Blog — Galanda Broadman

BIA Pulls A Fast One With New Secretarial Election Rule

The Bureau of Indian Affairs recently announced its final rule regarding Secretarial elections for federally recognized tribes.  The final rule purports to clarify how tribes may remove IRA constitutional provisions requiring Secretarial elections for constitutional amendments.

The BIA claims that its new rule furthers tribal self-governance and self-determination. That may be true, at least absent tribal chicanery.  The BIA also claims that this rule protects urban Indian voting rights.  But in reality, the rule does no such thing.  

Will SCOTUS Double Down Against Tribal Courts In Dollar General?

By Jared Miller

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch remarked on the success of a pilot program allowing select tribes to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence under the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

“[Y]ou demonstrated that with greater control over your own lands and closer partnership with the federal government, justice can and will be done,” Lynch said of the Tulalip and Pascua Yaqui tribes for their efforts during the test period.  The comments are remarkable for at least two reasons. 

Marijuana Tribes: Beware of the DEA's Trojan Horse

In 2013, I published "Federal Task Force: Indian Country's Trojan Horse," explaining:

Beware of the federal task force. . . . [T]he federal task force is a Trojan Horse when it enters Indian country. That is because hiding within the federal task force are state and local cops.

his dynamic is especially prevalent with federal drug task forces.  In fact, the first federal task force comprised in pertinent part by state and local cops, were DEA-led drug task forces.  As the DEA explains

Tribes Could Lose Big If Nebraska Prevails in “Diminishment” Case

By Jared Miller

When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Nebraska v. Parker earlier this month, it created the real possibility of a new kind of land-grab in Indian country.

Nebraska is a reservation “diminishment” case in which the State of Nebraska has invited the Court to rework the three-factor Solem test, such that contemporary demographics play a much larger role in determining whether land is Indian country.

Natives Turn Local "Deadliest Enemies" Into Change Agents

Towns, cities and counties, as tribal communities' closest neighbors, have historically played a major role in the "deadliest enemies"-dynamic of tribal-state relations. At the municipal level Indians have been murdered, imprisoned, excluded, discriminated, and taxed over the last few hundred years.  Those human rights violations have persisted in modern times, especially in rural America.  So naturally Natives have wanted little to nothing to do with local government.

That reality is now changing, dramatically.  In the staunch spirit of Indian self-determination and with the fervency of the Idle No More movement, Natives are aggressively grabbing, and leveraging, local government platforms to affect social change for Indian people.