Joe Day takes new job as state Department of Corrections liaison

 

By Brad Swenson
Bemidji Pioneer

 

After 11 years, Joe Day is stepping down as executive director of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, which advises state government on American Indian issues.

But he’ll still work to bring cultural awareness to state agencies, as he begins a new job as state Department of Corrections liaison to tribes in Minnesota.

“My major first initiative will be to bring American Indian culture and understanding to the department,” Day said Thursday in an interview. “I want the department to have a better understanding of Indians and of policies involving American Indians in our institutions.”

Day, who will work out of his Bemidji home, will help craft Corrections Department policies which consider the spiritual needs of American Indians who are incarcerated in Minnesota prisons. A guide, he said, is the federal Religious Freedom Act.

“We want to provide for the spiritual needs within prisons — it’s really critical,” Day said. “For long-stay inmates, we want to ensure that the proper policy from the department is developed to meet their (American Indian) needs.”

Part of that will mean holding “listening session” with Minnesota tribal officials and elders to understand what their needs are for their people who are held in Minnesota jails, Day said. The input will help lead to protocols for American Indians in the judicial system.

“We need a more precise policy to meet the needs, based on what we hear, plus education,” he said. “It will take a couple of years to bring the department up to speed on culture.”

Day starts his new Job Wednesday — after leaving his current job on Tuesday.

For the past 11 years, Day has lead the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, which consists of the elected chairman of the 11 recognized tribal governments in Minnesota. It provides a forum to advise state government on issues affecting Indian communities.

A reception was held for Day on Thursday at the MIAC offices in Bemidji, plus officials met as part of the MIAC’s Urban Indian Advisory Council, which consists of six Indians enrolled in Minnesota-based tribes, with two each from Minneapolis and St. Paul and one each from Duluth and Bemidji.

Day said the MIAC has accomplished much since its since inception in 1963, but also that new challenges remain.

One is simply getting the attention of the governor.

“Since the council was started in 1963, the tribes have become more sophisticated in asserting tribal sovereignty,” Day said.

The council was established to provide a liaison with state government, as the federal government “moved many of its programs to the state, forcing the tribes to work with the state, and historically states have not been friendly in their dealings,” Day said.

Minnesota, however, has been an exception, he says. “Minnesota has been decades ahead and is a flagship in tribal relationships.”

He credits former Gov. Jesse Ventura as being the most outspoken about having government-to-government relations with Minnesota’s tribes. He was the first governor to sign an executive order stating so.

“Our relationship with Gov. Ventura was the best,” Day said, adding that he even spent a day at the Mille Lacs Reservation, learning about every program offered there. “He wanted to come to all our (MIAC) meetings.”

But that’s a problem today, Day said, as current Gov. Tim Pawlenty has shirked the MIAC meetings, instead preferring staff to meet with the tribal leaders. That’s a problem with the system, Day said, as the law creating the MIAC doesn’t say the governor must meet with the group.

The late Roger Jourdain, long-time chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, pushed for the change in MIAC appointments that the board consist of the elected chairmen of Minnesota’s tribes in 1976. He wanted to raise the profile of the state dealing with Indian tribes.

“But now the board feels subservient as the MIAC is a creation of the state,” Day said. “A government-to-government relationship is not defined.”

Anna Marie Hill, MIAC legislative analyst, agrees. “Our tribal leaders should not be meeting with the governor’s staff, but you can’t put into law who the governor meets.”

The tribes plan a June 28 retreat at Grand Portage to discuss the progress made since 1963, and what the challenges are to the future, he said. “We will celebrate our milestones, and there are many.”

Also, the tribes may discuss changing the MIAC membership to appointed representatives, rather than the tribal chairmen, and come up with a new mechanism to ensure a government-to-government relationship with the governor’s office.

“Being elected chairmen on the board took away the governor’s right to appoint, and today we have a different story,” Day said. “There are challenges for the future, and we need to set up a mechanism so we can provide education to the Legislature, the governor and the governor’s cabinet to articulate tribal needs.”

Pawlenty has reaffirmed the government-to-government relationship by signing his own executive order in 2003. In part, it specifies that “when undertaking to formulate and implement policies or programs that directly affect Indian tribes and their members, the state and its agencies must recognize the unique government-to-government relationship between the state and Indian tribes and, whenever feasible, consult with the governments of the affected Indian tribe or tribes regarding a state action or proposed action that is anticipated to directly affect an Indian tribe.”

But since then, relations have strained, especially since 2005 when Pawlenty proposed allowing competition to tribal gaming if tribal casinos didn’t pay some of their profits to the state in lieu of taxes.

Another attack was issued in the 2006 session, as a bill that would require any state-appointed advisory board or commission to disband if it didn’t have a quorum in three consecutive meetings, Day said. The measure, which didn’t pass, could have dissolved the MIAC if tribal chairmen — with busy schedules — couldn’t reach quorum.

Day also hailed the MIAC’s subcommittee, the Urban Indian Advisory Council, as important to advise the full board on urban Indian concerns. That panel meets quarterly, with Bemidji a recent addition.

“Sixty percent of American Indians live off the reservation,” Day said, “and 29 percent live in Hennepin County. How else could we have an entry for urban Indians to state policy?”

John Day of Duluth, the UIAC chairman, wants to beef up the council with active members and produce a “product,” something that can help urban Indians.

“One of the emphases I’ve made is to make sure we have a focus on the community,” John Day said. “We want to meet with the mayors and hold large meetings to get good information.”

The UIAC was able to help the cities of Bemidji and Duluth secure affordable housing monies through the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, he said, but other hurdles still remain — such as having a down payment even for the most affordable of homes.

In Duluth, only 24 percent of American Indians own their own homes, John Day said. And, while American Indians make up about 2 percent of the city population, 30 percent of the city’s homeless are Indian.

“The number of ‘affordable’ homes is going up, but at $120,000 to $140,000, is that really affordable?” he asked.

Hill said that Minnesota is unique in that it has the largest percentage of American Indian homeownership in the nation, yet there is also a huge disparity in percentages between white and minority homeownership.

“We need to wonder what is the definition of homeownership,” she said.