ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512090003
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SEQUIM, WASH.
SOURCE: SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Tribal governments around the nation are facing big budget cuts, and American Indians are looking toward the chairman of a small Washington state tribe for leadership in an escalating battle with Congress to restore that money.
Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, was elected president of the 180-tribe National Congress of American Indians Nov. 3. The group is the oldest and largest intertribal organization in the United States.
In his campaign for NCAI president, Allen vowed to ``aggressively counter the harsh, insensitive efforts of the current Congress to erode our tribal sovereignty.''
He said he sees the congressional initiatives as an assault on tribal sovereignty not unlike the 1950s, when the official U.S. government policy was to ``terminate'' tribes by allowing their reservation land to be sold and their governments to collapse from lack of federal support.
He shares the views of Assistant Secretary of the Interior Ada Deer, a Menominee Indian, who called proposed cuts to Indian funding ``a covert means to terminate tribes.''
In recent weeks, Congress has passed provisions that would cut about 18 percent from the budget for tribal governments and programs. The measures also would sanction Washington state tribes that assert sovereignty over reservation land owned by non-Indians.
The cuts in Indian support money still are tied up with the Interior appropriations bill in a House-Senate conference committee.
There also were failed attempts in Congress to tax Indian gaming revenue and to establish a means test to determine tribal funding levels based on the tribe's wealth.
Allen, 47, who had led his 228-member tribe since 1977, says the Republican Congress' ``Contract With America'' ``does not include Native America.''
He grew up on native S'Klallam lands surrounding Sequim Bay. His Indian father is from the original village on land tribal members bought with $500 in gold.
The tribe bought the land more than a century ago to ensure that its members could stay on their home ground after signing a treaty ceding thousands of acres to the United States. Allen's mother's people are Scotch-Irish immigrants who came to the area a few generations ago to work in sawmills.
In his paid job as executive director of the tribe, Allen oversees enterprises that include an 80-acre shellfish farm, a casino and an apartment building.
He became involved in national Indian politics by following in the footsteps of other Northwest Indian leaders. Joe DeLaCruz of the Quinault Nation and Mel Tonasket of the Colville Confederated Tribes are former NCAI presidents whom Allen said he watched closely as a young man seeking to develop his own political acumen.
Some people are uncomfortable with the relationship of tribes with the federal government, Allen said. Tribes are treated under law as having sovereign powers similar to those of the states. Allen says Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., wants to change that relationship.
Gorton has inflamed Indian activists around the nation by, among other things, questioning whether the government's treaty obligations include the right to taxpayer support for an indefinite period.
``I believe Gorton is misusing his authority to undermine tribal sovereignty and eliminate tribal government authority,'' Allen said. ``And he is doing it through coercion. He is threatening tribes with loss of revenue.''
Much of the debate over Republican efforts to cut back on federal support for tribes centers on interpretation of treaties, which Allen and other Indian leaders say impose a continuing obligation on the government.
Informed of Allen's remarks, Gorton said the treaties ``do not require the taxpayers to pay the cost of Indian self-government in perpetuity.''
``The right of tribal self-government and self-determination carries with it a duty of self-support,'' Gorton said. ``Local governments all across the United States impose their own taxes and fees to pay for their schools, law-enforcement agencies and other governmental functions. Only Indians claim the right to have all of these functions paid for by non-Indian taxpayers. And that is essentially unfair.''
Allen accused Gorton of ``putting non-Indian rights over Indian rights'' when he attached a rider to the Senate budget bill that would sanction Washington state tribes by cutting their federal funding if they take any unilateral action adversely affecting non-Indian access to utility service on reservations.
But, again, Gorton is unapologetic.
``Indian sovereignty should not give tribal governments authority over non-Indians living on their own lands on reservations as long as those non-Indians are not allowed a voice and a vote in setting the policies,'' he said.
Gorton, as chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, drafted language in Senate budget legislation that would cut funding for tribal governments by about 27 percent below the amount requested by President Clinton. Some money was restored in conference committee with the House, and the cuts now stand at about 18 percent. Clinton has yet to sign the bill into law.
Gorton also has backed a Senate proposal to remove legal services corporation aid for impoverished Indians in cases involving conflicts with non-Indians over property and resource rights.
Allen said the 1994 election means ``our friends, who are primarily Democrats, no longer have the political clout'' to block legislation backed by Gorton and other political opponents of tribes. And some powerful Republican Senate allies, such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico and John McCain of Arizona, have been only partly successful in restoring money cut by Gorton's Interior appropriations bill.
As president of the National Congress of American Indians, Allen plans to consolidate political clout in Indian country to restore spending cuts and protect sovereignty. That means asking the few tribes that have made huge profits on casino gambling to invest in NCAI. And it means organizing ``get-out-the-vote'' campaigns in such states as New Mexico, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arizona, Montana and Alaska, where there are large numbers of Indians.
Under Allen's leadership, the group is beginning to organize local, regional and national Indian political action committees.
``We will use our financial power to influence the system,'' he said.
The current direction of Congress will ``drive relations between Indians and the U.S. government back into a confrontational status,'' he said. ``And it will also drive Indian country further into poverty.''
American Indians by most measures are the most socially and economically disadvantaged Americans.
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