Latest news with #TurtleMountainBandofChippewa
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Dakota tribes push for more autonomy amid federal cuts
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Chairman Jamie Azure delivers an address during the seventh annual Government-to-Government Conference for tribal and state leaders. (Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor) North Dakota tribal leaders highlighted uncertainty in federal funding, frustrations with the state Legislature and future economic development projects Wednesday during the state's seventh annual Government-to-Government Conference. The annual event brings leaders of the five tribal nations that share geography with North Dakota together with state officials to share updates, network and discuss common problems facing their communities. 'We're strong, strong people — and we're getting back to that mindset of pridefulness,' Jamie Azure, tribal chair for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, said during his address. Azure said development projects in the pipeline for Turtle Mountain involve a retail center, movie theater, bowling alley and more. The conference was started by former Gov. Doug Burgum during his first term in office. Burgum is credited with improving relations between the tribes and the state government, which were at a low point when he took office in 2016. Gov. Kelly Armstrong, who succeeded Burgum in December, called continuing the conference a 'no brainer.' 'We need the collaboration of our tribal partners if we want North Dakota as a state to truly succeed,' Armstrong said. Like Turtle Mountain, officials from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate celebrated several new business opportunities coming to the Lake Traverse Reservation. Economic development is not about money, said Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Secretary Curtis Bissonette. 'It's about freedom, dignity and the ability to care for one another across generations,' he said. 'We are not waiting on permission to act.' Tribal leaders on Wednesday each expressed a degree of anxiety about federal programs. Native tribes receive services from the U.S. government in areas as wide-ranging as law enforcement, healthcare and land management. Native officials are worried about the impact of President Donald Trump's sweeping cuts to federal spending. Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Chairman Mark Fox said that if the federal government wants to stop funding tribes, it needs to help them maintain a 'financial infrastructure' that allows them to 'to survive and thrive economically.' 'If you take that away, then you're going to cause dependency to exist for the next 100 to 1,000 years,' he said. During her address, Standing Rock Chairwoman Janet Alkire shared some of her tribe's continuing efforts to collaborate with the federal government on land, energy and infrastructure issues. She said after several years of negotiating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Standing Rock last year entered into a co-stewardship agreement for Dakota Prairie National Grasslands within the boundaries of the reservation, for example. 'These milestones may seem small, but it gives our people the opportunity to participate and have a voice, when once our voice was taken,' Alkire said. She said she is also serving on a tribal advisory committee for the U.S. Department of the Interior under Burgum's leadership. Standing Rock leaders also provided updates on a wind farm project to improve energy infrastructure in southern North Dakota. They hope to finance it in part from a loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, though they said federal staff cuts threaten the program. Alkire said she has asked Burgum if the program can be rehoused under the Department of the Interior. North Dakota tribal leaders see Burgum as an ally in Interior, energy role Tribal leaders also had much to say about the state government. Azure during his address played two video clips from this year's legislative session of state lawmakers questioning the integrity of Turtle Mountain's plans to build a casino and resort in Grand Forks. One was of Sen. Diane Larson, R-Bismarck, who during one floor session said the source of the tribe's financing was murky and might come from cartels. (Larson apologized for her remarks later that floor session.) Azure also played a clip of Rep. Lawrence Klemin, R-Bismarck, who dismissed the project and compared it to a Chinese company's failed plans to build a corn milling plant near the Air Force base in Grand Forks. Klemin said he no longer trusts economic development projects associated with Grand Forks. He later told The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead his comments weren't directed to the tribe. Azure said the comments were insulting to the tribe and called on the statehouse to do better. 'At the end of the day the mindset has to change, because we can't go back here every two years and show videos like this,' he said. Spirit Lake Nation Chairperson Lonna Jackson-Street urged the state to reinstate the motor vehicle excise tax exemption for tribal members living off reservation. Only tribal members who live on reservations receive the tax exemption under a law change adopted by the state Legislature in 2023. Jackson-Street said a large portion of Spirit Lake members live outside the Spirit Lake Reservation due in part to the federal government's illegal taking of tribal land under the Dawes Act of 1887, and now must pay thousands of dollars more in taxes on vehicle purchases. She also said the tribe has continued to take a hit because of North Dakota's burgeoning electronic pull tab industry, which has taken business away from the Spirit Lake Casino. 'We're trying to establish new businesses within our community to supplement what our casino lost because of e-tabs,' she said. During the North Dakota legislative session, Native lawmakers supported a bill that would have required the Legislature to consult tribes on policies that would affect their communities. Proponents of the bill, which failed in the Senate, noted that the statehouse passed laws that allowed for the proliferation of gambling without speaking with North Dakota tribes that rely on casino revenue. 'For the future, as a tribal leader and whoever may step into these shoes, it's important you know that our government works with tribes on consultation,' Jackson-Street told the audience on Wednesday. Armstrong in his speech Wednesday applauded the state Legislature for passing House Bill 1199, which requires the state to create a task force dedicated to reducing the number of missing or murdered Indigenous people in the state. Armstrong said while he was in Congress he worked on Savanna's Act, which seeks to improve the federal response to the same issue. Armstrong said he thinks the Savanna's Act is 'good legislation' but that he thinks House Bill 1199 will be more impactful. 'That's a perfect example of how you don't solve those problems in Washington, D.C.,' he said. 'This is solved on Main Street across rural North Dakota. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
North Dakota tribes ask circuit judges for rehearing of voting rights case
Jamie Azure, chair of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, speaks during the Tribal Leaders Summit in Bismarck on Sept. 4, 2024. Turtle Mountain, Spirit Lake Nation and three tribal citizens are challenging a ruling in a voting rights case. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Spirit Lake Nation and three tribal citizens this week asked the full 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel's finding that they lack standing to bring a voting discrimination case against the state of North Dakota. In a 2-1 decision earlier this month, the panel overruled a North Dakota federal district court's decision that a redistricting plan adopted by the state in 2021 diluted the voting power of Native voters. 'Turtle Mountain fought hard for a fair and legal map. When the state draws unlawful districts, Courts must step in to protect voters — not pave the way for injustice,' Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Chairman Jamie Azure said in a statement published by the Campaign Legal Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the suit. 'We will continue to fight for fair representation.' Appeals court rules against North Dakota tribes in voting rights case The panel's decision didn't speak to whether the map itself was discriminatory; instead, the judges found that private individuals cannot use a key federal civil rights law as a vehicle to file cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws race-based voting discrimination. The panel in its ruling sent the case back to North Dakota U.S. District Judge Peter Welte with instructions to dismiss the lawsuit. If its ruling stands, North Dakota would revert back to the 2021 map. But if the plaintiffs' request for an en banc rehearing is granted, the case would go before all 11 judges on the 8th Circuit for review. 'Section 2 is the foundational statute that Congress enacted to fight the scourge of racial discrimination in voting, but citizens in this circuit can no longer enforce the right it provides them,' the plaintiffs argue in a brief urging the full appellate court to consider the case. Private individuals and groups previously could file discrimination lawsuits against governments under just Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act without having to invoke Section 1983, a separate civil rights statute. Then, the 8th Circuit in a controversial 2023 ruling on an Arkansas voting rights case found that Section 2 alone doesn't give private parties the right to sue. Instead, the circuit declared that it is the responsibility of the U.S. Attorney General to file Section 2 discrimination cases. Tribes, state argue redistricting case to federal appeals court For more than a year, the question remained open as to whether Section 1983 offered a viable alternative for bringing such Voting Rights Act claims. In a May 14 ruling, the three-judge panel decided it does not. In a majority opinion, the panel wrote that the language of the Voting Rights Act indicates that Congress didn't intend for citizens to file race discrimination claims through Section 1983. The lone dissenting judge on the panel — Chief Judge Steven Colloton — noted in his opinion that private plaintiffs have brought more than 400 actions under Section 2 since 1982. The plaintiffs in their brief point out that the 8th Circuit is the only appellate circuit in the country to rule that Section 2 cannot be enforced through lawsuits brought by private citizens. The circuit includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas. 'Outside of this circuit, every American citizen can rely on an unbroken line of Supreme Court and circuit precedent to enforce the individual rights given to them by Congress in the Voting Rights Act,' their filing states. 'But as a result of the panel decision here, and the prior decision in Arkansas, American citizens in this circuit are denied that right.' The lawsuit was triggered by a redistricting plan adopted by the North Dakota Legislature in 2021 that placed the Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake reservations in new districts. U.S. District Court Judge Peter Welte in 2023 ruled that the new map was discriminatory and ordered the Legislature to implement a new map that placed the reservations in the same voting district. Three Native American lawmakers from that district were elected in 2024: Sen. Richard Marcellais and Rep. Jayme Davis — both citizens of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa — and Rep. Collette Brown, a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation and plaintiff in the lawsuit. 'The fair map we secured led to a historic first — a Spirit Lake Nation member elected to the North Dakota Legislature,' Spirit Lake Nation Chairperson Lonna Jackson-Street said in a Wednesday statement published by the Campaign Legal Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the case. 'This decision threatens that progress and weakens our voice in state government.' Marcellais had previously served 15 years in the statehouse until he lost his bid for reelection in 2022. He was reelected in 2024. Davis was first elected in 2022, then reelected last year. If the 2021 map is reinstated, three state lawmakers would move to different districts, according to the North Dakota Secretary of State's Office. Rep. Colette Brown, D-Warwick, would go from representing District 9 to District 15. Rep. Donna Henderson, R-Calvin, would switch from District 15 to District 9B, while Sen. Kent Weston, R-Sarles, would switch from District 15 to District 9. They would all have to seek reelection in 2026. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Warming winters bring uncertainty to Indigenous maple traditions
Kadin MillsContributor to Buffalo's Fire Lee Garman uses maple in nearly everything: from sweets and sodas to soups and meats. The possibilities are endless. 'Even if it's not a main element of a dish, it's still in there,' he said. Garman is the executive chef at Owamni, an award-winning restaurant that has been dishing up Indigenous foods in Minneapolis since 2021. 'Even if we just have a little, tiny bit, maple is in 90% of every single dish that we create,' he said. Owamni purchases most of its maple sap and other traditional foods from Indigenous purveyors, including some of its employees. But climate change is taking a toll on suppliers, making it more difficult to acquire foods like maple syrup, Garman said. To meet demand, the restaurant is buying sap from more suppliers and at higher prices. 'Over the last year or so, I think all of our prices on maple have jumped up at least 25%,' he said. Indigenous people have harvested tree saps for millennia to make medicines and food. The most well known use is breakfast's liquid gold — maple syrup. There are 13 maple species native to North America, and more than 100 species worldwide. Globally, the maple syrup industry is worth approximately $1 billion annually. For food sovereignty activists like Luke and Linda Black Elk, sugarbush is a family affair. Luke Black Elk and the couple's three sons are enrolled in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Previously from South Dakota, the Minnesota family taps maple trees as a means of connecting with their community and ancestors. 'We don't have sugar maples or silver maples in the Dakotas, we have boxelder maples,' said Luke Black Elk. 'Most sugar maple people laugh at us when we say that's where we get syrup from because it takes a lot more work, but for me that's something that my people have gathered for millennia,' he said. Harsher growing conditions like frequent droughts and milder winters have made thriving difficult for maple trees in some areas. The result: smaller harvests. Linda Black Elk said this has changed the way Indigenous people think about food sovereignty and their relationships to traditional foods. She said she sees fewer people trading and gifting traditional foods for fear of scarcity. Some even harvest in secret. 'I think it's even impacted the ways that people relate to each other,' she said. Maple syrup is extremely weather dependent. Sap typically runs in spring when trees experience below-freezing temperatures at night and above-freezing temperatures during the day. This freeze-thaw cycle creates pressure, moving sap through the trees as they wake from their dormant state. By using historical records, environmental scientists like Autumn Brunelle have tracked changes in the season across decades. Currently based in southern Indiana, Brunelle is a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa with direct ties to the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. She said producers are seeing smaller yields because the maple tapping season across the forest system has become shorter: 'In New York or even Indiana, the season has gone down to about two weeks long, versus 50-100 years ago it was almost a month long.' A shorter season means less sap collected and less syrup produced. Josh Rapp expects this to be a challenge for smaller producers. Rapp is the senior forest ecologist at Mass Audubon, a conservation organization in Massachusetts. He said the maple tapping season overall is becoming more erratic and less predictable. 'We get some years where we are earlier, some years where we're later,' he said. 'And there's more variability. It's more common to get earlier thaws and earlier periods of good conditions for sap flow.' Numerous factors influence the sugaring season. Hotter summers and drought conditions may affect a tree's sugar content, while spring warm spells allow microorganisms to proliferate and clog tap holes, abruptly ending the season. A loss of insulating snowpack coupled with deep soil freezes can damage roots and impact sap production. Consequently, Rapp predicts the ideal conditions for maple sap production will move north, making it more difficult to collect sap from sugar maples in the southern half of their current range. While climate change has major implications for maple trees, they aren't going anywhere, at least right now. Maples are extremely resilient, and species like red maple and boxelder maple are even expected to expand their ranges in the next century. Brunelle believes now is a time to set intentions rather than panic. 'If you don't use it, you're going to lose it,' she said, emphasizing the need to continue honoring the trees, even if that means tapping just a few in your backyard. 'If you are looking at it from an Indigenous perspective,' she said, 'if the season is only a couple of days, then that's your relative saying, 'This is all I can give you,' and you respect that.'
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gallery: UND's 53rd Time Out Wacipi
Apr. 27—GRAND FORKS — Bradley Davis started dancing at powwows last year, after a yearslong lull. An enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, he'd been a dancer growing up but had fallen out of the habit as he'd gotten older. But when his 6-year-old daughter started dancing, he'd been drawn back in. "For her to keep dancing, I've got to keep dancing," said Davis, who donned aviators over red-and-black face paint as part of his regalia at the 53rd annual Time Out Wacipi. (The frames left tear-shaped indents on his nose.) "We go to powwows whenever we can," he added. "It's in your spirit. ... It's a family thing." Friday and Saturday saw the return of Time Out Wacipi to Grand Forks, hosted for the first time at the Alerus Center after a long history at the now-defunct Hyslop Sports Center. Organizers started the annual powwow — "wacipi" is a Dakota/Lakota word for powwow — in the early 1970s as a way to educate UND's predominantly white population about Native American culture at a time of heightened racial unrest. More than half a century later, though, the powwow is just as much a point of connection between North Dakota and neighboring states' Native communities. "You always learn something new," said Daniel Henry, who directs UND's INMED program. "You learn a new dance or the origin of the dance, or a new song or the origin of the song or its meaning." Henry is, by his own contention, an "expert powwower." At the Time Out powwow, he's danced, sung, directed and emceed the event at various points in his career. Powwows have long been points of cultural exchange, he said, between tribes as well as non-Natives. This is where dances and songs have been exchanged between tribes, like the grass dance that originated with the Omaha people, who shared it with the Sioux, who shared it with the Hidsata people. Henry cited powwows as an example of Pan-Indianism, a philosophical approach promoting unity among different Native tribes. He also said powwows were places where people have formed lifelong friendships and relationships. "It's about meeting old friends, reminiscing, sharing memories, and meeting new friends, making new memories, and just celebrating life itself," Henry said. "We share meals, jokes, stories, and just have a good time." Wilf Abigosis, a member of the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in Manitoba, said powwows like the Time Out Wacipi were critical for Native people to continue. "That's how Native Americans survive, through ceremony," Abigosis said. Danielle DeCoteau drove up from Sisseton, South Dakota, for the Time Out Wacipi. Like Davis, she'd taken up dancing again after a 19-year lull, where she joined the Navy and did two tours, one active-duty and one in the reserves. Dancing was a way for her to start to heal after her military service, where she lost friends to the fighting in the United States' wars in the Middle East. The Time Out Wacipi was one of the first powwows she attended after leaving the military. "When you get treated good, you want to go back," she said. "And we've always been treated good." Growing up, DeCoteau practiced fancy dance, a style of dance characterized by high-adrenaline movement and fast footwork. When she'd returned to it, after nearly two decades, she took up traditional dance — specifically, a victory dance for warriors.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks casino proposal dies in House vote
Apr. 24—BISMARCK — A portion of a state Senate bill that included language to move forward a casino proposal in Grand Forks County failed in a Wednesday House vote, likely ending the plan for the conceivable future. Senate Bill 2018, an appropriations bill, included language that sought to allow the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa the ability to expand its casino operation beyond current tribal land. Existing state law mandates that the tribe cannot move outside of its traditional boundary. An earlier bill, SB 2376, specifically addressed the potential change but it failed in a 29-15 Senate vote in February. In March, the proposal was inserted into a Senate Bill 2018. At the time, state Rep. Emily O'Brien, R-Grand Forks, said she wanted it in SB 2018 because she considered it an "opportunity for the state to support local and tribal (economic development)." She said the state shouldn't stand in the way of what she considers local development decisions. The proposal was only to let the casino plan move forward, and was not the final say on whether it would be built. Various other approvals — and from various levels, ranging from city to federal — would have been needed prior to construction. On Wednesday, the House voted 66-26 against SB 2018's Division C, where the proposal was inserted. Prior to the vote, several members of the House debated the casino's merits, with O'Brien notably speaking in favor and others against. "For generations, tribal nations have fought for the right to self govern and build their own economies and to provide for the people with dignity and independence," she said. "Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, tribal casinos are not just entertainment venues, but engines of opportunity. They fund schools, health care clinics, housing, addiction treatment and public safety on reservations, where those needs are urgent and under-resourced. "This is not a handout." But some felt the casino would open the possibility of tribes branching outward en masse while potentially having an adverse effect on the state's charitable gaming industry. Grand Forks Republican Rep. Nels Christianson said "compromise" and "balance" with gambling already exist in North Dakota. He believes that allowing expansion of American Indian gaming outside of a tribe's borders would jeopardize that balance. "A casino in Grand Forks County upsets that great consensus. Let us not have any misconceptions about this: A casino in Grand Forks will mean, eventually, a big casino adjacent to each large city in our state," he said. "This means money leaving our community and each tribe will feel the need to upstage the next for the best location adjacent to another North Dakota community." He added: "The proposed casino in Grand Forks County represents a giant monster sucking the lifeblood and earnings out of our community. I stand against this monster and I seek to slay it." Rep. Matthew Heilman, R-Bismarck, wondered aloud if allowing the proposal to move forward would be detrimental to the existing charitable gaming industry. "I'm not really sure," he said, answering his own question. "But I don't want to find out. ..." O'Brien specifically addressed charitable gaming during her short speech on the House floor. She said she supports the industry; meanwhile, she said, North Dakota charitable gaming has grown in recent years. "As of Dec. 31, 2024, there are five tribal casinos in North Dakota, compared to 328 licensed gaming entities, which includes 846 sites and 5,250 e-tab machines," she said. "These machines are easily accessible at our local restaurants, bars and fraternal clubs. And in 2022 alone, charitable gaming generated more than $1.7 billion — that's a 560% increase in just five years." At the same time, she said, tribal casinos are confined to traditional areas and thus are being "boxed out" as other gambling grows. "They are held to a stricter set of rules, bound by federal oversight and denied the ability to expand or relocate under state law. This is not equity and it's not balance," O'Brien said. "Both (industries) deserve our support." During his testimony, Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck, said he has received numerous emails from charitable organizations "that the sky is falling." "The more charitable gaming emails I get, the more I want to investigate these guys," he said. Rep. Lawrence Klemen, R-Bismarck, said the casino proposal reminds him of the failed Fufeng proposal. Announced in 2021and abandoned in 2023, the plan called for the China-backed company to build a corn mill on the edge of the city. It was abandoned when the Air Force declared the project a potential threat to national security. "Well, I think I've heard enough from the city of Grand Forks on this subject. I don't think we should be approving what they do in the name of economic development," he said. Later in the session, O'Brien rose to address "hurtful" comments. "Our discussion should focus on the merits of the issue at hand and not on questioning each other's motives," she said, reminding members about decorum. "... While I would accept an apology, the damage has been done and I expect more from this chamber." According to a report filed Thursday by Forum Communications columnist Rob Port , Klemen did email an apology to O'Brien and Rep. Jayme Davis, R-Rolette, who is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
