GOP resolution seeks end to tribal governments

SPOKANE -- A little-discussed resolution -- passed by delegates at the recent state Republican Party convention -- calls for the abolition of tribal governments, saying they are unconstitutional.

Tribal leaders call the measure an affront to their rights under treaties signed by Congress.

"It's absolutely the reverse of what Republican principles stand for -- to protect all rights and to uphold the integrity and honor of this nation and all of the commitments it makes," said Ron Allen, a Republican who is chairman of the Jamestown Klallam Tribe in Western Washington and vice president of the National Congress of American Indians.

The resolution adopted at the party convention in Spokane June 17 comes amid growing controversy over reservation rules affecting non-Indians, ranging from hunting privileges to liquor sales.

The resolution's main author was John Fleming, a Skagit County convention delegate who says he now wants Washington's party delegates to try to insert a similar measure into the national GOP platform.

"We do not recognize them (tribal governments) as sovereign nations, as governments," Fleming said in an interview.

Fleming, who lives within the Swinomish Reservation and is active in organizations opposing treaty rights, refers to tribal governments as "non-republican" because reservation residents who are non-Indian can't vote in tribal elections. That makes them illegal under the U.S. and state constitutions, he contends.

The measure calls on the federal government to "immediately take whatever steps necessary to terminate all such non-republican forms of government on Indian reservations."

"We think it can be done peacefully," Fleming said.

But if tribes were to fight the effort, "then the U.S. Army and the Air Force and the Marines and the National Guard are going to have to battle back," he said.

Beth Jensen, chairwoman of the state GOP platform committee, said she had no idea how the resolution's authors intend for termination of tribal governments to be carried out.

Some of the 29 resolutions that came before Jensen's committee were debated at some length during a two-hour session to consider the measures. But the one on tribal governments was barely discussed, Jensen said.

"It seems like what was being said was, there were acts by the tribal governments that weren't the way we do government in America," she said.

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