Stephen Cornell and Jonathan Taylor - American Public Media

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the country a dynamic economy and a host of jobs. 6 And being successful hasn’t stopped them from being Choctaw: the tribe has one of the highest rates of language retention in all of Indian Country. In Arizona, the Sunrise ski operation run by the White Mountain Apache Tribe has become a major factor in the winter economy of the White Mountains, filling motels in Show Low and Pinetop, pulling in dollars and further stimulating the local recreational and tourism economy. When a federal agency threatened to close down Sunrise under the Endangered Species Act, a busload of off-reservation business and community leaders showed up at public hearings to underscore the economic dependence of the regional economy on the tribe’s resort—and this was before the tribe built its casino. In Washington State, Veronica Tiller and George Chase found in 1998 that 27 federally recognized tribes contribute $1 billion annually to the economy, paid $56.6 million in federal and state employment and payroll-related taxes; and employed 14,000 Washington citizens fulltime. Gaming played a significant role in this, but it was not the whole story. 7 There are numerous other examples: the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Montana—these and many others are making significant economic contributions not only to their own societies but to non-Indian communities as well. They illustrate the crucial point: as Indian nations move from welfare-based, transfer economies to productive economies, they reduce the burden on taxpayers, are able to invest in their own infrastructures, contribute to regional economies, and, in many cases, bolster state programs through their own provision of services. In short, state economies and populations benefit from tribal economic success. 6 Ferrara 1998; National Congress of American Indians 1998, p. 8. 7 Tiller and Chase (1998). 6 A Second Look at the Competence of Tribal Governments The assumption of tribal government incompetence has very high costs. Not only is it offensive to Indian nations, but it leads states to approach tribal-state partnerships—if they consider them at all—with hesitation and a demand for extra assurances or performance guarantees. These in turn make it harder for tribes and states to come to agreement and handicap tribal development efforts. In some cases, states refuse to partner with tribes at all. It goes without saying that some tribal governments are incompetent, but this hardly distinguishes Indian nations from other societies. Across the universe of tribes—as across the universe of countries—we find both good and bad examples of governance. Unfortunately, however, the bad examples often get the publicity, but there is ample evidence on the good government side as well. For example, a number of studies indicate that, on average, when tribes take over services under PL-638, they outperform federal agencies. They create more value, operate more efficiently, introduce more services, and build more public infrastructure than outside operators do. 8 The reasons are simple and predictable. When tribes take over responsibility for a reservation program, two things happen. First, program administration begins to reflect their agendas instead of outsiders’ agendas. Second, decisions and their consequences are linked more closely to each other. Tribes begin to pay the price of bad decisions and reap the benefits of good decisions; as a result, over time, the quality of the decisions improves. Perhaps more striking, tribes are increasingly administering complex and innovative programs in ways that make them best-in-class not just in Indian Country but across governing units in the United States. Some quick examples: the Jicarilla Apache wildlife management program in New Mexico is arguably the premier program in the West, with striking achievements to its credit in the restoration of trophy- 8 See, for example, Jorgensen (2000), Krepps and Caves (1994), Dixon et al. (1998).
quality game herds and fisheries. The State of Minnesota has drawn attention to the Fond du Lac tribe’s foster care program not because it is an outstanding Indian program but because it is an outstanding foster care program. The tribal college run by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Montana is getting applications from non- Indian students because it provides superior quality education. Not only is the assumption of tribal government incompetence out of step with a growing body of contrary evidence, but its implied conclusion—that the state response should be to resist partnerships with tribes—is logically flawed. Even in cases where tribal program operation is problematic, the solution is not for the states to walk away from these potentially beneficial partnerships, but for the tribes and the states to jointly work out capacity-building arrangements that can improve tribal governance. This is the clear implication of the Harvard Project research finding, noted above, that tribal control is essential to tribal development. It is in the interest of both states and tribes to build the capacity of Indian nations to govern effectively. Our evidence indicates that, in doing so, states will be lining up for eventual spillover benefits. Rethinking Races to the Bottom Finally, the fear that tribes are economically desperate and, therefore, will cut regulatory corners in order to attract economic development or foist costs onto the states has motivated states to assert jurisdiction over tribes in some cases or walk away from productive partnerships in others. Of course there’s a paternalistic edge to this argument, which suggests that states are best able to determine appropriate policy for reservations. But it also assumes that tribes will be willing to turn their homelands into toxic cesspools or their factories into sweatshops. The evidence suggests otherwise. Economic development on most reservations has meant significant improvements in quality of life, not deterioration. Economically successful tribes tend to provide more services, maintain newer schools, shorten fire and rescue response times, impose higher environmental standards, and in 7 other ways exceed the levels of federal and state service provision that prevailed before development took off. The Jicarilla Apaches have improved wildlife management in the northern part of New Mexico; Sandia Pueblo has imposed the toughest water quality standards along a major stretch of the Rio Grande; the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians has improved the health of its own people by taking over management of health care; the Cabazon Band has strengthened regional fire and police operations with high quality training and links to non-Indian community services. Once again, the critical issue is tribal capability. As Indian nations improve their own governing capacities, they typically take the kinds of actions that would logically reduce state risks and concerns—and they become better partners in the effort to mitigate those risks that remain. Implications Devolution has enormous potential benefits to Indian nations. They already have benefited from devolution in federal Indian policy. It is easy to demonstrate that the devolutionary federal policy of self-determination for Indian tribes, formally adopted in the mid-1970s, is the only federal Indian policy ever to produce sustainable, positive, economic results on Indian reservations. No other policy has worked to reduce reservation poverty. But devolution will benefit Indian nations only if tribal sovereignty remains robust. The danger today, and the greatest threat to reservation prosperity, lies not in devolution but in courts and legislatures that believe in devolution but do not believe in sovereign Indian nations. It will be a remarkable irony—and another tragedy in a long line of Indian policy failures—if the United States were now to turn its back on the only policy that has shown any promise of lifting reservation populations out of poverty and despair. Such a rejection of tribal sovereignty will have costs not only to tribes but to states, the federal government, and taxpayers generally as Indian nations continue to languish in poverty. In backing away from meaningful self-determination, everybody loses. What can tribes do to insure that the trend toward devolution is accompanied not by
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Stephen Cornell and Jonathan Taylor - American Public Media

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