A white state lawmaker in Montana is questioning whether land set aside long ago for Native Americans should exist anymore. Republican Sen. Keith Regier is proposing asking Congress to study alternatives to reservations. The measure is riddled with racial stereotypes asking Congress to study alternatives to reservations. The measure is unlikely to pass and would have no practical effect if it did. But it’s causing tensions to surface at the Republican-controlled Montana Legislature that kicked off last week. Native American lawmakers say they’re now spending time responding to the proposed resolution rather than focusing on their own legislative priorities, including extending the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force for another two years, creating a grant program to train community-based groups to search for missing people and encouraging the state to determine the economic impact of reservations on the state’s economy.
Also in Montana, a legislative aide with aspirations of representing House District 80 in the 2023 Legislature questioned in public remarks Tuesday whether members of tribes living on reservations in Montana should be able to vote in state elections. “If the reservations want to say they are independent countries … but they want a lot of handouts, why are we counting their ballots?” said Drew Zinecker, who will this session serve as a staffer for Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, during a meeting of the Lewis and Clark County Republican Central Committee.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI Newscenter.
