Indian Country News

TCB’s 2024 Hall of Fame Inductees Announced

Chief Executive Melanie Benjamin is among the list of the 2024 TCB Hall of Fame inductees. These six individuals join a long list of esteemed Minnesota business leaders who have been inducted into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame over the last 20-plus years. Their names are displayed on a wall at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. The 2024 inductees will be featured in the June/July issue of Twin Cities Business and honored at an event at the McNamara Alumni Center on July 23. Source: Twin Cities Business.

Work still to be done on American Indian education in Brainerd

The American Indian Parent Advisory Committee once again issued the Brainerd School Board a vote of nonconcurrence. Some steps were taken over the last year, but there’s still work to be done on American Indian education efforts at Brainerd Public Schools. The American Indian Parent Advisory Committee once again issued the Brainerd School Board a vote of nonconcurrence, meaning the district is not aligned with the committee’s vision for American Indian education. The annual vote is a requirement under state statute to meet the needs of Native American students. At the School Board meeting Monday, April 8, committee members issued a new set of recommendations for the upcoming year, after thanking district leaders for the work that has been done and presenting Superintendent Heidi Hahn with a handmade quilt as she prepares to end her tenure with the district in June. Committee member Michele Berger, who has two foster nephews who live with her and attend Brainerd Public Schools, said she appreciated seeing tribal flags from sovereign nations on display at the high school. “My nephew came from a tribal school to Brainerd High School, and upon walking in, for him to see all those (flags), he said he got goosebumps. He got swelled up with pride, and that is the kind of thing we were going for,” Berger said. “So to hear that from him directly was wonderful for me.” Source: Brainerd Dispatch.

Minnesota Sports Betting Chances Dim As Track Sues Tribes

The battle over Minnesota sports betting legislation took a contentious turn this week as a horse racing track took legal aim at several tribal casinos Running Aces Casino, Hotel & Racetrack announced Tuesday it filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota against three Minnesota tribal casinos for violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, through illegal card games. The lawsuit follows a bill introduced this month in the legislature that outlaws historical horse racing (HHR) at the tracks. Rep. Zack Stephenson‘s legislation is based on tribal opposition to a recent Minnesota Racing Commission decision that would allow HHR at the tracks beginning this summer. These developments come as the horse racing tracks and tribes are at the center of the legislative Minnesota sports betting negotiations. The Minnesota legislative session adjourns May 20. Source: Legal Sports Report

In Indian Country, federal budget dysfunction takes a toll

The annual Reservation Economic Summit brings thousands of tribal leaders to Las Vegas. This year, a lot of them were breathing easy for the first time in a while. Two days before the summit began and just hours before a March deadline, Congress passed the first of two packages to fund the government through September. In many tribal communities, everything from police and fire departments to medical clinics to K-12 schools are paid for with federal dollars. That’s because of the United States’ trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations. That also means those nations’ yearly budgets and economic fates are entangled with the federal government’s at a time when Congress has struggled to pass spending bills on time. Melanie Benjamin is chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and board secretary with the Native American Finance Officers Association. She said provisions laid out in treaties between tribal nations and the United States are protected by the constitution. “In today’s terms, those are contracts and they’re valid. They’re the supreme law of the land. When you’re in a shutdown, how are you supposed to uphold that contract?” Benjamin said. Source: Marketplace.org

When Trump Said, “They Don’t Look Like Indians to Me”

On March 6, 2024, The New York Times wrote “Polling suggests voters’ views on Mr. Trump’s policies and his presidency have improved in the rearview mirror. In interviews, voters often have a hazy recall of one of the most tumultuous periods in modern politics." The amnesia includes the short-term memories Americans have about what happened on January 6th when Trump encouraged his followers to march up to the U.S. Capitol to get then Vice President Mike Pence to certify the election for Trump even though he lost the 2020 presidential election. Recently, Melanie Benjamin made the keynote address at the Indian Gaming Association 2024 Tradeshow and Convention in Anaheim. Benjamin, who has raised billions of dollars for her tribe during her leadership, chose not to run for reelection this year. Her topic was the future of Indian gaming. She said in order to look ahead, you must look behind because history has a way of repeating itself. You have to ask: “When or where will the next attack come?” To drive home her point about threats to gaming, Benjamin showed a clip from a U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources hearing from 1993 where Donald Trump was the key witness. That day Trump expressed his opposition to Indian gaming focusing on his opinion that 1988 Indian Regulatory Act had given the tribes an unfair advantage over his two own gaming enterprises that he soon thereafter sent into bankruptcy. During the testimony, Trump had a fiery exchange with the committee’s chairman, George Miller (D-CA): Chairman Miller: Is this you discussing Indian blood: “We are going to judge people by whether they have Indian blood,” whether they are qualified to run a gaming casino or not? Trump: That probably is me, absolutely, because I’ll tell you what, if you look — if you look at some of the reservations that you have approved—you, sir, in your great wisdom, have approved— will tell you right now, they don’t look like Indians to me, and they don’t look like Indians. Source: Native News Online, Opinion of Levi Rickert.