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BIA Preparing to Tighten Rules on American Indian Status
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) The
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is re
vising rules on bloodlines that are
used to determine American Indian
status and the federal benefits that
go with it that status.
The government allows Tribes to
set their own membership standards.
But it also uses blood quantums to
decide whether a person is eligible
for health, housing, food and other
benefits provided through the reser
vation system.
Those who are not members of a
federally recognized Tribe can
qualify by proving to the BIA that
they are one-half or more Indian
with blood from Tribes indigenous to
the United States. A few programs
use one-quarter Indian blood.
Changes proposed by the BIA
would formalize policies, many of
which do not exist in writing, offi
cials say.
The BIA is accepting response on
its final regulations through Decem
ber 20. The proposed rules could take
effect as soon as next year.
Many oppose the change because
they argue a standard blood formula
could regulate Indians out of existence.
While bloodlines thin for all ethnic
groups when people intermarry with
other races, only the Indian popula-
tion stands to lose significant federal
benefits should it one day cease to
exist in the government's eye.
"Before long, there'll be no Indians.
What the hell's going to happen
then? It's potentially disastrous for
Tribes," said Leonard Bruguier, a
Yankton Sioux and college professor
who heads the University of South
Dakota's Institute for American In
dian Studies.
The BIA began work to tighten
policies after the Interior Board of
Indian Appeals, acting on a 1986
Oklahoma complaint, alleged the
government had wrongly denied an
Indian recognition. It found that
some record keeping was incomplete
or inconsistent.
The panel said changes or correc
tions were made without indication
of who made the alterations or why.
As a result, the appeals board says,
some people have not received ser
vices, which they should have.
Others may have received benefits
for which they didn't qualify.
Duane Bird Bear, Chief of the
BIA's Tribal Government Services
division, insists the bureau's work is
a matter of clarifying and streamlin
ing policies.
But the fear does exist, something
Bird Bear acknowledges: "People are
afraid they'll get cut off, and there is
substance to their concerns."
A draft policy states that Tribes will
still have autonomy in setting their
membership standards.
Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle (D-S.D.) says the BIA "ab
solutely must not rush through this
process ... in light of the perception
that the federal government is at
tempting to restrict its obligations."
But some fear that a more formal
BIA process could eventually give the
U.S. government grounds to sever
ties with the Tribes.
They worry that, over time, declin
ing blood percentages will mean that
fewer people qualify under the BIA
rules as Indians.
"It's kind of scary the way they can
terminate us," says Joe Merrival, an
Oglala Sioux who ranches on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
"What they did in the past, they're
still doing it now."
"We'll lose our identity altogether,"
adds Darlene Helper, also an Oglala
Sioux. "Who will we be?"
Some of that change is already
happening.
The Census Bureau says 34 per
cent of federally recognized Ameri
can Indians today are considered full
bloods. Eighty years from now, it
projects that figure to drop below 1
percent.
Most Tribal leaders say there is
little they can do to counter the forces
of assimilation. Many Tribes are not
large enough for Indians to continue
marrying only among themselves.
"We can't dictate to people who they
can marry, where they can live," says
Charles Murphy, Chairman of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. "That's
just the way the world is."
And officials say getting rid of the
blood quantum system probably isn't
the route to go either.
"Sure, they could remove the re
striction; but then they'd have to
come up with more funding, because
more people would qualify," says
Patricia Beasley, Executive Director
of Federal Programs for the Osage
in Oklahoma. "All you'd probably
end up with is more people getting
fewer benefits. What do you gain?"
Tribe Seeks to Regain Public Land, Re-establish Their Reservation
KLAMATH FALLS, OR. (AP)
The Klamath Tribe has completed its
economic self-sufficiency plan, a chief
feature of which is a proposal to re
gain possession of about 690,000
acres of Forest Service land to re-establish
their former reservation.
Tribal Chairman Allen Foreman
said Tribal leaders will go to Wash
ington, D.C. in this month to deliver
the plan to Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt.
Foreman said the plan was the cul
mination of 14 years of work to ful
fill a congressional mandate that was
required when the Tribe won back
its federal status in 1986.
At the time of disbandment, the Klamath were considered
the nation's most successful Tribe, earning 93 percent of the
average income of non-Tribal Klamath County residents.
But by 1986, when Congress restored their Tribal status,
60 percent of the Tribe was unemployed, Chiloquin was Oregon's
poorest city and 52 percent of the Tribe died by the age of 40.
In 1954, Congress disbanded the
Tribe in an effort to push members to
ward integration into mainstream so
ciety, offering members $43,000 each
for their share of the Tribe's timber
rich reservation. MuchoftheWinema
National Forest was carved from those
880,000 acres, and the remainder was
sold to private interests.
At the time of disbandment, the
Klamath were considered the
nation's most successful Tribe, earn
ing 93 percent of the average income
of non-Tribal Klamath County resi
dents. But by 1986, when Congress
restored their Tribal status, 60 per
cent of the Tribe was unemployed,
Chiloquin was Oregon's poorest city
and 52 percent of the Tribe died by
the age of 40.
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persuade Congress to give back its
lost homeland with its 100-year res
toration plan that aims to revive deer
and fish populations as subsistence
food sources and restore sustainable
yield logging to provide jobs and
Tribal income.
The Tribes' proposal has generated
some local controversy. Opponents
say that when Tribal members ac
cepted cash payments for their inter
ests in the reservation, they lost all
rights to the land.
Yates Claims Innocence in Two Pierce County Murders
TACOMA, WA. (AP) Serial killer
Robert L. Yates Jr. of Spokane plead
innocence in the murders of two
women in Pierce County, where the
prosecutor has filed murder charges
that could lead to the death penalty.
Yates, 48, was arraigned in Pierce
County Superior Court on two counts
of aggravated first-degree.
Yates, who is held in the Pierce
County Jail after being transferred
from Spokane, plead innocent and
will exercise all his rights, said his
attorney Roger Hunko.
Although Prosecutor John Laden
burg has not decided whether to seek
the death penalty, the charges and
reasoning outlined in court papers
could lead in that direction.
Prosecutors will try to import infor
mation from Spokane where Yates
admitted 13 murders and one at
tempted murder in a plea bargain that
spared his life to prove that "We will
seek to have the court include the
proof of his identity, that he was the
Spokane killer," Home said.
Ladenburg has declared he will not
bargain away the death penalty in
exchange for a guilty plea, as Spo
kane County authorities did.
Under Washington law, aggra
vated first-degree murder is punish
able by either death or life in prison
without possibility of release. The
death penalty can be imposed only if
a crime meets certain criteria, and if
a jury recommends the punishment
after a special, post-conviction hear
ing. Yates, a married father of five, was
sentenced recently in Spokane to 408
years in prison for his confession to
13 murders and one attempted mur
der. The killings go back a quarter
century to 1975, when he gunned
down a young man and young
woman as they picnicked near Walla
Walla.
In the late 1990s he cruised Spo
kane in a white Corvette, picking up
women.
Yates has admitted killing 10
women in Spokane County in 1996
98. He also admitted the 1975 Walla
Walla slayings, and killing a woman
whose body was found in 1988 in
Western Washington's Skagit
County.
Many of the victims' family mem
bers denounced his deal with pros
ecutors. Yates agreed to admit the
murders and show investigators
where a missing body was buried, in ;
exchange for escaping capital pun
ishment in Spokane.
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Tribal member Cory Turman
helped solve a murder case.
Yates' initial arrest in Spokane came
after Grand Ronde Tribal member
and Spokane Police Officer Cory
Turman made key observations dur
ing a routine traffic stop.