Self-governance offers some protection to the Tribe

By Nicole Montesano and Katherine Warren

Smoke Signals staff writers

When the federal government demanded that Tribes concede the vast majority of their lands in the 1800s and 1900s, it signed treaties promising to provide basic services to Tribes in return, in addition to protecting Tribal sovereignty.

Modern courts have upheld those treaties but now Tribal governments are finding themselves having to defend them once again in the wake of federal funding freezes and slashed agency staffing by the Trump administration.

Still, there are some protections in place for Grand Ronde. One of them is the self-governing agreement the Tribe entered into with the Department of Interior in early December, under which it receives a lump sum for its contracted services at the beginning of the year.

This year’s allocation was $3.66 million, and with that in the Tribal coffers, there’s less worry about getting through the remainder of this year.

Even so, the Tribe is not necessarily immune to the damage with federal grants in question, members still reliant on various federal departments and programs such as Medicaid, and some Tribal members’ government jobs at risk.

Tribal Council has been struggling to assess the likely effects, even as it also tries to make it clear to administration officials that funds and services are mandated by law.

“We keep saying over and over, that this is not a racial issue,” Tribal Council Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy said at the General Council meeting on Sunday, March 2. “It’s not an ethnic issue. This is the treaty responsibilities that you have entered into and that have been upheld by courts, by Congress, by all the powers that be, and that we are ready. We will take whatever we need to make sure that our treaty rights and our relationship is not hindered. So, we are well-armed to do that.”

In late February, Kennedy noted, several members of the Tribal Council, along with the Tribal Attorney Rob Greene, joined other Tribal leaders in Washington, D.C. to lobby congressional representatives and federal officials.

Tribal Council member Denise Harvey said organizations representing Tribes have distributed talking points to all members, so that representatives from across the United States are essentially speaking with one voice as they present their arguments.

In mid-February, new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., (no relation to Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy), rescinded the layoffs of 950 employees of Indian Health Service. Tribal leaders had acted quickly, sending letters to the Trump administration, warning that with some 214 Tribal nations reliant on care from IHS, the layoffs would cost lives.

On Thursday, March 6, Chairwoman Kennedy said she had spoken with Robert Kennedy Jr. as well as with the IHS director about potential affects to Oregon Tribes.

“For Grand Ronde, we are not affected (directly),” she said. “There could be the potential, if there are new initiatives or new funds made available by Congress, there could be delays (in receiving the funds), because the Indian Health Service parcels out the funds, so if administrative staff is very small, there could be significant delays.”

In addition, she said, funding cuts at the IHS headquarters in Maryland could prevent the agency from compiling its annual reports to Congress. Those reports determine the size of the following year’s funding allocations.

Kennedy said she had thanked the secretary for rescinding the layoffs and invited him to visit Grand Ronde.

“We’d love to host him and show him what a self-government Tribe does,” Kennedy said. “He was very open and showed interest … but you never know how all that plays out, but he really made an effort to talk to all of us and reassure that he was going to make an effort to make sure that all of the needs of IHS continues to be covered.”

In addition, Kennedy said during the General Council meeting that she told him the issue is bigger than the Indian Health Service.

“We have to have good health, but the environment is something that we live on; everyone lives from the environment and those cuts need to be stopped,” she said.