intergovernmental relationships

Investing in Rural Prosperity Chapter 7: Native America x Rural America: Tribal Nations as Key Players in Regional Rural Economies

Year

The seventh chapter in Investing in Rural Prosperity, "Native America x Rural America: Tribal Nations as Key Players in Regional Rural Economies", outlines the diversity of Native nations, including with respect to governmental structure and economic opportunity. It also explores the history and evolution of Native economies, the effect that European colonization and U.S. government policy have had on economic opportunity in Indian Country, and efforts by Native people to improve Native economic prosperity. The authors highlight ongoing challenges to improving Native economies, including the still small on-reservation private and nonprofit sectors, and the need for continued improvements in creating business friendly legal infrastructure and access to capital. The chapter concludes by showcasing instances in which cooperation between Native nations and nearby non-Native communities have led to improved quality of life for both and proposes that increased regional collaboration could result in substantial mutual gains for both tribal and rural communities.

Investing in Rural Prosperity, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, seeks to help rural individuals and communities achieve shared economic prosperity. By outlining a framework for how to approach rural development successfully and showcasing stories of progress in different communities—as well as highlighting recommendations for action by policymakers, practitioners, funders and researchers—the editors and authors hope to advance this important goal.

The book includes contributions from 79 authors in the United States and abroad, representing financial institutions, nonprofits, philanthropies, academia and government agencies. The chapters touch on a wide range of topics, including entrepreneurship support, workforce development, energy efficient manufactured housing, and digital inclusion. The book delves into the challenges of our past and the promise of our future. Ultimately, Investing in Rural Prosperity is a call to action, so we can realize that promise—together.

The views expressed in the book do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or the Federal Reserve System.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Jorgensen, Miriam, and Joan Timeche. “Investing in Rural Prosperity Chapter 7: Native America x Rural America: Tribal Nations as Key Players in Regional Rural Economies” Saint Louis Fed Eagle, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 23 Nov. 2021, https://www.stlouisfed.org/community-development/publications/invest-in-rural

 

 

COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples: Impact of and Response to the Pandemic

Year

In a two-volume, special edition of the American Indian Culture and Research Journal—volume 44, issues 2 and 3—we examine COVID-19’s unique implications for Indigenous Peoples, nations, and communities. We organized these special issues because the COVID-19 pandemic has particularly adversely affected Indigenous Peoples within the United States. In February 2021, the United States has the highest number of COVID-19 cases of any country in the world—nearly 28 million, more than twice that of the second-highest country, India, which has 11 million cases. Within the United States, COVID-19 differs substantially across demographic groups and communities. African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians have experi-enced substantially higher levels of COVID-19 infection and death. American Indians, in particular, are quite vulnerable to COVID-19; death rates have been 1.5 times those for non-Hispanic whites, while infection rates are 3.5 times those for non-Hispanic whites.

The impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples residing in other countries differs according to the overall national strategy for dealing with the pandemic. In Australia and New Zealand, where COVID-19 strategies have been particularly stringent, the impact has not been as severe as in the United States; however, there is still some evidence that Indigenous Peoples are more likely to be affected. We have less evidence for other parts of the world, especially in South and Central America. In Canada, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, the impacts on First Nations has been less dire than compared to the general Canadian population; however, in recent months, there have been increased case rates on reserves in the western Canadian provinces.

The structural racism of colonialism is the driver of myriad negative outcomes for Indigenous Peoples, and the effects of COVID-19 are no exception. The articles in this first special issue, AICRJ 44.2, take a granular and intersectional look at the impact of the pandemic, the resilience of Indigenous communities, and the relevance of self-determination in public responses. These articles document specific programs and methods to combat and cope with COVID-19 effects in Indigenous communities and nations.

Resource Type
Citation

Carroll, Stephanie; Randall Akee, Chandra Ford, eds. COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples: Impact of and Response to the Pandemic. (2020). American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Vol. 44, No. 2. American Indian Studies Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.

Policy Brief: Assessing the U.S. Treasury Department’s Allocations of Funding for Tribal Governments under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

Year

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“the Act” or “ARPA”) has resulted in the single largest infusion of federal funding for Native America in U.S. history. The core of this funding is $20 billion for the more than 570 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments. As required by the Act, the Department of the Treasury (“Treasury” or “the Department”) devised and has now implemented a formula for allocating these monies. In this report, the authors find that the allocations that have been made are grossly inequitable and contrary to the policy objectives of Congress, the Biden Administration, and the Treasury Department itself.

This study uses publicly available information to estimate enrollment and employment counts for tribes. These figures are only estimates created for the express purpose of analyzing the appropriateness of the US Department of the Treasury’s American Rescue Plan Act allocations. Our estimates have not and cannot be verified against actual enrollment or employment data submitted to the Department of Treasury by each tribe.  We believe the estimates are as accurate as possible and reliable for the purpose of assessing the relative positions of tribes under Treasury’s ARPA allocations, but should not be extracted and used as accurate for any individual tribe or for any purpose other than how they are used here.

Resource Type
Citation

Henson, Eric C., Miriam R. Jorgensen, Joseph P. Kalt, and Isabelle G. Leonaitis. 2021. “Assessing the U.S. Treasury Department’s Allocations of Funding for Tribal Governments under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021”. Cambridge and Tucson: Harvard Project for American Indian Economic Development and Native Nations Institute.

Policy Brief: Recommendations for the Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments

Year

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides the largest infusion of federal funding for Indian Country in the history of the United States. More than $32 billion dollars is directed toward assisting American Indian nations and communities as they work to end and recover from the devastating COVID19 pandemic – which was made worse in Indian Country precisely because such funding is long overdue.

In this policy brief, we set out recommendations which we hope will promote the wise and productive allocation of ARPA funds to the nation’s 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes. We see ARPA as a potential “Marshall Plan” for the revitalization of Indian nations. The Act holds the promise of materially remedying at least some of the gross, documented, and long-standing underfunding of federal obligations and responsibilities in Indian Country. Yet, fulfilling that promise requires that the federal government expeditiously and wisely allocate ARPA funds to tribes, and that tribes efficiently and effectively deploy those funds to maximize their positive impacts on tribal communities.

State Recognition of American Indian Tribes

Producer
National Conference of State Legislatures
Year

State-tribal relations have a long and complex history in the United States. States’ government- to-government relationships with tribes continue to evolve, taking many forms, including formal recognition. Usually accomplished through legislative action, state recognition of American Indian tribes is just one tool used to build state-tribal collaboration.

State tribal recognition does not confer the same benefits as federally recognized tribes; it acknowledges tribal status within the state but does not guarantee funding from the state or federal government. State-recognized Indian tribes are not necessarily federally recognized; however, some federally recognized tribes are also recognized by states. Federal recognition remains the primary way in which tribes seek to be recognized.

Tribes do seek state recognition, however, because it acknowledges their historical and cultural contributions. In some cases, state recognition qualifies the tribe for federal and state support. For example, four federal agencies—the U.S. departments of Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services—have the statutory and regulatory authority to provide funding for state-recognized tribes. Some states authorize tribal participation on state commissions that typically make policy decisions that affect American Indians. State tribal recognition in this publication specifically refers to states that have created a formal process for recognition.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Salazar, Martha. State Recognition of American Indian Tribes. (October 2016). National Conference of State Legislatures. Vol . 24, No. 39. https://www.ncsl.org/quad-caucus/state-recognition-of-american-indian-tribes

Policy Brief: Dissecting the US Treasury Department’s Round 1 Allocations of CARES Act COVID‐19 Relief Funding for Tribal Governments

Year

In a joint statement, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Interior Secretary Bernhardt detailed the amount of CARES Act Title V funds that would be released for federally recognized American Indian tribes starting on May 5, 2010. They noted that the US Treasury Department would “distribute 60 percent of the $8 billion to Tribes based on population data used in the distribution of Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG), subject to a floor of $100,000. This data is based on US Census figures and is already familiar to Tribal governments.” In a separate document, the US Treasury Department detailed exactly how the $4.8 billion would be allocated among tribal governments. The three steps in this allocation are:

  1. Calculate the pro‐rata payment for each Tribal government based on single race and then multi‐race data for each Tribe’s IHBG formula area, and use the larger result for each Tribal government.
  2. Assign a minimum payment of $100,000 to those Tribal governments that would otherwise receive less than that amount under step 1.
  3. For Tribal governments that would receive a payment greater than the minimum, a pro‐rata reduction is made for those amounts above the minimum for each Tribe so that the total amount for all Tribes does not exceed $4.8 billion.

In the analysis below, we have followed this “recipe” using the publicly available IHBG information from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website that explains the IHBG funding formula.5 Key takeaways from our analysis include:

  • Different tribal and reservations population data series give rise to different allocations of CARES Act dollars. The particular population choice has significant impacts on the amount of dollars received by certain tribes.
  • The Department of the Treasury chose to use tribal population numbers derived from racial population data that ties to HUD’s block grant formula for allocation of housing monies. This population choice by Treasury resulted in a number of tribes receiving de minimis payments that are clearly not reflective of the population of tribal citizens or of tribal needs.
  • Further, in failing to reflect actual counts of enrolled tribal citizens, Treasury’s decision to use racial population data from HUD’s IHBG dataset demonstrably produces arbitrary and capricious allocations of CARES Act funds across tribes.
  • None of the publicly available data series are reliable for the purposes to which Treasury has tried to put the HUD IHBG data. Each such data series results in arbitrary and capricious allocations of the CARES Act monies.
  • The case is strong that an appropriate allocation rule would employ the current tribal enrollment figures submitted by tribes to the Treasury Department in mid‐April.

If and to the extent the Treasury has not followed the description of its allocation calculations that has been publicly provided, the numerical figures we report below would change. However, the key conclusions we reach regarding the inadequacies of those calculations and, in particular, the infirmity of the data being used by Treasury would not change.

Resource Type
Citation

Akee, Randall K.Q. Eric C. Henson, Miriam R. Jorgensen, Joseph P. Kalt. May 18, 2020. Policy Brief: Dissecting the US Treasury Department’s Round 1 Allocations of CARES Act COVID‐19 Relief Funding for Tribal Governments. Cambridge and Tucson: Harvard Project for American Indian Economic Development and Native Nations Institute.

Rebecca Tsosie: Indigenous Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Extremes

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The School of Geography & Development presented the “My Arizona” Lecture of Prof. Rebecca Tsosie, Regents Professor of Law at Univeristy of Arizona on Friday, November 1, 2019. Her lecture, "Indigenous Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Extremes: Traditional Knowledge and the Systems of Survival" was recorded by the Native Nations Institute and abstract as follows: Tribal governments are not just "stakeholders" in the public policy debates over climate change; they are sovereign governments with longstanding political and legal rights to land, water, and natural resources. There is a vital role for Indigenous concepts of sustainability within the frameworks that drive climate policy, and this lecture explores the legal, political and moral arguments for the inclusion of tribal governments within Arizona, national and global climate governance.

Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Rebecca Tsosie: Indigenous Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Extremes" My Arizona Lecture Series, The School of Geography & Development, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. November 1, 2019

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Diane Enos: Endurance through Native Leadership

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Diane Enos is an Attorney, Councilwoman & Former President of Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. She has also served as Vice President of the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, Chairwoman of the Arizona Indian Gaming Association, and as a Western Area Delegate to the Tribal Justice Advisory Group, U.S. Department of Justice.

Diane draws from decades of service in tribal government, sharing key insights related to the challenges that Native peoples face in developing effective partnerships with local governments. She also discusses her path toward leading her Nation as a Native two-spirit woman.

In this interview, Diane offers her years of perspective an experience on what it means to engage and govern through Native leadership. Especially in the environment of her tribe that is constantly navigating their indigenous governance within areas of non-Native institutions and residencies.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Diane Enos: Endurance through Native Leadership.” Leading Native Nations, Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, January 15, 2019

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Good Native Governance Breakout 1: Cultural and Natural Resources Protection

Producer
UCLA School of Law
Year

UCLA School of Law "Good Native Governance" conference presenters, panelists and participants Reginald Pagaling, Marcos Guerrero, and Marshall McKay discuss their experience with cultural preservation and cooperation with the local and state governements. Reginald addresses the areas of concerns for the California Native American Heritage Commission. Mr. Guerrero represents Jason Camp, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the United Auburn Indian Community of the Auburn Rancheria. His presentation focuses on the role of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPO) in California. Chairman McKay discusses the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation experience in preserving a sacred site.

This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

Resource Type
Citation

Pagaling, Reginald. "Cultural and Natural Resources Protection." Good Native Governance: Innovative Research in Law, Education, and Economic Development Conference. University of California Los Angeles School of Law, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 7, 2014. Presentation.

Guerrero, Marcos. "Cultural and Natural Resources Protection." Good Native Governance: Innovative Research in Law, Education, and Economic Development Conference. University of California Los Angeles School of Law, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 7, 2014. Presentation.

McKay, Marshall. "Cultural and Natural Resources Protection." Good Native Governance: Innovative Research in Law, Education, and Economic Development Conference. University of California Los Angeles School of Law, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 7, 2014. Presentation.

Honoring Nations: Justin Martin: Enhancing Government-to-Government Relationships

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Justin Martin, Former Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at Grand Ronde, discusses his nation's relationship in previous years with the state government, and how Grand Ronde was able to build and sustain success over time in the state's legislative arena.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Martin, Justin. "Enhancing Government-to-Government Relationships." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Sante Fe, New Mexico. February 8, 2002. Presentation.

Andrew Lee:

"Our last morning presentation is from a man who's always on the go, Justin Martin, who's the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. He's done a fantastic job and I know working with Kathryn [Harrison] and his team and Nicole [Holmes], they've just done a great job and being recognized as a sovereign and just making a ton of headway with state and federal interactions, so Justin Martin."

Justin Martin:

"Thank you, Andrew, for that kind introduction and thank you all for having us and being here today. I'm going to talk not so much about my program today, I'm sure you've all read about that in the report. Today I'm going to focus a little bit on state-level politics and our journey through the past five years with the state-level government and how we were able to build some success in that level. I'm actually going to talk specifically about some numbers today, because I've approached this from a very general perspective over the past couple days, and then talk a little bit about what got us to the level that we are today with respect to being able to effectively promote our sovereignty.

First, before I go into that I'd like to take a quick moment to, as Andrew mentioned, to thank Kathryn Harrison, who as I went through this journey over the past five years, I've been fortunate personally to work with several mentors. Some of the best lobbyists at the Oregon level; a man that's been in the building for 45 years, one of the best public relations/public affairs persons in the Pacific Northwest. And then finally Kathryn, as a mentor to me, I have been able to learn from your vision and your guidance and your commitment, and most of all, Kathryn, your perseverance. And those are lessons that I will take with me for the rest of my life, so thank you very much for that. It has been a blessing to go through this journey with you for five years. Also I'd like to thank my sidekick, my partner in crime, Nicole Holmes, who is the other half of the Intergovernmental Affairs Department -- a whopping number of two employees in that department. We were able to steal Nicole from a state representative, which I wouldn't recommend to a lot of folks, but he was a very big fan of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and realized her value to this tribe. So, Nicole, thank you for all your help and all your work over the past three-plus years.

So with that, a little bit about this journey. I am a tribal member and how I came to be in this role is in 1995, a state representative went to the tribal council and asked if there were any young Native Americans interested in coming to work for a state representative in the legislative process. My grandfather was on the council at the time and gave me a call and said there's a man in Salem that's interested in having somebody come and work for them. So I saw this as an opportunity within my curriculum at school to go and do this. As I mentioned yesterday, my background is public policy and public administration. So that's what got me into the legislative process. It was a generous offer by a state legislator and one that allowed me to start to create some of those personal relationships at the state level that in turn wound up getting me to Grand Ronde. Another nice side of that is I was able to then, when I went to work for the tribe in '97, to create a relationship with my grandfather who I did not have a relationship with growing up. Him and my grandmother had been split up for the 26-some years that I had been alive so that also in and of itself has been a wonderful experience. He is retired from council and moved on but again, I've been able to build that relationship; a relationship with some of my culture and heritage that frankly, I didn't pay much attention to growing up. The Grand Ronde Tribe was a tribe that was terminated in the ‘50s. So for the first 14 years of my existence, the tribe did not exist in terms of federal recognition.

So, a quick kind of history of Grand Ronde: 26 bands originally were moved to the Grand Ronde Reservation in the 1850s. That was originally a 69,000-acre reservation. Through termination, that went down to two-and-a-half acres in the 1950s and then again, through perseverance and commitment of some of our elders, we were able to be restored in 1983. Kathryn was a big part of that, also Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse, who wasn't a congresswoman at the time, played a big role in that. We were recognized in name only and did not get any of the reservation back until 1988, a separate act of Congress. The 1988 Reservation Act in which we got about 9,800 acres of contiguous timberland back in which to sustain our government. So from that time until the onset of Indian gaming in 1995, that is how we operated. So with that onset of Indian gaming came all kinds of new issues with respect to the state.

So as I told you a little bit earlier, I'm going to talk specifically about some of the state-level programs that we've been able to get involved with and have some success with. Right before 1997, we signed a permanent compact with the State of Oregon for our gaming facility that opened up several avenues and several concerns. So in the 1997 legislative session when I came aboard with Grand Ronde, we saw about 39 legislative measures that had some potential impact to Native American tribes in Oregon. Out of that 39, about 19 of them were considered damaging, what could have an adverse...a potential adverse affect on the tribe. So we went to work and we went to work trying to educate elected officials to let them know exactly how this would impact the tribe and we were able to successfully defeat all those.

So in the time between 1997 and 1999, this is the nice part of what we've been able to do, we can actually start to quantify some of the success of government relations, which is very, very difficult to do. In the '99 session, we saw only three potentially damaging measures. So that went from 19 to three in about a two-year period. Well, how did we make that happen? We hit the road, we started educating elected officials. This is kind of where my program comes in, we started communicating, we started educating, we started cooperating with the communities, we started making contributions and yes, those are political contributions in the form of dollars, but again those are other contributions in the form of being community members getting involved in the community making things happen there. And then finally we started to create a presence, a presence where people knew if they were dealing with Native American issues, they were going to have to talk to Grand Ronde and the eight other tribes that existed.

So now we can kind of follow this journey again and quantify it even more so in the '01 session and in the '01 session we did see about six measures that were potentially damaging. So you might say, ‘Well, Justin, you went from 19 to three, that's quite a remarkable feat but then you went back up to six potentially damaging pieces of legislation in ‘01.' Well, we've also been able to widen the scope of legislation that we have tracked. So on a percentage basis, it's about the same percentage of damaging legislation that we saw in '99. But the really effective number that I think, out of those six potentially damaging measures that were introduced in the recent '01 session, not a single bill got a hearing. And to even keep something from even creating a public discussion or some public sentiment is truly a win in and of itself. I would rather have 10 potentially damaging measures that don't see the light of day than even one that could create some kind of public swell. Not only was that the effective part of the '01 session, but we saw something that we hadn't seen in Oregon I don't think ever.

We were able to pass, and I say we, this is not just Grand Ronde, I like to believe that all the tribes working collectively were able to pass six pieces of positive legislation. So you look from 1997 where everything was negative, negative, negative and how does this affect...we were able to effectively make a complete turn, 180-degree turn and now we're passing positive legislation. And one of those, for a quick background, Oregon, I think, is a real progressive state. We have had a progressive governor that has looked at creating state-tribal relationships that go beyond just the everyday legislature and just beyond everyday state-level programs. There was an executive order in 1996 encouraging state-tribal relations, and that included one summit every year, that included individual cluster groups for tribal agencies and state agencies to start working together. Some of those cluster groups are natural resources, environmental resources, public safety, health, education and finally economic development -- a wonderful, wonderful program. But what happens when the current governor is gone? So we looked at that collectively as tribes and said, ‘Why don't we do something about this executive order? Let's pass some legislation and put this into statute.' And that's exactly what we did. Senate Bill 770 passed the legislative session this year essentially guaranteeing that we will continue that government-to-government relationship throughout the future no matter the administration, whether they're Native friendly or not. Again, just a landmark piece of legislation, one that we're very proud to have passed. Some of the other pieces of legislation, Senate Bill 690, a Native American Teaching License Certificate Bill, which allows elders to go back into not only Native schools but public schools and teach the language. It effectively took away the barrier that said you have to have this college degree and this teaching certificate because we don't want to lose what these elders can offer at this time. Just a wonderful bill. Some of the other bills, both a statutory bill and one that sent a message to Congress was the deletion of 'squaw' language from Oregon geographic board names. We passed that both in statute and within our memorial, just a wonderful message to Native Americans throughout the state. And then finally the creation of local mental health authorities on reservations in areas that even the community, non-tribal members don't really have access to mental health care. Now they can begin to get those services and also look at some alternative funding methods combined with tribes, again, in those areas that are outside of the metropolitan areas.

So how did we do this? How did we get to this point where we were able to totally turn a negative situation to a positive situation? And I've heard from some other folks that other states aren't quite that progressive and that, obviously, is understandable. And some of the questions on the panel yesterday talked about kind of volatile environments, how do you start to make a difference? Well, what Grand Ronde did, what the vision of the tribal council did is said, ‘We need to be involved, how are we going to do that?' and then went and they worked with outside professionals. We went and we hired again that best lobbyist, we went and we hired that best public relations manager, we hired the best marketing firm, but council said, ‘We're not just going to do that and we're not just going to put that in the hands of somebody that doesn't understand the Grand Ronde way, doesn't understand what the Native way of life is all about. So we're also going to take from these people what we can in the way of education and experience and we're going to start to create it for ourselves.' And that's where I have personally been fortunate to be brought into that. But that also carries over in every department within our government. So we've been able to utilize that external expertise, not only utilize it out there, but to utilize it internally to learn from it and become stronger and in the future we'll be able to do that for ourselves. Now, when you go out and you look to contract with somebody, make that a part of the deal because, you know what, we've got a good issue and that's something that professional lobbyists or professional public relations persons, that's something they want to work with. You as a tribe will be a feather in their cap as far as a client. That's out there. Do it on your terms because you're the one that's ultimately responsible for protecting that sovereignty and again, effectively promoting it. You're not giving up jurisdiction, you're not giving up your sovereign rights, you're finding a more effective way to deliver that message because some of these external professionals open doors that we would never have had a chance to open five years ago. Get that in, start to create those relationships at the grassroots level and you're going to be that much more effective.

So that is some of the success that we've had at the state level. I've also been having some side conversations with folks. What are some of the other really successful things that you've seen? What we have been able to see is sentiment that says, ‘Okay, the Oregon State Lottery provides...it's about $900 million per biennium for the state.' But every voter that sits in those rooms wonders, ‘What do they do with the money? What are they doing with the dollars?' But, what we've seen, almost two out of three voters in these focus groups is Grand Ronde. What have they been able to do with the dollars? What have they been able to do within their community? As soon as you ask them about, ‘Well, what about the other gaming that goes...? What about the other gaming product in Oregon? What about Indian gaming?' and the first thing you hear is, ‘Well, they're giving something back to the community. They're delivering dollars. They funded LifeFlight, they funded OMSI', which is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. ‘They work in conjunction with the Oregon Food Bank. Those guys are going it right'. And when you hear that your government, a small tiny tribal government is doing things the right way, that's when you know you've been effective, that's when you know you're changing public opinion, that's when you know the grassroots has taken effect, that's when you know you've been able to sway public opinion because, you know what? We're all on the right side of a good issue. We're not pushing anything bad here and once you educate people to that fact, and I've seen it a million times, it clicks. 'Why don't they tax...why don't Indians get taxed?' 'Well, we're paying for services outside. We contract with Polk County, we contract with Yamhill County. We don't have our own water; we don't have our own sewer.' It clicks. People go, ‘Oh, that's why'. Or we seeded LENA. ‘Oh, that's why. I didn't think about that 'cause that's not what I hear in the newspaper.' So get out there and educate, grassroots. It sounds simple and easy and it is because again it's getting down to the lowest level of building personal relationships. Once you find something in common -- and I think we can all find things in common with other folks -- you can make it happen.

So with that I'm just going to close by telling a little story. Again, I think, Kathryn, when I first started, I was about three months on the job and Kathryn wasn't feeling well and she was to give a speech about the Grand Ronde history in front of a bunch of state agencies. She said, ‘Justin, I'm not feeling very well, can you do this?' I thought, ‘Oh, my god. Okay, you've got Kathryn Harrison, who's again a model of perseverance and understands and has been through that, and then you've got Justin Martin, an urban kid from Salem that has been working for the tribe and really doesn't have a grasp about that. What the hell am I going to talk about?' And so I went over...on my way over and I started trying to formulate this speech, which I was going to give in about 40 minutes and started thinking about, ‘What can I talk about?' And I looked to the right to that two-and-a-half acres when the tribe was terminated and thought about my grandma...my great grandmother who I was very fortunate, again to be able to spend about 21 years of my life with before she passed in 1992. So I started thinking about her a little bit and I turned left -- and if you guys have been to Grand Ronde, you eventually come up on the casino, which is huge and then I looked at that and I thought, ‘Boy, that's really impressive'. And then I kept driving a little bit and I started thinking, ‘Well, boy, I wonder what my great grandmother would have thought, my Grandma Cora. Boy, she would have really been impressed by seeing that building.' But then about 15 miles down the road I started thinking, ‘Would she really have been that impressed? Well, no, would the bright lights or that great big building have impressed my grandmother? No. Would the five restaurants with all the fancy food or all the money and all the fancy machines, would that have impressed my grandmother? Well, no. What would have impressed her?' And so a little further down the road I started thinking, ‘Here's what would have impressed her. We've been able to do something at Grand Ronde that hasn't been able to be done in that area. We're starting to bring people back home, people that had to leave the reservation because of assimilation, failed assimilation policy. We're able to bring them back home. We're able to start turning their lives around through programs in health care and education and housing and elder pensions and elder care. We're able to bring back that community, we're able to make our members more self-sufficient and best of all we're able to give them some hope.'

So thank you all very much for hearing me today. And again, you can make a difference at the state level, you can make a difference at the federal level, and you can make a difference at the local level, just get out there and meet some people and make it happen. Thank you very much."

Miriam Jorgensen:

"We've got a few minutes to take maybe a couple questions for Justin if you have them so let's go ahead and take a few."

Audience member:

"I'll restrict my 50 questions to one, Justin. Could you talk about your relationship with other interests in the state, being a small population group in Oregon? Undoubtedly you need additional support in order to get your legislation passed. And also there are a lot of issues in the state that aren't specifically native issues, but which affect Native interests very much. I imagine employment policies or health policies or TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] policies and so on. So what's you're relationship with other lobbyists and interests beyond the Native community?"

Justin Martin:

"Great question. Thank you for asking. We start to see...I think you start to see a spread and this gets to where my program really focuses on presence. So not only are we a government presence, but now we're starting to be a presence in the business community, now we're starting to be a presence in the non-profit and the charitable community, and we're able to utilize not just political contributions to our advantage. So say we start to build some partnerships in that community, we start to build partnerships in what we call regional problem solving where in Yamhill County, Polk County, the tribal government, and then the local governments start to work together in a consensus fashion to be able to make those things happen. That also happens like I said in the business community. You start garnering support and you start working side by side with some of the big business interests. So okay, it's not just Grand Ronde, a small tribal government. They've got that right, they've got...we need to give them that respect. It's also Grand Ronde, the largest employer in Polk County. So okay, we don't have a lot of votes to deliver say in an election or we don't have a lot of individual contributors to certain programs, but look at our workforce. And they're going to go out in their communities and back to their homes and spread the work about Grand Ronde. So it becomes...again it's kind of this groundswell of grassroots, but it's also in other areas that we would never have thought possible and that's not just politics, that's employment, that's in natural resources, cultural resources. People start to look to the tribe as experts in each and every one of those areas."