Little Shell recognition almost at president's desk

Thursday at 12:28 p.m. Mountain Time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.’s, gavel fell with the final vote for the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which includes the recognition for the Little Shell Tribe of the Chippewa Indians.

The bill passed 86 to 8, getting the Little Shell Tribe one step closer to being federally recognized after 130 years. 

“Here’s a very good example where you have the entire Montana delegation, Congressman (Greg Gianforte, R-Mont.), Sen. (Jon Tester, D-Mont.), and myself, pushing hard on behalf of the Little Shell,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said in a conference call after the vote. 

Daines said with the final vote for the NDAA, the Little Shell Tribe is officially past the goal line in the Senate and will move forward to the House.

  Little Shell Tribal Chairman Gerald Gray said in an interview that the tribe is excited. This is the first time recognition of the tribe has passed through the Senate. He added that this is the closest the tribe has been in 130 years to getting recognition. 

“This is a long time coming,” Gray said. “We’ve been waiting decades for this, and it’s going to mean a lot of new opportunities for the Little Shell people.”

With federal recognition of the tribe, the tribe would be eligible for benefits such as treaties, housing, health care and education, he said. 

“We’ve never been this close,” Gray said.

The Little Shell Tribe’s headquarters in the Great Falls, has more than 6,400 people in the tribe, he said. Its membership is concentrated in the Great Falls area, but spread throughout central and northern Montana and across the nation.

The tribe has been without a recognized homeland since the late 1800s, when Chief Little Shell and his followers in North Dakota broke off treaty negotiations with the U.S. government. Tribe members later settled in Montana and southern Canada.

Tribal historians trace the tribe’s other attempts to gain recognition back to the 1860s, when the Pembina Band of Chippewa signed a treaty with the U.S. government.

In 1978, the Little Shell petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition through the Bureau‘s Federal Acknowledgement Process. Despite a favorable report by the Department of the Interior in 2000 and recognition of the tribe by the Montana government that same year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the tribe recognition in 2009 and again in 2013.

Last year, for the first time, the House passed a Little Shell recognition bill, sponsored by Gianforte.

A bill introduced by Tester and Daines was shot down in the Senate last fall, with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, blocking a vote.

Gianforte reintroduced the bill and it passed March 26 on a 403-21 vote.

Tester said that when he was sworn in as a senator in 2007, the first bill he introduced was the recognition of the Little Shell Tribe, which was voted down. Every Congress since then, he has guided bills through the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, four separate times.

“But today we’ve reached a new milestone,” Tester said. “After more than 12 years, our legislation has federally recognized the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians.”

He added that he worked with McConnell to have the recognition of the tribe included in the NDAA. 

“We needed to get this done. We’ve debated long enough, so while it’s not a done deal just yet, we are closer than we’ve ever been before to putting this on the president’s desk,” Tester said. “I am very, very confident that it will get to the president’s desk and we’ll get this across the finish line.”

Tester said that this is not symbolic or just in name’s sake. Every tribe must be recognized by the federal government as sovereign nations to exercise full self governance and have access to critical resources for economic development, health care and education.

“The Little Shell Tribe has waited long enough to be recognized, it is time for the federal government to acknowledge what the tribes of Montana, the state of Montana, knew they needed,” he said.

The path is paved to reach the finish line and the people in Washington know what the right thing to do is, he said.

He added that Daines has also been a constant supporter and co-sponsor of this legislation since he was first in the Senate.

“I am as confident as ever that we’ll finally get the job done for them,” he said. 

But Gray said work still needs to be done, but with the stand-alone bill already approved by the House, Gray said he is confident the NDAA will have no trouble passing there.

Daines said that the Little Shell suffered because policies were changed, which prolonged the process of getting the tribe recognized. He added that a House committee passed the NDAA June 19, and now the Senate is waiting on the House’s final decision on the version passed by the Senate. He said that after the Fourth of July congressional recess, the House will act on the bill, then the Senate and the House will hold a conference to reconcile any differences.

“Given the fact that the House has already passed the Little Shell recognition as a stand-alone with Congressmen Gianforte, combined with the work that we did here in the Senate, there is a high probability we’ll get this in the final report and vote on it one more time and put that on President (Donald) Trump’s desk and get it signed,” he said.

Daines added that, at the end of last year, Gray visited him in D.C. where he gave him a tin can with “Little Shell” written on it.

“He said, ‘I’m tired of seeing Congress kicking this can down the road and I want to leave it with you as a reminder we’ve got to get this done,’” Daines said.

Daines added that he put that on his desk so he could see it every day, and in December told Gray that once the bill is signed into law, they will go shoot the can together, “and stop kicking this can once and for all on behalf of the folks of Little Shell.”

He added that he is grateful for the work of his colleagues Ginforte and Tester.

Gray said that several generations have been a part of this, putting in hard work to get the tribe recognition.

“We’re just those type of people who never quit,” he said.

His motto as chairman has been, “The squeaky wheel is going to get the grease.”