Fight Against Alcohol Becomes Fight Over Indians’ Rights

In an aggressive exercise of Native American political jurisdiction, the powerful Yakama Nation in central Washington state has adopted a comprehensive alcohol ban that threatens to shut down taverns and liquor stores in three towns inside the reservation--where non-Indian residents have vowed a fight.

Although several tribes nationwide have prohibited alcohol sales, the move last month by the Yakama--overseers of a reservation that at 2,000 square miles is bigger than Rhode Island--is one of the first to apply to a primarily nonnative population.

The move is important in light of the large number of reservations that in recent years have become more urbanized, their residents often including as many non-Indians as tribal members.

On the Yakama reservation, more than 20,000 of the 25,000 people living there do not belong to the tribe. Conflict has become almost inevitable as tribes such as the Yakama attempt to assert what they see as their historic treaty rights, on issues ranging from zoning authority and taxation to water rights and environmental regulation.

The crackdown on alcohol sales here has raised a question with far-reaching consequences for reservations, which make up 50 million acres, or 2% of the U.S. landmass. A century of treaties and the U.S. Constitution make Native American tribes sovereign governments on their reservations. But how much authority do those tribal governments hold over non-Indians who live on those reservations?

In Idaho, a coalition of 23 cities, counties and school districts is fighting the Nez Perce tribe’s attempt to impose a 1.5% tax on construction within the 765,000-acre reservation--an area that includes eight cities in north central Idaho. The Nez Perce have been militant players in water and environmental issues affecting communities throughout the Pacific Northwest.

In Montana, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes have proposed taking jurisdiction over water rights for all people on the Flathead Indian Reservation--including rights now administered by the state. And the Crow tribe is seeking a 4% resort tax similar to one recently upheld by a federal appeals court in a case involving the Navajo Nation.

In court cases over the years, tribes generally have been found to have little or no criminal jurisdiction over nontribal members. But the issue of civil regulation remains an area of legal conflict.

The issue is particularly confusing on reservations such as the Yakama, where federal law opened up lands in the early part of the century to non-Indian homesteading. Many so-called deeded lands have been privately owned for generations and technically are not Indian lands. However, Indians do exercise some legal jurisdiction within the entire perimeter of their reservations, legal analysts say.

Sovereignty Issue Dates to Treaties

“Going back to the time of the treaties,” said John Echohawk, director of the Native American Rights Fund in Colorado, “it didn’t take the United States very long to start backing away from them. . . . They started an assimilation policy designed to break up the tribes and their land holdings.”

But the tribes, Echohawk said, “are here to stay forever, as sovereign governments and part of the system of federal, state and tribal governments.”

Toppenish Mayor Al Hubert worries that the Yakama alcohol ban may be only the beginning. “If they’re allowed to do this, then other things are going to start coming--they’ll want property tax or something else. I want something to show me that United States citizens will not be under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe.”

The issue has been particularly virulent in Washington state, which is home to 27 independent tribal governments--many of them encircling the affluent suburbs north and west of Seattle. About a quarter of Tacoma lies within the Puyallup reservation.

The Yakama Nation, a confederation of 14 tribes and bands whose ancestral lands once ranged over a third of Washington, also recently raised alarm bells in Toppenish, Wapato and Harrah--mostly white and Latino farm towns with property owned for generations by non-Indians--with its proposal to take over the local electric utility.

But the tribe is painting its ban on the sale and use of liquor, which took effect Sept. 17, as an issue less about sovereignty than about the devastating effects of alcoholism on tribal members.

Jack Fiander, a lawyer and tribal council member, has led the alcohol ban campaign. He said the Yakama leadership first became aware of the extent of alcohol’s effect on the tribe in 1982, when a research project documented an alarming incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome on the reservation.

In April, when the tribe’s membership adopted the ban on a 142-129 vote, alcoholism’s toll was even more apparent. According to statistics compiled by the tribal council, 78% of motor vehicle accidents on the reservation from 1993 to 1996 were alcohol-related, compared with 39% elsewhere in the state, and nearly 80% of traffic deaths involved alcohol use.

Marlene White, a tribal administration employee who also helped lead the ban, has lost two nieces to alcohol poisoning. Her father was killed when he walked, drunk, into the path of a car. “We just need to say: ‘That’s enough,’ ” White said. “Our children are dying.”

Other members of the tribe have argued vociferously against the ban. Some, like Lewis Underwood, fear the stiff federal criminal penalties that might come to bear against offenders. Current tribal law imposes maximum sentences of six months in jail or a $500 fine for alcohol offenses. In federal court, penalties could be as high as a $5,000 fine and a year in jail. The tribe envisions tribal police, acting as federal deputies, enforcing the law.

Others, like Adrienne Wilson, worry that a ban could devastate the tribe’s attempt to develop a tourism economy, with a planned golf course and hotel complex. “They say, ‘We want you to come and spend your money here, but we don’t want you to drink.’ How many golfers do you know that don’t drink?” she asked.

The main opposition, however, has come from a committee of mostly nontribal residents and officials from the three main towns on the reservation.

“This is not about race or culture. It’s about being governed by a nondemocratic government, i.e. a tribal government,” said Toppenish City Council Member Rusty Jones, president of the STAND-UP committee.

The committee has been in close touch with the Idaho group mobilized to confront the Nez Perce. Daniel Johnson, director of the North Central Idaho Jurisdictional Alliance, said that communities had lived for years without conflict with the Nez Perce--until the tribe began to assert sovereign authority in nontribal communities, authority that most homeowners never thought existed when they bought their homes.

“In the U.S., there are over 500 tribal governments, all claiming to be sovereign nations. What kind of a country could we have if we have 500 nations within a nation?” Johnson asked.

On the Yakama reservation, tribal newspaper editor Richard La Course is convinced that the opponents’ agenda is purely political. “It’s a case of profound ignorance abetted by racism,” he said. “Sovereignty is not new. We’re not all of a sudden waking up and saying, ‘Oh my God, we could be giants.’ . . . Our treaty rights have been under assault, and we have been acting to defend them.”

Waiting to see how the law will be enforced, only a few businesses--including the local Safeway and a drugstore--have removed liquor from their shelves.

Yakama leaders have said they do not plan to send the tribal police out to enforce the law. Instead, they are asking the federal government to act, citing the fact that there is technically a federal ban on alcohol on all reservations that have not elected to be exempt from it.

The Yakama have language in their treaty prohibiting alcohol and apparently never took an official vote to permit liquor sales. Still, alcohol has been widely sold and used on the reservation for as long as anyone can remember.

Federal officials said it is unclear to what extent the federal ban would apply to nontribal members. The U.S. attorney’s office in Spokane, Wash., said it would have an answer to that question within the next few months.

‘If They Don’t Like It, Then Leave’

Deputy state Atty. Gen. David Walsh, who is handling Washington’s suit to overturn the ban, said the state may not have to pursue the court action if the U.S. attorney’s office decides to enforce the ban only against tribal members--and if the Yakama ultimately agree to such an enforcement strategy.

White said she hasn’t much patience for non-Indian residents who say it’s not fair to regulate their drinking.

“It’s hard to listen to people who say: ‘Yes, you Indians may have a problem with alcohol, but we don’t.’ . . . [Or] ‘When people have to drive off the reservation to get alcohol, it’s going to be more dangerous.’ Well, it’s already dangerous for us and our children,” White said. “Our children are being abandoned and neglected. Our people are dying on the highways. You know, I’d be more than happy if [the non-Indian residents] just left. If they don’t like it, then leave.”