© 2023 Concerned Citizens of Western Montana

“The United States is prepared to accommodate Indian interests, and to provide a substantial degree of self-determination.  But there is a point beyond which it cannot go—our federal framework will not be compromised, nor will the rights of non-Indians be ignored. Where tribal aspirations collide with constitutional values, the tribe’s interests must yield. Nor can the rights of the non-Indian majority be compromised to support tribal aspirations. Doing justice by Indians does not require doing injustices to non-Indians.”  ~ U.S. Representative Lloyd Meeds, 1977

See: What Tribal Sovereignty?  Lloyd Meeds dissent

It is quite unfortunate that we call the Meeds’ Line was not only crossed with the ratification of the Flathead Water Compact, it was obliterated.

While we cannot know for certain what the motives of the three compacting governments are, we believe they have all moved in concert toward a common goal of restoring federal ownership and control over our state’s amazing and abundant water resources. 

An additional benefit to our respective governments is that water is necessary for the existence of all living things.  If you are able to control the water, you can control what people can and cannot do, as well as where they live, and cannot live. 

In the grand scheme of things our heritage, Indian or non-Indian, does not make us immune from the need for water to survive.

What Self-Determination is and What it is Not

Self-determination we suppose, is what each person defines it to be for themselves.  It comes from a spark within our very being, and it cannot be bought and paid for with federal subsidies, or legislation that declares a people to be “self-determined. 

It is a gift from God that should not be squandered or ignored.

Nor can our self-determination be bought or sold, nor negotiated away by governments.

It is a spark that for as long as “governments” have existed they have taken great pains to smother.    

Our country was founded upon the idea that its citizens would be self-reliant, moral, well informed, and capable of running their own affairs. 

There is nothing more American than that.  One cannot describe the satisfaction that comes out of our own ability to self-govern and the successes that come out of it. If we fail, we pick ourselves up and use what we’ve learned, and we try again. 

We desire this not only for ourselves, but also for others.  

This is why we cannot begin to understand why in 2023, nearly 100 years after the 1924 Indian citizenship act was passed by Congress, individual Indians do not have the same constitutional rights and protections as everyone else. 

We also cannot understand why people aren’t speaking out boldly and loudly about the harm this causes not only to the Indian people, but to ALL PEOPLE.

We have tried to explain some of the historical aspects of this issue on this blog, including the devastating effects of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act (IRA).

Under the guise of tribal “self-governance” the IRA ended federal government’s trust responsibility to individual Indians and shifted its federal trust and financial responsibility to the federally chartered government corporations created via this legislation. 

Each of these IRA tribal government corporations are communist, and communal in nature.  The vast amounts of money paid out to tribes each year by the federal government under the guise of Indian Self-Determination serves to enrich the tribal government treasury, and to impoverish the people for which it is supposedly intended, as well as the taxpayers whose money and wealth is being plundered.

Almost immediately after the IRA was ratified, its sponsor Burton K. Wheeler, awakened to the harm it was causing individual tribal members, and began several attempts to repeal it. 

Despite the fact that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes were the first tribal corporate government created under the IRA, individual tribal members went to Congress to lobby for its repeal.

It is notable that the newly federally chartered CSKT tribal corporate government created by the IRA, testified against the best interests of their tribal membership.  All efforts to repeal the act failed.

There are now 574 “federally recognized” tribes.  While we are unable to determine how many additional tribes are currently on the waiting list for recognition, a 2007 BIA status report found on the internet archives showed more than 300 additional tribes were on the roll as having petitioned.

From bad to worse…..

In 1975, Congress ratified the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA).  In this act, Congress DELEGATED AUTHORITY to Indian tribal governments to provide their own services created by the federal trust responsibility. It is notable that this legislation did nothing to enhance and improve the self-determination of individual Indians. Instead it became a vehicle to transfer billions of dollars of federal money to federally chartered tribal corporations known as “federally recognized” tribes.

This nice sounding legislation is how the CSKT tribal government has become a multi-billion dollar corporation.  

We cannot speak to the wealth of other tribes, but it is highly likely there are many more just like the CSKT.

See: Funding our Own Demise

The whole notion of Congress “delegating authority” to a tribal government that is not a sovereign government in the context of the constitution, and has no taxing authority, by definition is not “self-determination.  It is a money laundering scheme. 

Under the guise of government awarded contracts, grants and social benefits, the tribe is able to garner vast amounts of federal money for aerospace funding passthrough contracts (wink, wink), and a multitude of other various contracts for the distribution of social benefits to their people, and also to “manage” the infrastructure that all people rely upon.

In other words. Congress “allows”  largely unaccountable tribal governments to pretend to be self-determined, by funneling vast amounts of federal money into tribal treasuries for social services and other benefits “earmarked” for the Indian people. But the Indian people somehow never seem to see the benefit of this “federal government” largesse.

Despite the fact that most people think the tribal government corporate charter mandates that the tribe must comply with the Constitution and federal law, under the falsehood that the tribal governments are “sovereign” Congress seemingly “allows” them to be exempt from the same laws that apply to everyone else.

See Page 4 of 8: 1936 CSKT Corporate Charter). 

In return, the tribal governments graciously restore a good portion of that money back to Congress in exchange for even more destructive “federal Indian policy” legislation such as the Flathead Water Compact which proposes to rewrite the history of the settlement of western Montana and to federalize the State’s water resources to the detriment of EVERYONE, not just the Indian people.

Article IV Section 4 of the US Constitution guarantees us a republican form of government.  The CSKT government corporation is not a republican form of government, nor can non-Indians participate in their “government.”  However this has not prevented the CSKT from using their money to advance lawsuits and federal legislation that proposes to expand the exertion of tribal jurisdiction over not only its membership, but over non-Indians as well.   This agenda to expand tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians is quite adeptly being advanced one bad law, one bad court opinion, and one ignorant and willing Congressional representative at a time.  

This undermining of the constitutional rights and protections of all citizens is being achieved by exploiting something Congress calls “Indian self-determination,”  but in fact is just the opposite.

We would argue that by pursuing Indian self-determination, which has nothing to do with true self-determination, the federal government has caused irreparable harm to the individual Indian people, with an added federally perceived bonus of stripping all people of their self-determination.

Montana is Responsible for this Mess

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the state of Montana in this tyrannical transfer of wealth mix.  It could have said no to the Flathead Compact, but instead it is complicit in its creation, ratification, and implementation

ARTICLE I TERRITORY of the Tribes’ Constitution says this –  

The jurisdiction of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Indians shall extend to the territory within the original confines of the Flathead Reservation as defined in the Treaty of July 16, 1855, and to such other lands without such boundaries, as may hereafter be added thereto under any law of the United States, except as otherwise provided by law.

Did Montana give the largely unaccountable CSKT tribal government jurisdiction over the entirety of the former Flathead Indian Reservation via the Flathead Water Compact?

Undermining State Sovereignty

Through its support of the Flathead Water Compact, Montana is also a complicit party in the massive transfer of wealth and attempted surrender of the sovereignty of its citizens via its Unitary Management provisions.

The question we must begin asking is what did Montana’s leadership get in return for agreeing to cede its natural resources and the sovereignty of its citizens to the federal government?  Perhaps the vast amount of money flowing through Montana’s state treasury with federal strings attached is just the tip of an iceberg of fringe benefits for our state government “political class.”  

These people will ultimately have to be held responsible for the harm they are trying to impose upon the people of Montana.

  • Former governors Mark Racicot, Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock
  • Current governor and former U.S. Representative Greg Giantorte,
  • Former Attorney Generals Steve Bullock and Tim Fox
  • The leadership of the Compact Commission 
  • The Montana DNRC and Fish, Wildlife and Parks
  • U.S. Congressional delegation, Steve Daines, Jon Tester
  • Former U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg
  • Every legislator that voted in support of the Flathead Water Compact

This is not by any means an all inclusive list, but it is a good start. 

If the compact remains in place as “state and federal law” and many of these people are still holding their positions of power, what do you think their next effort against the people of Montana will be?

So what does one do when their state is willing to cede its own sovereignty and that of its citizens, and also its abundant resources back to an overreaching federal government?

In the end, we all may have to stand upon the principle that any laws that are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void. 

When the time comes, the compact will only win the day if we the people acquiesce to it.