Native Sun News Today: Oglala Sioux Tribe pressed to amend constitution

Friday, July 5, 2019  

PINE RIDGE— All across the country many tribes are calling for reform of their respective tribal constitution. This could be because of concerns over corruption, lack of representation, or inadequate or badly conceived laws.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) is no exception, and the attempts to get constitutional reform continue to struggle against persistent stumbling blocks, ranging from rejected petitions to the Bureau of Indian Affairs , to council votes tabling discussion, and referring the problem back to committee.

On June 17, 2019, in a letter to Caroline New Holy of the OST Constitutional Reform Task Force, the BIA rejected a petition of 4,856 signatures calling for “a secretarial election on proposed amendments to the constitution of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.” The petition had been submitted to the BIA on May 8, 2019.

According to the BIA, 4,094 signatures from eligible OST voters were needed to accept the petition. The petition had 4,856 signatures, more than enough. However, after closer review, the BIA determined 354 of the signatures were from people whose names did not appear on the eligible voter list; 633 signatures were duplicates; five signatures were from minors; 181 signatures were illegible; 41 signatures were from members living off the reservation, and ineligible to vote; and 78 signatures were not popularly notarized, for a total of 1,292 ineligible signatures. Subtracting these signatures from the eligible signatures left the petition 523 signatures shy of the 4,094 required for BIA approval.

“Therefore,” the letter read, “the petition is determined invalid due to lack of valid signatures. A Secretarial election will not be called. This decision is a final agency action on the status of the petition.”

Most tribal governments were formed following the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, or IRA. Not only did the constitutions reflect the nature, values, policies and sensibilities of the dominant culture, over the course of the next 80 years, those tribal members who best internalized the values and perspectives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) themselves, dominated tribal politics and benefited disproportionately, establishing a “hogs-at-the-trough” advantage over those tribal groups and districts which did not have ready access to tribal government and opportunity, for whatever reason.

Districts came to be dominated by councilmen who had enough relatives and friends to defeat any opposition. The policies which benefited the cronies of such council members tended to be approved and preferentially applied. Reforming such endemic manipulation and corruption of a system, which was conceived reflecting culturally alien primacies, will be difficult, given the very people whose unfair advantage would be curtailed, even discontinued, have a critical say in whether there will be reform.

James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today