WASHINGTON – Rep. Tom Cole got into politics as a graduate student by assisting his mother, Helen Cole, in her unsuccessful first campaign for public office.
“The worst place in the world is a victory party when your mother loses,” he recalled.
But he was back in the fray for her next campaign. She won a seat in the Oklahoma Legislature, and Cole put the comeback experience to use by running other campaigns for free. By 1980, Republican leaders in Oklahoma had begun to groom him for leadership. Eventually he served two terms as chairman of the state GOP, until Gov. Frank Keating asked him to serve as secretary of state. When rising Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts decided to leave his seat on short notice, Keating and the White House called on Cole to replace him.
Cole is now in his second term in the House of Representatives. His own Chickasaw Nation couldn’t have been more helpful in his election bids, he said: “They did everything they could to help.” Other tribes pitched in, too. “They’re very consistent in supporting me.”
But with the retirement of former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell after the 2004 congressional session, this is Cole’s first term as the only Indian in Congress.
“I don’t want to be the only one,” Cole said. “I don’t want to be a vanishing breed.”
No chance of that, though. The Chickasaw, like other Southeast tribes forcibly removed to Oklahoma Territory from the 1830s onward, had their chance to lay down and let history (in the form of the U.S. government and military) roll right over them; instead, they’ve slowly rebuilt their nation, now a model among tribes for enterprise in health care and economic diversification.
Cole’s own stock includes direct ancestors who participated in that genuinely epic, many-generational process. He speaks of them all as tribal people, concerned for the Indian communities, in contrast to rugged individualists. But rugged, durable and determined – they were all of that.
“We’ve come back from a history that was worse than removal. … It’s a tribute to the people that got us through … It took a lot of tough people to maintain tradition, language, culture.”
Today, Cole is a pan-Indian presence on Capitol Hill. Chickasaw citizenship gives him a special kind of credibility, he believes. In addition, whether it’s Indians or insurance, congressional members generally defer to their colleagues on issues that are known to be of the first importance for them – and Cole has left no doubt as to where Indian issues are on his priority list.
Finally, in the current 109th Congress, Cole has moved on to the House Rules Committee, giving him a broader range of authority than he was likely to find in any other committee assignment. Almost every bill, certainly every controversial one, must come before the Rules Committee before it can go to the floor for a vote. The Rules Committee can render bills immune to points of order that might sink it or change it, or open them to the same; it can amend a bill or prevent amendments; it can use a whole range of rules to shape the debate of a bill. The importance of the Rules Committee, in the House as in the Senate, came to light for Indian country recently when Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, eviscerated punitive lobbying reform measures aimed at tribes from his seat on the Senate Rules Committee.
Cole described his seat on the House Rules Committee as “a good blocking position” and an early warning outpost. “It forces members [as they craft legislation] to stop and think, because they know I’m sitting there.”
He also finds opportunities to offer positive proposals to larger bills.
Recently, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., permitted Cole to add an Indian-specific provision to the manager’s amendment of a Homeland Security bill.
The provision would permit the Department of Justice to give tribes the same consideration as states in the process of funding Homeland Security programs so that tribes won’t have to go through states for approval.
Sensenbrenner, as floor manager of his own bill, didn’t have to accept the amendment, but he saw the sense of it and consented. “I acknowledge him for that,” Cole said.
Sensenbrenner’s type of awareness isn’t commonplace on Capitol Hill, notwithstanding the efforts of the Congressional Native American Caucus and members like Dale Kildee, D-Mich., who never lets an opportunity go by to give his audiences the short course on tribal sovereignty.
“The real challenge … is to educate the congressmen who don’t have significant Indian constituencies … We do great missionary work here. We just need more missionaries.”
<b>Cole’s views on issues that will affect Indian country</b>
In Indian “missionaries’” absence, Sen. Tom Cole has given the kind of thought to the issues that carry greater weight than “one man’s opinion.”
* On the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit over the government’s mismanagement of Indian trust funds: “We’re either going to negotiate it or we’re going to litigate it. What we’re not going to do is legislate it.”
Congressional legislation on Cobell would simply turn it into a new form of Dawes Act, he said, referring to the 19th century land allotment law that eventually created the federal Indian trust fund management system the Cobell suit seeks to hold accountable and, by extension, reform.
Even on the issues that engage him most, Cole keeps an even keel; so it’s probably worth noting that an element of frustration entered his voice as he discussed “under-leasing.” Under-leasing describes the BIA’s long-standing practice of leasing Indian lands to non-Indians at rates well below the market norm, despite the federal government’s fiduciary obligation toward tribes.
Despite a handful of qualifying issues that complicate the simple, undoubted fact of BIA under-leasing practices, few doubt that it has deprived Indians of a rightful say in the management of their resources, and many argue that the compensation due tribes for under-leasing is considerable. “And it’s not even part of the lawsuit,” Cole said, underscoring the limits of any legislated settlement.
He believes the federal government simply hasn’t come to terms with the $27 billion sum that the injured class in the case, the Individual Indian Money trust beneficiaries, has placed on the table as a realistic starting point for negotiation. “I think the government is having trouble coming to grips with the fact that they’re going to have to write a large check at the end of the day … They never get to a number with a ‘B’ in it. This is one that’s going to take that.”
He doesn’t believe that fatigue has eroded the Indian position in the long-running lawsuit. Fatigue is indeed evident in the government, he said. But he’s confident American Indians will carry the case through. “I’m not convinced that people have lost the will or the ability to defend their rights.”
* On the scandal that convicted lobbying impresario Jack Abramoff has dropped on the doorstep of Indian country: Tribes should take it as an opportunity to tell congressional members, “‘Here’s how those [Abramoff client] tribes worked, now here’s how my tribe works … Let me tell you how my tribe works’ … That’s the great lesson. Don’t let others do your work for you. We need to do it for ourselves.”
Lobbyists can help, but the good ones will want tribes to organize locally on the issue, show up in Washington and talk to their congressional members. Cole gave as an example of proper lobbying an insurance industry lobbyist who might approach Cole, but not without sending in constituents to bear witness of local impact.
At the same time, he acknowledged that the Abramoff scandal has brewed trouble for tribes, as congressional members who may have accepted donations from tribes, or from others who stand to benefit from Indian-specific law, fear their conduct may be investigated as a criminal act in the present climate. “There is a great deal of fear about association with tribes,” Cole said.
It’s real, but it’s also an overreaction, Cole added, quoting the adage that Congress does only two things really well – “Nothing, and overreact.”
“There’s a certain amount of scapegoating going on here … You’d think all of America was corrupted by Jack Abramoff and a few tribes.”
But as lobbying spendthrifts, tribes are “not remotely in the league” of the pharmaceuticals lobby, the defense lobby, the railroad or insurance lobbies, the oil and gas lobby, or most of the lobbies for corporate America: “They don’t play at that level.”
At the end of the day, Cole said, “The Abramoff thing is taking up a lot of oxygen” that could all be better used in the abbreviated calendar of the 109th Congress, with midterm elections coming up in November. “That raises a lot of talk, but it slows down action.”
* On reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act: Cole called for action now. It would be a great Congress for Indians “if we did nothing else,” he said. “We don’t have the focused energy on this issue that we should … It takes focused energy to move things through committee. We’re not seeing enough of that in this Congress. We’re not seeing it from either side of the aisle. This is a bipartisan indictment of our efforts in this area.”
As for the White House, which proved an obstruction to concerted efforts to reauthorize the IHCIA in 2004 toward the end of the 108th Congress, Cole described the administration as “overwhelmed” by issues of the hour. “They’re going to let Congress do what we do” on health care reauthorization, and then respond – a pretty good argument for action, in Cole’s view.
* On representing an Indian constituency as a Republican (Indians nationally being majority Democratic in their political affiliations): “It’s never been a problem with the Native Americans I represent … Defending tribal sovereignty … is something that either party can be good at. The problem is, neither one has.”
Cole added that Indian issues are not all that partisan, meaning they should find support among Democrats and Republicans. “That’s what we ought to be striving for, is strength on both sides of the aisle.” Being Republican has broadened his own coalition of supporters, he said.
Beyond all that, Cole considers the GOP philosophy of local self-reliance and personal responsibility consistent with Native culture. “It’s not a good thing to lose all your assets,” as tribes have in the course of American history. Nor is it any solution to rely on nothing more than treaty rights and the federal trust obligation, vital though they are. “We’ve got to take those assets we have and while pushing the government, use those assets to move ahead.”
* On tribal sovereignty: “If it’s diminished anywhere, it’s diminished everywhere.”
The historical diminution of sovereignty can’t be denied, but it hasn’t proved to be the end of history, either. And as a former history professor in the halls of Congress, Cole sees sovereignty in both long perspective and in the minutiae of current legislation.
“Every place we can get tribes recognized as mechanisms of government, that creates extra layers of protection, facts in law” – to be consulted later. “These things get to be revisited. That’s the great thing about our democracy. These are things we wouldn’t have won 100 years ago.”
