Lobbying is a must

By Dr. Dean Chavers

Around the Campfire

      For the past 30 years I have been worried about the lack of lobbying on Capitol Hill by Indian people. I was so frustrated about the lack of it that I ran for the NIEA board twice, hoping NIEA would be the one to get on the Hill and push for legislation. NIEA still has not done it.

      So let me tell you how happy I am that there are at least two Indian organizations that are actively lobbying on the Hill. They are the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) and the National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA). And we need a lot more than this.

      I got so frustrated at NIEA not doing it that some of us 15 years ago organized an organization whose main purpose was to lobby on the Hill. It was called the Coalition for Indian Education. To make a long story short, after a few years some people took over the Coalition from me and ran it into the ground.

      But starting in 1990, I started trying to get a delegation of people on the Hill every year. The first year, despite my pleas to a lot of people, I was the only person who showed up. As I went before the late Rep. Natcher’s HUD/Labor/HHS Committee to testify, I asked one of the staffers who the only Indian presenting testimony would be. The room was full of people, but no Indians.

      She said none. Not one single other Indian individual or organization testified before that committee this year. And it was a powerful committee with many programs under it. I was really impressed with the huge seals of the three departments on the wall behind Rep. Natcher. They were several feet tall.

      Several years before I started trying to get an Indian delegation on the Hill, NCAI eliminated its education staff position in an internal power struggle. That position has never been restored. NTCA had just gone out of business. So for a decade and a half, NCAI, NIEA, and NTCA have not mounted a consistent lobbying effort on the Hill.

      I went to one NCAI mid-year meeting 15 years ago, thinking we were going on the Hill. But instead we sat around in a hotel for two days and listened to Indian leaders talk. What frustration! Here we are in D.C. but we were avoiding the action, which is always on the Hill.

      I was also frustrated in trying to get people to go to D.C. By 1994 or so I had identified 2,700 people, my colleagues, whom I thought should be going to see their Senators and Representatives. I sent them all letters, and got 15 of them to go. Most of the 15 came from Adam Webster of Green Bay, who brought a van load of people.

      The next year I mailed to the same 2,700 people and got 17 to go. And we decided that Monday morning when we met to plan strategy that we would ask all Members of Congress (MC’s) what other Indians they had seen during the year. By the end of that week, we had found out of the 80 people we had met with that only one had seen an Indian of any kind all year!

      By the way, our feet were killing us every day. When you go, wear tennis shoes. The marble halls of Congress are pre hell on feet.

      No wonder they don’t understand what the problems are in Indian Country. We don’t tell them. No wonder they think all Indians are rich from gaming, when in fact it is less than 2% of Indians who are well off from gaming. They have no idea of what’s happening in Indian Country because they never hear from us.

      NIISA has been lobbying regularly for years through its larger sister organization, the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS). NAFIS is headed by John Forkenbrock, who is known as “Mister Impact Aid.” NAFIS represents both the Indian Impact Aid Schools and the military Impact Aid Schools.

      NAFISS has two meetings a year in D.C. and NIISA has its own meeting every summer as well. The NAFIS meetings will have 200 or more Indian reps present.

      They spend a full day on the Hill talking directly to MC’s. Dr. Richard Bordeaux of Todd County Schools, SD, is the past president of both NAFIS and NIISA.

      I attended the NIISA summer meeting in Reno in June, and was again highly impressed with the caliber of this organization. Brent Gish is the Executive Director of NIISA.

      He is also the Superintendent of the Mahnomen Public Schools in Minnesota, and I interviewed him later about the situation. He told me they started 15 years ago to lobby seriously. John Forkenbrock told them that the only way to grow is to tell their story to Congress personally. He said the best lobbyist is an Indian school board member.

      When I asked Brent what worked best when lobbying, he said they have found that talking about successes really helps. Many Members of Congress still do not know how Indian schools have to have Impact Aid just to operate. But giving them the hard facts about the Indian child is their best resource.

      They are now working to develop a profile of the typical Indian child to present to Congress. MC’s do not understand the poverty of Indian Country and how it affects education, how Indian students have to travel up to 70 miles one way to get to school, and so on. Bryan Jerrigan, the communications director for NAFIS, is working on this profile, which originated in a committee.

      Terry Smith, the rep from Wapato, WA, who also runs the NIISA meeting, said it really helps to know your MC personally. The NIISA reps have no trouble getting in to see their MC, Terry and Brent both said. One of the frustrations we had when I was leading delegations to the Hill was that we rarely got to meet with the actual MC. We usually got to meet with some staffer. But Superintendents are important, so they know their reps by their first name.

      Brent is a longtime NIISA member. He has been superintendent at Mahnomen for 13 years, and has been in the district for 31 years. He is a graduate of Mahnomen High School.

      And his grandmother’s sister was superintendent of the district in the 1930's, after she graduated in 1923 from the high school. So he recognizes the importance of the program, and the support from the President for it. The White House usually does not include Impact Aid in its budget, he said, but President Bush has put it into his budget. This means the MC’s who handle Impact Aid do not have to fight to get it put back in each year.

      NIGA and NCAI sometimes join NIISA in lobbying, Brent says, but he is not aware that NIEA ever does. And the tribal offices in D.C. do not join them. He said we are still so fragmented in Indian Country. We need a unitied front.

      The NCLB has put an additional burden on Indian Land districts, he says. There is no immediate threat to Impact Aid now, but they need to get inflationary increases and an Indian Lands supplemental as the military recently got. But the main battles, which they have never won, are to get the program fully funded and to get it forward funded.

      I am so glad that both NIISA and NIGA are on the Hill on a regular basis. I just wish the other organizations–MCAI, NIEA, intertribals, and tribal offices–would join in and see the value of lobbying. And we need to have our own travel agency, to bring MC’s out to Indian Country. We have a small cohort of Members who look out for Indian interests–Inouye, Hayworth, Kildee, Nighthorse Campbell, Bingaman, and so on. But Indians do not make it onto the agenda of at least 500 of the 535 members in a given year.

      If Indian Country ever gets into trouble again, such as the termination movement of the 1950s and 1960s, it will be because of the ignorance of the Members about Indian affairs. I hope someday we will have a major impact on the Hill year round.

Dr. Dean Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a national scholarship and school improvement organization in Albuquerque. His address is CTD4DeanChavers@aol.com