By: Mary Steurer (North Dakota Monitor)
North Dakota tribal leaders highlighted uncertainty in federal funding, frustrations with the state Legislature and future economic development projects Wednesday during the state’s seventh annual Government-to-Government Conference.
The annual event brings leaders of the five tribal nations that share geography with North Dakota together with state officials to share updates, network and discuss common problems facing their communities.
“We’re strong, strong people — and we’re getting back to that mindset of pridefulness,” Jamie Azure, tribal chair for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, said during his address. Azure said development projects in the pipeline for Turtle Mountain involve a retail center, movie theater, bowling alley and more.
The conference was started by former Gov. Doug Burgum during his first term in office. Burgum is credited with improving relations between the tribes and the state government, which were at a low point when he took office in 2016.
Gov. Kelly Armstrong, who succeeded Burgum in December, called continuing the conference a “no brainer.”
“We need the collaboration of our tribal partners if we want North Dakota as a state to truly succeed,” Armstrong said.
Like Turtle Mountain, officials from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate celebrated several new business opportunities coming to the Lake Traverse Reservation. Economic development is not about money, said Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Secretary Curtis Bissonette.
“It’s about freedom, dignity and the ability to care for one another across generations,” he said. “We are not waiting on permission to act.”
Tribal leaders on Wednesday each expressed a degree of anxiety about federal programs. Native tribes receive services from the U.S. government in areas as wide-ranging as law enforcement, healthcare and land management. Native officials are worried about the impact of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to federal spending.
Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Chairman Mark Fox said that if the federal government wants to stop funding tribes, it needs to help them maintain a “financial infrastructure” that allows them to “to survive and thrive economically.”
“If you take that away, then you’re going to cause dependency to exist for the next 100 to 1,000 years,” he said.
During her address, Standing Rock Chairwoman Janet Alkire shared some of her tribe’s continuing efforts to collaborate with the federal government on land, energy and infrastructure issues.
She said after several years of negotiating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Standing Rock last year entered into a co-stewardship agreement for Dakota Prairie National Grasslands within the boundaries of the reservation, for example.
“These milestones may seem small, but it gives our people the opportunity to participate and have a voice, when once our voice was taken,” Alkire said.
She said she is also serving on a tribal advisory committee for the U.S. Department of the Interior under Burgum’s leadership.
Standing Rock leaders also provided updates on a wind farm project to improve energy infrastructure in southern North Dakota. They hope to finance it in part from a loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, though they said federal staff cuts threaten the program. Alkire said she has asked Burgum if the program can be rehoused under the Department of the Interior.
Tribal leaders also had much to say about the state government.
Azure during his address played two video clips from this year’s legislative session of state lawmakers questioning the integrity of Turtle Mountain’s plans to build a casino and resort in Grand Forks.
One was of Sen. Diane Larson, R-Bismarck, who during one floor session said the source of the tribe’s financing was murky and might come from cartels. (Larson apologized for her remarks later that floor session.)
Azure also played a clip of Rep. Lawrence Klemin, R-Bismarck, who dismissed the project and compared it to a Chinese company’s failed plans to build a corn milling plant near the Air Force base in Grand Forks. Klemin said he no longer trusts economic development projects associated with Grand Forks. He later told The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead his comments weren’t directed to the tribe.
Azure said the comments were insulting to the tribe and called on the statehouse to do better.
“At the end of the day the mindset has to change, because we can’t go back here every two years and show videos like this,” he said.
Spirit Lake Nation Chairperson Lonna Jackson-Street urged the state to reinstate the motor vehicle excise tax exemption for tribal members living off reservation. Only tribal members who live on reservations receive the tax exemption under a law change adopted by the state Legislature in 2023.
Jackson-Street said a large portion of Spirit Lake members live outside the Spirit Lake Reservation due in part to the federal government’s illegal taking of tribal land under the Dawes Act of 1887, and now must pay thousands of dollars more in taxes on vehicle purchases.
She also said the tribe has continued to take a hit because of North Dakota’s burgeoning electronic pull tab industry, which has taken business away from the Spirit Lake Casino.
“We’re trying to establish new businesses within our community to supplement what our casino lost because of e-tabs,” she said.
During the North Dakota legislative session, Native lawmakers supported a bill that would have required the Legislature to consult tribes on policies that would affect their communities. Proponents of the bill, which failed in the Senate, noted that the statehouse passed laws that allowed for the proliferation of gambling without speaking with North Dakota tribes that rely on casino revenue.
“For the future, as a tribal leader and whoever may step into these shoes, it’s important you know that our government works with tribes on consultation,” Jackson-Street told the audience on Wednesday.
Armstrong in his speech Wednesday applauded the state Legislature for passing House Bill 1199, which requires the state to create a task force dedicated to reducing the number of missing or murdered Indigenous people in the state.
Armstrong said while he was in Congress he worked on Savanna’s Act, which seeks to improve the federal response to the same issue. Armstrong said he thinks the Savanna’s Act is “good legislation” but that he thinks House Bill 1199 will be more impactful.
“That’s a perfect example of how you don’t solve those problems in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “This is solved on Main Street across rural North Dakota.
