Indians must start thinking for selves

We are only half way through 2009 and yet politicians across America are already gearing up for Election 2010.

In cities like Rapid City, S.D., there are local elections for mayor, city council, school board, etc., already in their conclusive state. It seems that we live in a world of non-stop elections and politics.

The longevity of Election 2008 took its toll on many Americans. It started too early and ran too late, or so it seemed to the many fatigued voters out there. We are barely settling back into our easy chairs after that grueling election and we find that it is time to wake up and get involved in another.

Near the end of the 2008 race I wrote about the potential offered to Indian voters if they became a independents. Statistics, and I hate statistics, now point out that the largest shift in party affiliation this year is the shift from the Republican and Democratic parties to independent. So in this instance, statistics do bear me out.

Democratic faithful

It is true that the Democrats have taken the Indian voter for granted. They have taken this same stance with the Hispanic and black voter. Indians have voted the straight Democratic ticket since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1933, when Roosevelt was first elected president, the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression. Because he stepped in with work programs that reached most of the Indian reservations (WPA and CCC) he was a familiar figure to most Indians.

But something else was happening that didn’t ever register with white voters. Only nine years had passed since 1924 when Indians had been made citizens of the United States and given the right to vote. That is they could vote in every state of the union except in New Mexico and Arizona, two states that did not completely accept the provisions of the act that made Indians citizens of the United States. In those two states the governments decided that if an Indian lived on a reservation and did not pay property taxes, he or she was then ineligible to vote. I say he and she because women got the right to vote before Indians.

It would only follow then that Indians were simon-pure when it came to having knowledge about national elections. Before the presidential campaign of 1932, Indians had only had the opportunity to vote in one prior election since being granted citizenship. When Election Day rolled around they were immersed in the campaign slogans of the Democrats preaching the benefits of the New Deal. Anything “new” in those days was appealing to the Indian voters. Those Indians exercising their right to vote went unanimously for Roosevelt. And thus their acceptance and inclusion as members of the Democratic Party was complete. Roosevelt had promised them a New Deal and in 1934 Congress passed the Indian Re-Organization Act.

The assumption that all Indians are Democrats was emphasized when Indianz.com, in a comedic gesture, asked for the names of the “five” Indians who had voted Republican. I think they would have been surprised at the actual number of Indians that have left the Democratic Party.

I am no longer a Democrat. Goodness gracious, did I just swear? Did I take the name of the Almighty Democrats in vain? Well, you will have to excuse my audacity and ignorance, but I am now a dyed-in-the-wool independent. I now have the freedom to listen to the political drivel from both major parties, weigh the differences, consult with my fellow independents, and make a choice “independent” of the Democrats and Republicans. I believe this puts me into a more traditional position (Indian-wise) than those locked into either of the dominant political organizations.

Indian vote

There will be a lot of wooing coming from both parties trying to attract the Indian vote in 2010. The Indian vote was not that attractive 20 years ago. But since about the mid-1980s, both parties have discovered that in certain states, the Indian vote can be pivotal.

X Giago is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association and is now the publisher of the Native Sun News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.