Native communities achieve record turnout
by Paul DeMain
Reserve, Wisconsin (NFIC)
If you were to sum things up, it might be the unprecedented push to turn out the American Indian vote throughout the Nation. Despite the failure to win Indian Country’s most-favored candidate for President, Senator John Kerry, Native nations can still claim victories in get-out-the-vote efforts, defeating anti-gambling or negative propositions at the ballot and in electing more local politicians of their choice.
This is what we know from a round-up of news from around the country for national, regional and tribal elections conducted on November 2, as of November 4th
With over 120 million votes cast nationwide, Bush gained victory after Kerry conceded contested Ohio to Bush on the morning of November 3rd, giving Bush 274 of the 270 electoral votes he needed to win the race, Bush added another 5 electoral votes by the evening with the addition of New Mexico. The popular vote was 59,269,410 (Bush) to 55,738,671 (Kerry) as of the afternoon of Nov. 4th, with only Iowa still too close to call.
Arizona
On Arizona’s Salt River Reservation, bus caravans took members to early voting sites, and a local grass-roots organization put together Native-POLL-Ooza!, an Election Day concert to show the voting bloc of urban Indians. Both candidates courted the Native vote, but there was more visible support for Democratic hopeful John Kerry, according to tribal leaders.
Regi Nordgulen, 20, a sophomore at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., used her semester break to help register Arizona Natives.
“I didn’t hear the big push for the Native vote in 2000,” she said. “This year I came across many groups, including those in Indian communities like Fort McDowell, registering people to vote.”
It wasn’t until 1948, in a landmark court case brought by two Fort McDowell tribal members, that American Indians won the right to vote in Arizona.
California
California voters resoundingly rejected two ballot initiatives that would have expanded slot machines and Indian casino proposals. Governor Schwarzenegger spent an unprecedented amount of money and political capital successfully battling two casino expansion efforts that would have undercut profit-sharing pacts he negotiated with some tribes.
Proposition 68, which could have ended tribes’ monopoly on gambling by allowing slot machines at card rooms and race tracks, was rejected by 84 percent of voters with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Proposition 70 would have taxed Indian casinos but would have allowed them to operate more slot machines. It had only 24 percent support with 99 percent of precincts reporting. It was defeated 7.6 million votes to 1.5 million
The measure would have authorized the governor to negotiate tribal compact amendments requiring tribes to pay 25 percent of revenues to a government fund.
A proposition that would have granted 99-year gaming compacts to tribes and removed limits on the number of machines and types of games on Indian land, Proposition 70, was defeated as well, 6.8 million to 2.2.
Minnesota
“I see a lot of ’Native Americans for Kerry-Edwards’ buttons,” said George Goggleye, chairman of the Leech Lake Band in Minnesota. “I don’t see any George Bush ones. If they’re here, they’re in the closet.”
In Red Lake, on the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation, a Republican challenger was ejected by tribal police after complaints that he was approaching voters and intimidating judges. The GOP said both challengers raised legitimate questions about voters.
In Red Lake, police Capt. Dwayne Dow said the Republican challenger wasn’t following the rules for conduct in precincts, and the chief judge asked that he be removed.
“It just became intimidating in there,” Dow said.
“What this amounts to is a concerted effort to bully a challenger who’s upholding the law,” said Eric Bearse, who was coordinating the GOP’s effort on voting challenges. He said judges were vouching for voters, in some cases even voters they didn’t know, he said.
Bearse said the Duluth challenger raised a question when one person vouched for nine women, “at least one of which didn’t know her own address.” He said the challenge was reasonable.
Minnesota allows voters to register at the polls if they have proper identification, proof of address, or a registered voter in that precinct who will vouch for them.
Montana
At the Rockey Boy’s Agency in Montana, challenger John “Chance” Houle has unseated Alvin Windy Boy Sr. as chairman of the Rocky Boy’s Chippewa-Cree Reservation.
Houle garnered 727 votes compared to Windy Boy’s 515.
Voters on November also chose four at-large members of the tribal business committee, which governs the reservation.
Brian “Kelly” Eagleman, Kenny Writing Bird, Donovan Stump and incumbent Raymond “Jake” Parker Jr. were elected to the committee.
Losing the race were Harlan Gopher Baker, Ricky Morsette, Tim Koop and Janice (Raining Bird) Meyers.
Incumbent Democrat Linda McCulloch won her race for a second four-year term as state superintendent of public instruction Tuesday, defeating Republican challenger Bob Anderson.
With 99 percent of the precincts reporting Nov 5, McCulloch had 234,798 votes to Anderson’s 175,356, a 57 percent to 43 percent margin.
Both candidates trumpeted better education for American Indians, statewide health insurance for education staff and higher teacher pay as priorities.
Nebraska
A state legislature’s casino gambling plan was soundly rejected, another proposal was too close to call early Nov. 4.
Amendment 3, the Legislature’s plan which proposed to legalize two casinos in the state, lost with 65 percent of voters against it.
Two key portions of a four-part package of initiatives to legalize casinos as well as 4,900 video poker and slot machines also lost.
Initiative 417, a constitutional change to legalize casinos with initiatives, lost 49 percent to 51 percent.
Initiative 420, a law change calling for two casinos in Omaha and the slot machines across the state lost as well..
The state’s four tribes watched with interest. Approval of casino gambling would open the door for them to contract with the state to run casinos on their reservation land.
Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek has worked for years to allow gambling on the reservations. She was the main proponent of Amendment 3, the Legislature’s casino-gambling plan which was rejected by 65 percent of voters.
“I’m not personally disappointed,” Schimek said. “I think the people wanted to vote on this issue and we gave it to them. My big disappointment is the tribes.”
There are four federally recognized tribes in Nebraska that could have been allowed to pursue casinos should voters have approved. The Santee Sioux and Winnebago currently operate bingo-style casinos in Nebraska, while the Omaha and Ponca have nothing.
Both the Winnebago and Omaha tribes have experience running casinos in Iowa, which legalized casino gambling in 1989.
“I’m a little surprised and disappointed with the outcome,” said Ponca Tribal Chairman Mark Peniska.
Santee Tribal Chairman Roger Trudell said he was numb following defeat of the two gambling proposals.
The Santee will continue to run its Ohiya Casino in Nebraska near the South Dakota border, about 180 miles northwest of Omaha, Trudell said. The tribe had wanted to expand the casino, which has operated since 1996, to offer Las Vegas-style games.
Trudell blamed defeat on confusion among voters and not enough of an effort to educate people about what the proposals would do.
New Mexico
Albuquerque voters approved a $52 million road-fund bond that includes $8.7 million to build a road through the Petroglyphs National Monument, a site Natives consider sacred. Voters had defeated a similar bond in October 2003.
Voters at Santo Domingo Pueblo lined up late into the evening to vote after Gov. Sisto Quintana closed the polls for most of the day for the tribe to observe All Soul’s Day.
The Albuquerque Journal reported Quintana closed the polls 30 minutes after they opened and told Sandoval County officials and three U.S. Department of Justice observers the Pueblo – and the polls – would be closed for All Souls Day. The polls reopened about 5 p.m. at the Pueblo, which has 748 registered voters, most of them Democrats.
New York, New York
Barry Snyder was elected president of the Seneca Nation November 2, beating two other candidates in a race that focused largely on the future of the nation’s casinos. Snyder defeated Cyrus Schindler and Robert Jones with 52 percent of the vote.
Snyder had said the annuity elderly Seneca members receive from casino profits has been too low and said he favored replacing the non-Senecas currently running the casinos with Seneca members.
Schindler, who was president when the Senecas reached an agreement with New York state to open casinos, leaned toward keeping the nation on its present course.
Snyder won against Schindler in a Seneca Party primary by a vote of 549 to 487. Schindler then formed a new political party, the Seneca Alliance.
Jones joined the race as a third-party candidate on an antigambling platform.
Snyder replaces outgoing president Rickey Armstrong.
Seneca presidents are allowed to serve only two years at a time and the presidency must alternate between the Cattaraugus and Allegany reservations.
About 4,200 members of the Seneca Nation were eligible to vote in the November 2nd election.
North Dakota
A tribal judge in Belcourt, North Dakota on Nov. 1 overruled the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa chairman’s attempt to suspend the tribal election.
Special Judge Shirley Cain’s order came after a hearing in Turtle Mountain Tribal Court.
Questions about the election surfaced after Leon Morin, the outgoing tribal chairman, issued an order Oct. 29 suspending the tribal election.
Morin said he had not expected the voting to stop, but felt he had to oppose the candidacy of Ron Peltier, who is running for chairman. Peltier was one of the top two finishers in the tribe’s October primary, but a court battle erupted over his candidacy. The dispute was whether an amendment passed in the primary would bar Peltier from the ballot because he was convicted of a misdemeanor involving the improper use of tribal money about 20 years ago.
Oklahoma
In Oklahoma voters approved a tribal gaming measure that would give the state some authority over any profits from Oklahoma’s more than 80 tribal casinos, while expanding tribal gambling options and permitting three of Oklahoma’s struggling horse racing tracks to offer the same electronic games allowed at tribal casinos.
Officials estimate the lottery will raise $150 million a year for public education and the gaming measure will raise about $70 million.
The tribal gaming issue, which was supported by large Indian tribes and horse breeders, will allow tribal casinos to offer games whose legal status under federal gaming laws has been unclear.
It prohibits dice games, roulette wheels, house-banked card games and sports betting – the types of gambling usually associated with Las Vegas and Indian casinos in other states but long absent from those in Oklahoma. It also provides $225,000 a year to treat gambling addiction.
The tribal gaming measure will permit tribes to enhance the kinds of games they can offer while sharing revenues with the state, said Chief Chad Smith of the Cherokee Nation.
“We’re very pleased,” Smith said. “It gives us the tools to develop a host of jobs and contribute to Oklahoma’s education.”
Some smaller tribes criticized tribal compacts connected to the gaming measure that delivers some regulatory authority and gaming revenue to the state. But Smith said the agreements will permit the tribes to expand their operations and make them more attractive to the public.
“We believe that by exercising our sovereignty, we’ve come up with a mutually beneficial agreement,” Smith said.
The compacts must still be approved by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Smith said. he said he expects expanded gaming operations to get underway next spring.
Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe has asked for an investigation into Cherokee Chief Chad Smith’s role in campaigning for U.S. Rep. Brad Carson in his race for a U.S. Senate seat.
In a letter to U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Inhofe said he has heard reports that voters are being intimidated by members of the Cherokee Nation.
Inhofe says “partisan campaign materials have been enclosed in the paychecks of Cherokee Nation tribal and federal employees. Employees have been forced to participate in campaign meetings and events...during the workday.”
Muskogee Daily Phoenix & Times-Democrat reported that Inhofe requested McCain’s committee and the Indian Affairs Subcommittee investigate the incident.
Carson, a democrat, and Republican Tom Coburn, a physician in Muskogee, were vying for a U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Don Nickles.
Smith denied the allegations.
“All this appears to be is patent intimidation of the Cherokee Nation standing up to Coburn over his anti-Indian views,” Smith said.
Earlier in the campaign, Coburn questioned how Cherokees measured their members’ degree of Indian blood and called treaties made with tribes “primitive” agreements.
The venomous battle for the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Don Nickles ended with former three-term Rep. Tom Coburn defeating Democratic Rep. Brad Carson.
Coburn said his opponent “overreached” in television ads bringing up a 14-year-old lawsuit containing charges the Muskogee obstetrician sterilized a woman without her permission.
The Republican benefited from the popularity of President Bush, who swept to victory in Oklahoma with almost a 2-to-1 margin over Democrat John Kerry.
South Dakota
Cecelia Fire Thunder was elected president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the first woman chosen to lead the tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota.
Unofficial results Nov. 3 showed her with 2,222 votes to 1,711 for Russell Means.
Alex White Plume had an 859-vote margin over Eileen Janis for tribal vice president.
Also on the Pine Ridge Reservation and elsewhere, there were Republican allegations of vote-buying by the Four Directions Committee, which bills itself as a nonpartisan group trying to increase American Indian voting. Four Directions has accused Republicans of harassing its election workers.
As an example of vote buying, the Republican party provided to The Associated Press a copy of two affidavits signed by Paul Brenner, who said he lives in Virginia and is in South Dakota as a volunteer election monitor.
Brenner stated he talked with people on the Rosebud Reservation who indicated that Four Directions and Sen. Tom Daschle's re-election campaign had been paying people to vote.
On Oct. 28, while seated next to a Daschle poll watcher and New York lawyer Greg Lembrich, two women asked when they would get paid, according to one of the affidavits.
Brenner stated another incident happened Oct. 29 and involved a woman who was taking people to the polls.
“I told (her) I had heard that the Daschle campaign office in Rosebud was offering a better deal to vote haulers than Four Directions, because they paid $10 per voter, plus a free meal at the Rosebud Casino after 12 voters. She said she already knew that and was also getting paid by the Daschle campaign office,'' Brenner wrote.
Glodt said other Republican poll watchers and voters have offered similar stories and the party was working with authorities to get affidavits.
Just before the election, a U.S. attorney entered the fray over a Pine Ridge Tribal Court ruling about on reservation poll watchers.
U.S. Attorney James McMahon said a tribal judge has no authority to keep Republicans from watching voting on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
The developments was prompted by the Four Directions Committee getting a temporary restraining order October 29 against the state GOP and Ryan Knutson, a former GOP employee.
The restraining order states that Knutson is not allowed near the polls and Republicans are prevented from videotaping its workers or having any contact with them.
McMahon said October 30 that anyone who tried to carry out the order would be subject to violating federal law.
“It would be my interpretation of that order that it does not comply with the law, and I have let it be known to law enforcement that they should not be enforcing any order on the reservation which purports to keep the Republican Party away from the polls,” he said.
Oglala Sioux tribal Judge Marina Fast Horse signed the order without telling Knutson or the party about it ahead of time and scheduled a hearing for Nov. 12.
Four Directions, which calls itself a nonpartisan group trying to increase American Indian voting, accused Knutson of intimidating its workers on October 27 at Pine Ridge by videotaping them on private property.
A federal judge later granted Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle’s request to limit the activities of Republican poll watchers after he accused the GOP of intimidating Indian voters.
The ruling prohibited Republican poll watchers from following American Indian voters out of polling places. They are also barred from taking down the license plate numbers of American Indians’ vehicles. David Jordan, a volunteer Daschle poll watcher, testified that he spent Nov. 1 at Lake Andes, a town heavily populated by Yankton Sioux, and saw GOP observers follow early Indian voters out of the polls and write down their license plate numbers.
“They did it pretty much every time” an Indian voted, Jordan said.
On cross-examination, Jordan said none of the observers kept anyone from voting, spoke to any voters or wore clothing bearing Thune’s name.
Joel C. Mandelman, a lawyer from Arlington, Va., testified that he was hired by the Republican National Senatorial Committee to monitor the voting because of worries about fraud.
Mandelman testified he wrote down the license plate numbers of six or seven vehicles used to take Indians to the Charles Mix County courthouse to vote early.
Mandelman said he and another GOP lawyer went out of their way to avoid intimidating voters: “Nobody was intimidated by anything. They all voted.”
Although Republicans outnumber Democrats by 47,000 statewide, many counties with large American Indian populations are predominantly Democratic. For instance, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Shannon County, home of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, by a margin of nearly 11-1.
In addition to lawyers for both major political parties, several polling places in South Dakota have federal observers on hand to watch for violations under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The South Dakota counties involved all have high Indian populations: Bennett, Buffalo Corson, Dewey, Jackson, Mellette, Shannon, Todd, Tripp and Ziebach.
Wisconsin
In Wisconsin a record Native turnout helped give Kerry the state with a slight lead of 12,686 votes. The Native vote might be reflected in the high turn-out in Menominee County, with contiguous boundaries with the Menominee Nation where Kerry led 1,412, to 288 for Bush, or 83 percent of the vote.
The Menominee Nation had the added pleasure of seeing votes in Kenosha County leading 56 percent in favor of an off-reservation casino proposal by the tribe with 70 percent of the vote counted as of press time.
Supporters of the casino say it would bring thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to the area, while opponents have contended the jobs would be low paying and the move would take a big chunk of prime land off local tax rolls.
The Menominee Nation submitted an application earlier this year to hold the 223-acre Dairyland property in tribal trust. After a review process that can take months or years, the U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs will make a recommendation to Gov. Jim Doyle, who has the ultimate say. The proposal calls for a large casino and entertainment complex employing more than 3,000 and a payroll of $138 million a year.
On the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, an estimated 1,200 tribal voters, along with a record turnout on the Bad River (800 voters) and Red Cliff Ojibwe Reservations (400) helped re-elect Democratic state representative, Gary Sherman, in a highly contested contest against a a former Democratic legislator. Sherman won by a margin of 900 votes out of 30,622 cast. Independant candidate Eugene Bigboy, Sr., a member of the Bad River Chippewa, recieved 156 votes.
Washington
Washington voters rejected an initiative to allow more non-Indian gambling, in spite of pledging to dedicate the tax revenue to property tax relief. I-892 would have allowed 18,000 new electronic slot machines in casinos, bars, restaurants and bowling alleys. A 35 percent tax on the machines would have paid for property tax relief.
The measure failed Nov. 2 as 61 percent of voters opposed it with 98 percent of precincts reporting.
I-892 created a political showdown between casino-owning tribes, which now have exclusive rights to offer electronic slot machines, and non-tribal casinos yearning for a piece of that action.
Casino-owning tribes in Washington state spent nearly $6 million campaigning against the initiative with a barrage of television and radio ads. Nearly all the money came from the tribes, but the opposition effort was backed by a broad coalition of civic, religious and community leaders.
Voters also aqpproved a measure blocking the federal government from sending radioactive waste from other states to Hanford nuclear site until waste already there is cleaned up.
Lawyer Jim Johnson succeeded in his second run for the state’s highest court, beating state Appeals Court Judge Mary Kay Becker for the Supreme Court’s only open seat. Johnson held a 53 percent to 47 percent edge early Nov. 4 with 92 percent of precincts reporting. The two were competing to replace retiring Justice Faith Ireland.
Becker and Johnson each won just more than 22 percent of the vote in a six-candidate primary.
Johnson narrowly lost a Supreme Court race to Mary Fairhurst two years ago. As a lawyer, he has handled nearly 100 cases before state and federal appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
He has represented groups challenging Endangered Species Act protection for chinook salmon and landowners trying to limit tribal shellfish harvest.
Various Associated Press and other wire stories contributed to this article
