17 February 2015

Senators Fielder and Sales take gratuitous shots at CSKT

Generally, yesterday’s hearing on SB-262, the bill to ratify the water compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, was conducted competently. But during the question and answer session, Committee Chair Scott Sales (R-Bozeman) twice exercised what I thought was poor judgement.

First, he allowed Sen. Jennifer Fielder (R-Thompson Falls) to ask CSKT attorney Rhonda Swaney about political contributions by the CSKT:

Fielder then called on tribal attorney Rhonda Swaney, saying she saw evidence in the tribal council’s minutes that the tribe had made political donations in the past. Swaney responded that the tribes had made two donations of roughly $20,000 to the Democratic Party and two another political action committee in the past year.

[Sen. Chas] Vincent [R-Libby] took particular exception to the implication that the tribes would use financial influence to skew the board’s makeup toward their interests.

“Before we start pointing fingers about who’s raising money for [political action committees], we ought to take a look in the mirror, folks,” he said. [Sam Wilson, Daily Interlake.]

The question was not germane to the hearing and should not have been allowed. It was a lowdown attempt to blacken the CSKT’s good name by tarring it as just another special interest of the Democratic Party.

Second, Sales asked CSKT Chairman Vernon Finley, an immensely dignified man, what Finley meant when Finley said the CSKT was a sovereign nation. That’s not an easy question — an American Indian nation is not sovereign in the same sense as is a state such as France or India — and Finley had trouble with it, answering that he preferred deferring to one of the CSKT’s attorneys for a definitive answer. The question was hostile. It need not have been asked. In my judgment, Sales asked it to embarrass Finley. The result? No useful information obtained, but a gratuitous slap in the face of the CSKT was administered.