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By Lloyd Miller and Heather Kendall Miller
News From Indian Country 9-08
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Campaign Photo
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Perhaps
no issue is of greater importance to Alaska Native peoples as the right
to hunt and fish according to ancient customary and traditional
practices, and to carry on the subsistence way of life for future
generations. These rights are not just a matter of custom, they are a
matter of necessity in a State where Native villages are spread across
a largely roadless area covering 375 million acres, and where
subsistence foods are still fully 60% of the local diet.
But Governor Sarah Palin has consistently opposed those essential and fundamental rights.
As
soon as Palin was sworn in as Governor she set a firm course against
Native subsistence rights. One of her very first decisions was to
continue litigation that seeks to overturn every subsistence fishing determination the federal government has ever made in Alaska.
The goal of Palin's law suit (now known as Alaska versus Kempthorne) is to invalidate all
the subsistence fishing regulations the federal government has ever
issued to protect Alaska Native fishing in navigable waters. If
successful, Palin's attack would move every subsistence issue into the
courts and thus tie up Alaska Native subsistence for generations. The
reason is no secret: to diminish subsistence fishing rights in order to
expand sport and commercial fishing.
As
it turns out, last year the federal court in Alaska rejected Palin's
main challenge. The Court held that in 1980 Congress had unequivocally
granted the Department of the Interior and the Department of
Agriculture joint authority to regulate and protect Alaska Native (and
even non-Native) subsistence fishing activities in most navigable
waters. But that defeat has not deterred Palin.
| Palin
opposes subsistence protections in marine waters, she opposes
subsistence protections on many of the lands that Alaska Natives
selected under their 1971 land claims settlement, and she opposes
subsistence protections in many of the rivers where Alaska Natives
customarily fish. |
Today Palin
continues to argue in court that federal subsistence protections are
too broad, and should be narrowed to exclude vast areas from
subsistence fishing in favor of sport and commercial fishing. Palin
opposes subsistence protections in marine waters, she opposes
subsistence protections on many of the lands that Alaska Natives
selected under their 1971 land claims settlement, and she opposes
subsistence protections in many of the rivers where Alaska Natives
customarily fish. Palin even opposes subsistence fishing protections
on Alaska Native federal allotments, even though those riverside
allotments were deeded to Native people purposely to foster Native
subsistence activities. In less than two years Palin has proven
herself no friend of Alaska Native subsistence.
In her short
tenure, Palin has also tried to overturn critical federal protections
for Alaska Native customary and traditional uses of game, again simply
to enhance sport hunting. Palin's attack here has targeted (among
others) the Ahtna Indian people in Chistochina, and although the
federal court last year rejected this challenge, too, Palin has refused
to lay down her arms. The battle has thus moved on to the appellate
courts.
In both hunting and fishing matters, Palin has
challenged critical protections that Native people depend upon for
their subsistence way of life, merely to enhance sport fishing and
hunting opportunities. She has tolerated leadership on her state
regulatory boards that is openly hostile to Native people, including
people who have gone so far as to suggest, when chairing public
hearings, that all Native people are drunks. Palin's lawsuits are more
than insensitive; they are a direct attack on Alaska Native people.
Sadly, Palin's campaign has not stopped with her attacks on
subsistence. At the very same time that she has challenged federal
subsistence rights, she has waged a second battle against tribal
sovereignty. While Palin pays lip service to the fact that Alaska
Tribes are federally recognized, it is an empty statement because she
insists they have no authority whatsoever to act as sovereigns despite
that recognition-unless, she argues, the State first permits a
Tribe to take some particular action.
So unyielding is Palin on tribal
sovereignty issues that she has sought to block Alaska Tribes from even
exercising authority over the welfare of Native children - again,
unless the State through its courts first authorizes a Tribe to act.
It is a position that is so extreme that, not only have the federal
courts rejected it, but even her own state courts have rejected it.
Nonetheless, Palin stubbornly refuses to relent, regardless of the
consequence for village children caught in the middle of the resulting
jurisdictional nightmare.
A third prong in her assault on
Native peoples has been Palin's refusal to accord proper respect to
Alaska Native languages and Alaska Native voters, by denying language
assistance to Yup'ik-speaking voters. As a result, this July Palin was
ordered by a special three-judge panel of federal judges to provide
various forms of voter assistance to Yup'ik voters residing in
southwest Alaska. Citing years of State neglect, Palin was ordered to
provide trained poll workers who are bilingual in English and Yup'ik;
sample ballots in written Yup'ik; a written Yup'ik glossary of election
terms; consultation with local Tribes to ensure the accuracy of Yup'ik
translations; a Yup'ik language coordinator; and pre-election and
post-election reports to the court to track the State's efforts.
Palin's record is clear, and measured against some of the rights that
are most fundamental to Alaska Native Tribes - the subsistence way of
life, tribal sovereignty and voting rights - that record is a failure.
Lloyd Miller and Heather Kendall Miller each practice law in Anchorage,
Alaska, representing Native American interests. The views expressed
here are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of
their respective employers or their clients.
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