Puget Sound are, or departmental attempts to alleviate that problem, play any significant part in the development of the 1965 enrollment? Have any Indians suffered State criminal prosecution for fishing by reason of not being listed upon that enrollment, while claiming Nisqually treaty rights? Has the department or United States acted to give judicial protection to any persons it recognizes to be of predominant Nisqually Indian blood who has been arrested for fishing under claim of Nisqually treaty rights?
17. In lieu lands were secured for Nisqually Indians in consequence of the 1918 condemnations, why has the department not sought to protect the rights provided to such good lands under the Medicine Creek and Omaha Treaties of 1854?
Letter
March 19, 1974
The President of the United States
Attn: Mr. Leonard Garment,
Special Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, DC
US Vice-President Gerald Ford,
Chairman, National Council on
Indian Opportunity (NCIO)
The Hon. Rogers C.B. Morton,
US Secretary of the Interior,
Department of the Interior
Re: Federal Agencies Relationship with the NTCA & NTCFI.
Sirs:
Having reviewed the January 18, 1974, GAO Report (B-114868) regarding operation of the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association (NTCA), as well as its establishment and funding by federal agencies, we have no doubt but that the NTCA exists as an instrument of the federal government fully covered by the provisions and requirements of the October 6, 1972, “Federal Advisory Committee Act,”(86 Stat. 770)….
In the organizational chart for NTCA, as prepared for it by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Interior Department officials, the advisory relationships are drawn to the White House and to the respective executive agencies or Departments. The narrative states:
NTCA will relate to the White House and Executive Agencies through its Board, Officers, and Executive Director. Initially, White House and Executive Agency contacts will be with the aid of NCIO and needs to consider the White House Counselors on Community Development, Human Resources, and Natural Resources.
Subsequent NTCA activities have demonstrated that, in varying degree and extent, each of your agencies or offices has worked with the NTCA officials as an “advisory committee” or comparable entity. Consequently, we herewith request various items of information, including designated transcripts of agency meetings with NTCA, under the provisions of the “Federal Advisory Committee Act.” Additionally, we respectfully request that your respective offices and agencies detail for us the procedures which are being followed by each for conforming to the federal Act when utilizing NTCA (or National Tribal Chairman’s Fund Incorporated—NTCAI) as an advisory committee or “resource.” We request:
(1) A listing from each of your Offices or Agencies of all meetings with NTCA Board, Officers, or Executive Director for securing advice, recommendation, or for promising commitments, with respect to governmental policies, actions, or appointments to federal positions; including information on the availability of minutes, transcripts or agency notes taken at or resulting from each such meeting;
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(5) The transcripts and minutes of meetings between NTCA officers and representative Agency officials, including Messrs. Leonard Garment and Frank Carlucci, of the “Special Federal Inter-agency Task Force on Indian Affairs,” as established November 6, 1972, during the period December 5, 1972, through January 8, 1973;
(6) The transcripts and minutes of agency and advisory proceedings for the January 18–19, 1973, meetings between Interior, HEW, NCIO and other agency officials with NTCA Board members and officers;
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As a separate listing of requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, we would appreciate the designated offices or agencies providing us:
(1) From the Justice Department:
a. A copy of the September 1, 1972, White House Memorandum from Geoff Sheppard to Deputy Attorney General Ralph Erickson, requesting information for use of the President or John Ehrlichman in 1972 presidential Campaign Trips and for capitalizing on “criminal justice” issues;
b. A copy of Deputy Attorney General Ralph Erickson’s September 8, 1972, Memorandum to Acting FBI Director Patrick Gray, requesting the FBI to secure the political information requested on September 1, 1972, by the White House;
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d. A copy of the US Government Memorandum of September 11, 1972, containing the political information gathered by the FBI for Deputy Attorney General Erickson to transfer to the White House for use by the President or John Ehrlichman, and particularly all documents relating to or explanatory of the September 11, 1972, statement by the FBI that:
Militant Indian groups on Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations (South Dakota) contend favoritism shown the non-Indian in criminal matters from the standpoint of investigation and prosecution. They also contend politics controls law enforcement within the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
e. A copy of the memorandum or statement of Assistant US Attorney R. D. Hurd, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, between the dates of September 17th and 23rd, 1971, citing reasons why he desired no additional investigation of civil rights violation complaints made in regards to Indians and BIA or tribal police on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation;
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Available records reveal that NTCA, and an associated dummy corporation, or National Tribal Chairmen’s Fund Incorporated (NTCFI), were established by the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs, aided by the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO), in a deliberately designed fraud upon Indian people. Since its inception in 1971, and through its expenditures of more than $875,158.00, NTCA has not escaped from that basic design. It has, consequently, been costly to both Indian people and other American taxpayers, while harming the general Indian welfare immensely.
My own questioning of a number of elected tribal chairmen in the Pacific Northwest supports a conclusion that most tribal officials are not even aware that there are two separate, although related, organizations: NTCA and the NTCFI. The GAO report does not indicate which, unless solely NTCA, has been recipient of their considerable federal advisory grant funds.
As indicated in the attached letter to OMB Director Roy Ash, the flow of federal monies to NTCA’s Board of Directors began with an October 12, 1971, directive designating them a “consultive or advisory group.” Prior to that, during the days of July 27–29, 1971, the Indian Commissioner’s Office and aides established and structured both NTCA and NTCFI for its own select purposes—and retained Mr. Marvin Franklin, along with Associate Commissioner Arthur Gajarsa, to control that development.
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BIA officials declined to become a “registered agent” for NTCA and NTCFI for the simple reason that “BIA wished to stay out of the picture as much as possible.” Marvin Franklin immediately accepted appointment as legal counsel to NTCA, and there seems no evidence that he has formally relinquished that relationship at any subsequent time—through all the funding and lobbying enjoyed subsequently by NTCA/NTCFI, and through the period of subsequent federal and private employment of Mr. Franklin.
Both NTCA’s status as a lobbying group and as an advisory group was stressed in a September 20, 1971, meeting with the Secretary of the Interior; resulting in a commitment that “yes, we should give them all the help we can”; and where Interior both asked the question, “Who speaks for the Indians?” and answered with its own declared hope, if not determination, that “NTCA will become the voice!” The directive for “advisory group” funding followed, citing the secretarial decisions of September 20, 1971.
We recognize that the “Federal Advisory Committee Act” was not enacted until almost a year later—nonetheless, its provisions extended for application to advisory groups already in existence or being utilized.
The initial development and succeeding actions of NTCA or NTCFI leaves some questions which should be answered for Indian tribes and people. Which group or organ has been funded by each respective federal grant?? Given the intense concern over construction of a tax-exempt, non-lobbying organization, has NTCA/NTCFI maintained clear separation of functions in its activities, including its reportage to the Internal Revenue Service, and particularly with respect to its uninvited congressional lobbying activity?
During the past two years, a number of elected tribal chairmen have been denied entrance to a number of meeting of NTCA, particularly when occurring in the security-tight Executive Office Building. This is not permissible under the Advisory Committee Act; is it consistent with the provisions of grants, contracts or other federal funding NTCA/NTCFI?
Subsequent to its December 1973 annual Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, NTCA’s Board of Directors and Executive Director passed all political resolutions—misrepresenting their authorization for acting upon resolutions and the body which acted upon them. Such deliberate misrepresentation has permitted NTCA’s executive officers and partial board to become the strongest lobbying group in favor of Administration legislative proposals, while disallowing question or examination of their merits. For instance, NTCA supports the Administration’s plan for transfusing federal BI employees into the employment structure of the tribes while maintaining full Civil Service credits, protections or control. In the name of virtually all tribes, it also misrepresents positions to remain the strongest advocate for eliminating civil rights protections for Indian groups and individuals in reservation communities, and for denying them all recourse to abuses of tribal governing officials, power or authority!
It’s downright pitiful that a few Indian people in official positions would allow themselves to be manipulated and misused so abusively as the handful of NTCA officials who have sold themselves to the Administration for these past few years. The relationship between NTCA/NTCFI and the various federal agencies epitomizes the gross artificiality of the Administration’s policy of so-called “self-determination” for Indian people. Personally, I fully believe that both the President and Indian people have been betrayed by those policy-makers and decision-makers who have had free rein and acted in the field of Indian Affairs for the Administration since 1969. From the White House to the Indian Affairs for the Administration since 1969. From the White House to the Indian Agencies, the only remarkable “new dimension” evidenced among the personnel with the power in this Administration has been an almost-incomprehensible smallness.
We shall appreciate your most immediate response to this letter and its several requests for documents and information.
Sincerely yours,
Hank Adams, National Director
Letter
February 2, 1978
The Hon. James O. Eastland,
United States Senator,
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Opposition to Confirmation of Mr. Jack Tanner, Nominee for US Judgeship for Washington State
Dear Senator Eastland:
I respectfully request that this statement be entered into the record of hearing on the nomination of Mr. Jack Tanner of Tacoma, Washington, to be appointed as a US Judge in the Western District of Washington.
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I have been acquainted with Mr. Tanner since 1964, and had periodic personal contacts with him during the first decade after first meeting him. In 1964, he was acting as legal counsel for various Nisqually and Puyallup, plus other, Indians who I was working with and with whom I’ve worked with continuously since then. In fact, Mr. Tanner in 1964 acted to incorporate the organization I now work for, and which I’ve directed since 1968, minus several leaves of absence.
I have not previously stated opposition to Mr. Tanner’s nomination, nor provided information for consideration by any agency in pre-nomination periods. My decision to not speak on this matter previously was premised partly upon the possibility that this nomination would not be made; but more so upon a disinclination to merely aid in the elimination of one potential nominee in favor of another who would be selected totally outside “merit system” processes in this judicial district.
•••
I call upon the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay action on this nomination and to refer it back to the Justice Department for additional investigative review under the personal direction of FBI Director-designate William Webster, whose own experience as a federal judge would lend greater understanding to the significance and importance of questions raised relating to this nomination and to the qualifying of judgeship nominees.
I would note for the record that my last appearance before the Judiciary Committee was in 1973 for the purpose of opposing the nomination of Mr. L. Patrick Gray to become FBI Director. I have since appeared before other Committees relating to nominees, and have provided counsel to the Interior Department in the evaluation of potential or actual appointees for high positions in the Carter Administration.
Today, I am thoroughly convinced that this nominee, Mr. Tanner, is even more extremely less qualified for the position, a federal judgeship, than has been any other nominee for any position that I have been compelled, in this case by conscience, to testify upon or to evaluate.
I question Mr. Tanner’s competence and qualifications. And I question Mr. Tanner’s integrity.
I regard Mr. Tanner as a master of deceit and deliberate deceptions. I recognize that Mr. Tanner has a disarming personality, colorful language and accomplished verbal abilities, which gain him the confidence of many people and has probably made him effective with juries. My association with his work has primarily been in civil matters, or otherwise outside the courtrooms altogether. However, to refer to his “work,” is to use that term loosely. His propensity for losing civil cases for Indian clients throughout the past fifteen years rests with his invalid assumption that competence can come without work—that cleverness and cunning is the equivalent of competence.
•••
In the last meeting held between Jack Tanner and the Survival of American Indians Association, probably in 1969 in Fife, Washington, when I was present, as were several members and government officers of the Puyallup Indian Tribe, I recall Mr. Tanner’s advising the group on courses of action for the election and the operation of a tribal government. He told them that they should “Do what you want; declare the results you need; and destroy the records. Ain’t no way anyone’s gonna prove what happened if there are no records.” He informed us that’s the way things are done in politics, business, and labor unions all the time, adding a question in proof of his statements: “You’ve heard of burning the ballots, haven’t you? It’s done all the time.”
•••
Dean Edgar Cahn of Antioch Law School can verify for the Committee that by early 1969 I had formed judgement that Jack Tanner was incompetent and inept as an attorney in civil cases, if for no other reason than Tanner’s aversion to research and case development work. Beyond questioning his abilities, I had lost confidence fully in his integrity. Edgar can verify this because he called me from Washington, DC, to accuse me of being against Jack, and refusing to allow him to handle the case of an Indian police shooting victim, for the sole reason that Jack Tanner is a black man. I explained at length to Mr. Cahn at that time that Mr. Tanner’s color was wholly immaterial to my judgement on his lack of competence and inability to provide quality representation in civil cases, or in criminal cases where investigative work might be crucial to the outcome.
Parenthetically, I would note that Mr. Cahn has been the only person I know of who has ever accused me at any time of being against black people. Throughout my adult life, I have acted to help break down barriers between Indian people and black people, even to the point of filing complaints with federal agencies against other federal agencies who have actively sought to maintain or intensify an antipathy or hatred against blacks among many Indian people. Just hours before his fatal trip to Memphis in 1968, I recall explaining to the late Dr. Martin Luther King about this “white-imposed racism or racial prejudice,” and the importance of Indians joining with Blacks in the national Poor People’s Campaign of that year. From that period to the present, our organization has maintained working alliances with a number of Black, Chicano, and other racial and economic class minorities, on a number of concerns. In the matter of Mr. Tanner’s nomination, I do not believe that his race or color should be used as a shield against inquiry into his qualifications or competence. It is patently unfair to other opponents of this nomination that a general accusation has arisen as standard response to the opposition that “they are just opposed to having a black judge.” It is more grossly unfair to those black attorneys in Washington State who would warrant consideration for appointment to a federal judgeship on the basis of merit and unquestionable qualifications.
Although I have read in the newspapers of latter 1977 that various charges have been made and investigated by the FBI regarding Jack Tanner’s relationships to Mr. Bob Satiacum, a Puyallup Indian engaged in various past and present business enterprises on the Puyallup Indian Reservation, the specifics or nature of any allegations have not been stated in the news accounts. Inasmuch as Mr. Tanner’s nomination has actually been made, I cannot believe that a complete investigation has been made of his involvements on the Puyallup Reservation, or of his relationships with Bob Satiacum beyond the attorney-client one.
The political involvements of members of the Washington congressional delegation with Mr. Tanner, Mr. Satiacum, and the Puyallup Indian Reservation or other members of the Puyallup Tribe over the past three years provides an odd inter-mix of relationships that can only be extremely difficult for anyone to comprehend.
•••
In the first days of January 1976, however Jack Tanner met with members of the Puyallup Tribal Council in his capacity as alter ego and business associate of Bob Satiacum, if not his slave master. The Tribal Council and Bob had agreed to hold a meeting among themselves in order to formulate an agreement for his use of the property consistent with the tribal referendum, for curtailing any illegal activities, and for eliminating the problems getting out of hand under the administration of the businesses by Satiacum’s management employees.
Instead, Jack Tanner stormed into the meeting and, among other abusive and threatening statements, declared that: “We don’t have to deal with you at all!” “We don’t have to pay you anything whatsoever!” “We can do anything we want to on that property, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!” “We don’t have to pay taxes to anyone; nobody has jurisdiction over that land. The Tribe doesn’t have anything to say there!”
The attempts by Ms. Ramona Bennett, tribal chairwoman, to discuss the problems with Bob Satiacum and to tell Mr. Tanner that, “We are trying to talk to Bob….”, were cut off by Tanner’s angry interruptions. Bob’s own attempts to speak for himself similarly were halted by Mr. Tanner’s outbursts and tirade. The meeting was abbreviated and adjourned without any satisfactory response to the community problems outlined by Ms. Bennett.
•••
Another curious sidelight to this nomination is that, since the Puyallup Tribe succeeded in removing Bob Satiacum and Jack Tanner from the tribal lands—which were converted for tribal income generation for governmental operations, tribal employment opportunities, and community services—several members of the Washington congressional delegation have ganged up against the Puyallup Tribe to deny it federal funding assistance and to restrict its opportunities.
•••
The methods and reasons for hiding interests, income, or ownership, in business activities on the Puyallup Reservation are matters better known to Mr. Tanner than to myself. One good ancillary effect of Mr. Tanner’s being considered for a federal judgeship, however, has been that, during the period his name has been under consideration, Bob Satiacum has been regularly and faithfully paying his taxes—at least to the Tribe. And, at least on those businesses he is known to own or have partial interest in.
Finally and briefly, there are two other aspects about this nomination which have disturbing implications in my mind.
One again relates to actions of members of the Washington congressional delegation, both Senators and Representatives. The frequency of letter and private telephonic communication between members of the delegation to federal judges, including Justices of the US Supreme Court, regarding Indian treaty issues and related proceedings, has increased in recent years. I have no judgements on the propriety of these actions, although I would prefer that any such communications be offered in a record form or from a formal status standing, as with amicus or intervener, in order that the content at least may be know publicly. I have no doubt in the integrity and abilities of US Judges George Boldt or Walter McGovern to withstand undue influence from any source whatsoever. I do not here charge that any undue influence has been attempted through these communications. However, I have no faith whatever that Jack Tanner can maintain the independence and integrity for remaining free from undue influence, even when no influence is intended. If confirmed, Mr. Tanner will have a lot to be beholden for to his sponsors and supporters.
Lastly, with reference to charges previously reported in the press against Jack Tanner, particularly relating to the Smokey Metcalf conviction and appeal, I am again extremely distressed by the implications I see. I am not so concerned about a matter of forgery and not centrally, although more so, about a question of perjury. Often I have signed other people’s names with their permission or knowledge; and have authorized others to sign my own name. I am not surprised that Jack’s hometown newspaper, the Tacoma News Tribune, did a technically-precise word usage analysis of his testimony to declare that, technically, he did not lie on the witness stand and could not be accused of perjury in that instance. However, the truth was not revealed in the, technically responsive, answers. There was design of concealment and caginess in the confusion rendered. I’ve not questioned Mr. Tanner’s abilities as a criminal lawyer. But in that case he had another role—as witness. His mastery of the legal art of slipping and sliding around the truth to hide parts of it could only be envied by such persons as Richard Nixon. It was not a judgement to be made upon his agility of mind or adeptness which was at stake in that matter; but rather another man’s liberty. When that precious value is not appreciated in the courts of this land, then I am offended—as an American citizen and as a human being.
Your vote should record that the nomination of Mr. Jack Tanner was not confirmed.
Respectfully submitted,
Hank Adams
Testimonial
Hearing Before the Select Committee on Small Business. US Senate. 96th Congress, 1st Session. On Nomination of Paul R. Boucher to be Inspector General of the US Small Business Administration. (May 16, 1979).
The Honorable Lowell Weicker,
United States Senator,
Washington, DC 20510
Attn: Mr. Stan Twardy, Minority Counsel, Small Business Committee
Re: Nomination of Mr. Paul Boucher as Inspector General, SBA
Dear Senator Weicker:
I understand hearings are to be held on the confirmation of the nomination of Mr. Paul Boucher to become Inspector General for the Small Business Administration. Also, I’m informed that a question of whether Mr. Boucher may have acted improperly in the course of a trial of three Indians (Keever and Dock Locklear, and Bill Sargent) for felony possession of stolen government property in Wilmington, North Carolina, in December of 1973, might be raised as an issue on confirmation.
Let me affirm, first, that I do not believe that any aspect of Mr. Boucher’s conduct or participation in the Wilmington trial would constitute his disqualification for appointment as SBA Inspector General, or as a practicing attorney for that matter.
I’ve reviewed Jack Anderson’s column after the trial in which it is stated that: “For an attorney knowingly to present false testimony before a court is a disbarment offense.” The column centers upon the fact that Mr. Boucher failed to act to correct or strike testimony that Jack Anderson had offered to “pay $20,000 plus….one hundred free stories” in his column in exchange for access to stolen documents—after I had personally informed Mr. Boucher that the testimony was false. An additional point was that Mr. Boucher did not simply have to rely upon my word on the matter, but that the Justice Department in Washington, DC, was fully aware of its falseness, because—as I had informed Mr. Boucher—the fact that neither Jack Anderson nor Les Whitten had traveled to North Carolina, nor at any time offered money for documents or stories, was expressed in sworn testimony before grand jury proceedings and probable other forms.
Here are several background facts: (1) I was subpoenaed as a defense witness for the trial and attended it through conclusion; (2) I informed Jack Anderson and Les Whitten about the offensive testimony entered; (3) I was present in Les Whitten’s office while he made various telephone calls in development of the story, including some to federal attorneys involved, and defense attorneys. This latter point has import because there was disagreement on what the Larry Blacksmith testimony had actually been. The US Attorney and his Assistant in North Carolina differed in recollections from Whitten’s “source” on what the actual testimony, and its nature or substance, had been. Whitten advised them that if the transcript of testimony conformed to the federal attorneys’ recollection, he would do no story on the matter. They agreed to aid in designating the relevant portion of testimony in order that Anderson’s office could order or purchase its transcription. When the transcript arrived, it conformed in detail with the “sources” statements, and indicated either error of recollection on the part of the State federal attorneys, or a continuing reluctance to admit the offensiveness of the testimony and to be forthright and truthful. Mr. Boucher himself had not disagreed with information supplied Mr. Whitten; had affirmed most of it; was apologetic; and admitted that the matter probably should have been handled differently and rectified before the case went to the jury.
•••
In North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, I was asked to testify, or subpoenaed to testify, on matters relating to properties missing from the BIA, and regarding Wounded Knee (for which I had acted as a White House intermediary with twenty-four hour access to presidential assistant and then counsel, Leonard Garment, in helping negotiate an end to the confrontation). In the one instance where I was able to take the witness stand briefly—in South Dakota—it was again apparent that the US Attorney’s Office had been supplied FBI files ostensibly relating to my background, as a means of attacking my character and credibility. Another US Attorney’s Office later informed me of these files, characterizing them as “the most ludicrous and derogatory hate-file” which that attorney had ever seen. A private attorney, having no association to myself, was shown these files and was prepared to use them against me—as was the apparent situation in South Dakota. If that had been the case, in the event that I had not been kept off the witness stand in Wilmington, then I would have clear questions about Mr. Boucher’s integrity. However, there was no hint of that in the North Carolina trial—and although I was aware of the shoddy briefings given Senators Cook and Hruska by the FBI and possibly Justice Department—I only became aware of the derogatory briefings and Justice Department information supply or dissemination regarding myself in the course of, and after, the Wounded Knee proceedings. (As recently as this past year, I have been advised, my picture and background statement was circulated and posted with security stations in a number of governmental buildings in Washington, DC, with warnings to watch for my entry—at a time when I was neither in DC, nor planning to come there.)
I have learned that it is possible for moral men to operate among vipers in the American government, and not be infected by their colleagues malice or venom. For instance, Leonard Garment has seemed one of the most honorable men I’ve been privileged to know, in or out of government. It is possible that Mr. Boucher has been untainted while in the employ of the Justice Department during a most nefarious period of its history. My own inquiries on his background—since being contacted by your office on this matter a month ago—would indicate that he, indeed, is a conscientious and dedicated person, whose integrity is intact. Most praiseworthy, I’ve been informed, has been his work on the investigation of criminal acts and coverups at the highest levels of the FBI earlier in this past decade.
I consider it gravely unfortunate that the Congress and its committees have never examined into the issues of wrongdoing against various Indian people, communities and organizations, by the various levels and divisions of the Justice Department. I am certain, however, that such an investigation would clearly show wrongdoing, although of both criminal and noncriminal nature. I’m certain, also, that—apart from the internal designs of Justice agencies, and directives from the White House and its Executive Offices—questionable actions have resulted from demands made upon the Department and its Attorneys General by powerful members of the Congress itself.
In closing, I would want to commend yourself and your staff for the apparent thoroughness with which you are looking at this nomination. Only a year ago, I was thoroughly distressed by the closed-eyes approach by which the Judiciary Committee, after failing to instigate serious charges against a nominee for a federal judgship—whom I was actively opposing—routinely recommended a confirmation. There were aspects of that nomination which touched upon the operation of the minority-set aside in federal contracting under the Small Business Administration, which I had intended to raise at this time as a matter which should warrant close attention by any SBA Inspector General. However, that would probably be better presented in a separate communication to your Committee, inasmuch as it does not bear upon Mr. Boucher’s qualifications in any particular.
I hope this letter may be helpful to your consideration and to your review of the point raised with respect to Mr. Boucher’s actions in 1973. I know of nothing which should disqualify him for the SBA position; and all that I have been able to learn would indicate that he is worthy of confirmation.
Most sincerely yours,
Hank Adams, SAIA
Letter
February 23, 1988
The Honorable John Miller,
US Representative
Washington, DC 20515
Attn: Mr. Jay Suchan, Staff Member
Re: “Misrepresentation as a Native American” (draft bill)
Dear Congressman Miller:
I’ve received the draft bill on unlawful misrepresentation. It would be sufficient, except that there are extraordinary problems and troublesome implications arising with the classification at:
(a)…the term ‘Native American’ means an individual enrolled as a member in a Federally recognized Indian tribe.
This should be modified to include working to such effect as:
(b)…the term ‘Native American’ means an individual enrolled as a member in a Federally recognized Indian tribe, and any individual who is the natural child or direct lineal descendant of an enrolled member in a Federally recognized Indian tribe.
Or, in the alternative, modified by adding:
(c)…The provision of this section shall not apply to any individual who is the natural child or direct lineal descendant of an enrolled member in a Federally recognized Indian tribe.
The primary purpose of the bill should be directed against those non-Indian persons who make a totally false claim of Indian identity or ancestry. The draft essentially makes the bill a proposed criminal enforcement of all tribal enrollment actions. It could compound the wrongs and injury too frequently inflicted upon numerous Indian persons by way of defective enrollment processes and requirements that have too frequently been misapplied by federal or tribal agencies in the past.
The present draft bill would be unacceptable “termination” legislation—and would be terribly unjust. There is no doubt but that, if the bill became law as drafted, its primary use would be made against Indian persons who descend from enrolled tribal members, but who are not themselves now enrolled in tribal membership for a range of reasons.
The facts are that the federal government has had an overbearingly intrusive impact upon membership actions of the tribes in an accommodation of its own policy, or varying political, designs of different moments. By statutes, the Congress has “terminated” the Indian status of full-bloods (Oregon tribes, for example: Klamath, Cellos); Ute Indians of less than “one-half of Indian blood”; and Yakimas of less than “one-fourth” of bands allotted on that Reservation. It ended enrollments or distinguished between Alaskan Natives born before and after the effective date of the Lands Claims Settlement Act. In Oklahoma, to accommodate the marginal Indian blood quantum of Phillips Petroleum’s W.W. Keeler, Congress set Cherokee enrollment eligibilities at 1/16th or 1/32nd of Indian blood in federal laws.
Administrative applications of membership provisions of tribal constitutions have produced notorious abuses by both federal and tribal agencies. The writing of constitutions after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 created some of the problems of arbitrariness and senseless requirements, particularly relating to “place of birth” and “residency” at time of birth. Going to the wrong hospital in the wrong town could provide a birth record that disqualified an Indian person from membership in his or her ancestral tribe.
I was centrally involved in prosecuting litigation in Frank v. Morton in the District of Columbia federal court and in the Western District of Washington, from 1973 through 1977, to restore Nisqually Indian enrollment rights. That tribe had been reduced to forty-eight members, including families of the least Indian blood and excluding persons of predominant Indian bloodlines and parentage, due to wrongful federal and tribal actions. The membership increased about tenfold when the membership criteria was properly applied in consequence of the litigation.
It is important that the proposed bill be directed against non-Indians making false claims, rather than toward Indians who are already suffering injury.
I appreciate your assistance and consideration.
Respectfully yours,
Hank Adams, SAIA