Obama promises Native policy advisor

By Jodi Rave, Lee Enterprises | Sunday, April 06, 2008

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MISSOULA, Mont. -- Native people are being assured of a presence in the White House, unlike that of any other time in history, if Sen. Barack Obama becomes the next president of the United States, his campaign officials say.

In a detailed, four-page proposed Native policy statement, the Illinois Democratic senator said he would appoint "an American Indian policy advisor on his senior White House staff so that Indian Country has a direct interface at the highest level of the Obama Administration."

"That is huge," Keith Harper, a Native-law attorney in Washington, D.C., said.  "We've never even really had anybody in the door of the White House. They've been in the old executive office building in some back corner. And in this administration, they haven't even been around at all."

Sens. Obama and Hillary Clinton are both courting the national Native vote, a political entity that represents 4.5 million Native people in the United States, a much-needed voting block in tight elections.

Pete Rouse, Obama's chief of staff, asked Harper to assist in Obama's campaign 14 months ago.

"At the time, Hillary Clinton was the inevitable," Harper said. "But I saw something in him. I saw his experience in how he sees the world would be something that resonates with Indian people."

Obama "has a good understanding for the problems of Indian policy, and federal Indian policy of the past," said Rouse, whose own Native experience includes serving as chief of staff for former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., for 19 years in South Dakota, where Natives constitute 8.5 percent of the population.

Although Obama's experience with Native people is limited compared to Clinton's, some of his closest advisors on Native policy include Harper -- a Cherokee who is representing Native landowners in class-action suit against the U.S. Interior Department -- and former Sens. Daschle and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. Harper said about 40 tribal leaders nationwide have endorsed Obama.

Obama has said he will host annual meetings with tribes at the White House.  

Besides changing the process for Native consultation, Obama's platform includes preserving tribal languages, boosting economic development and addressing violence.

Rouse said health care, education and economic development ranked at the top of Obama's concerns for Natives. Obama co-sponsored the reauthorization of the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act, a federal law that hadn't been updated for about 15 years.

"We have an obligation, a responsibility to provide full Indian health care, and in my memory, we've never done it," Rouse said Thursday. "Nobody was out there advocating to do it at the highest levels of the administration. Right now, Indian policy concerns don't have a fighting chance because they don't have the visibility or the clout behind them."

Obama addresses twice as many specific tribal concerns in his platform as Clinton's agenda, Rouse said.

"Obama's feelings on this is, we're sort of running an insurgent campaign," Rouse said. "He's running from outside of Washington, a 'change campaign.' And from the beginning, he's set out to include Native Americans in this coalition for change."

A meaningful government-to-government relationship requires a fundamental shift in the consultation approach, Harper said.

"One of the big issues here is to empower tribes to solve their own problems ... in a way they want to solve them. Washington can't say, 'Here's a bunch of money,'" Rouse said. "'This is how you got do it.'" In order to do that, you need that dialogue with someone who is in the White House who has the sensitivity to Indian Country and tribal perspectives, and who also has the ear of the president."

Both Obama and Clinton were set to give keynote campaign speeches Saturday at the Montana Democratic Party dinner in Butte, Mont. where tribal leaders from all seven reservations in the state planned to attend. About 70,000 Native people constitute nearly 7 percent of Montana's population.

Chairman John Steele of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation planned to attend Saturday's dinner. Steele is endorsing Obama, making the decision after learning the senator planned to create a senior White House Native policy advisor staff position.

"That's key," said Steele. "That's not happened before. He also talked about a Tribal G8 to develop Indian policy. That was important to who I wanted to back in the Democratic primary."

 

Contact Jodi Rave at 800-366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net.