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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2003

The Rapid City Journal interviews Michael LaPointe, the only Republican American Indian in the South Dakota Legislature.

LaPointe, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has a background in economic development. He says he wants to improve economic conditions on reservations, relations among Indians and non-Indians and the health and welfare of Indians.

LaPointe also explains why he is a Republican: "Indian people had an economy. They had a society. They had political systems, judicial systems. They had all of it in place. Because the federal government didn't see property fence lines or houses of government like this Capitol building, they implemented, without consultations of tribes in the late 1800s, policies so inflexible that it just decimated a whole people's way of life."

Get the Story:
American Indian lawmaker a ‘minority within a minority' (The Rapid City Journal 2/11)