VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – With the announcement of Sen. Joe Biden’s vice presidential candidacy, Indian country’s eyes and ears have been further opened to his contributions to Native communities nationwide.

He has joined Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s initiatives to support American Indian issues that are listed in a four-page report titled “Barack Obama: Fighting For First Americans,” which is available on the Obama/Biden Web site.

Such issues include sovereignty and tribal and federal relations, health care, education, economics, veterans affairs and hunting and fishing issues.

Though Biden has joined the Obama campaign to assert these rights for Native peoples, he is perhaps best known for his specific work on the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2008.

Biden is a co-sponsor of the act, which was introduced in July by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. The act was designed to improve prevention programs for drug and alcohol abuse and incarceration facilities, and would expand authority of tribal police to make arrests for crimes committed on tribal lands.

In a news release, Biden has stated: “The federal government is failing in its responsibility to help maintain law and order on tribal lands. It’s a known fact that substance abuse, domestic abuse and sexual abuse are on the rise on many Indian reservations. We must provide the necessary tools to help keep these communities safe, and increase coordination and cooperation efforts with state and federal agencies.”

In his campaign speeches, he has continued to support his work on the act. A Sept. 8 article in the Missoulian quoted Biden as saying: “There will be a much, much, much heightened sensitivity to legitimate causes within reservations that, quite frankly, we’ve just been taking advantage. [Tribal courts] should have greater say. I tried to get that in the original crime bill when I wrote it. I find it absolutely fascinating that we have this dual jurisdiction.”

According to the article, “The act [would call] for improvement of courts, jails, policing and youth programs on reservation lands with already severely understaffed law enforcement departments. For every 1,000 reservation residents, there are less than two law enforcement officers, compared to upward of six officers for every 1,000 residents on non-tribal lands.”

Some of the most compelling statements in the article were that Native women suffer from the inability of the tribal nations to prosecute crime of non-Native criminals. Perhaps most disturbing are the fact that tribes cannot prosecute a non-native in the instances of domestic abuse or sexual assault.

Biden, who described reservations as “an environment of lawlessness” to the Missoulian, maintained that “we use that jurisdiction as rationale not to proceed against abuse against women.

“Indian or not, no one has the right to raise his hand to a woman in anything other than self-defense, And as federal prosecutors, when that crime involves someone who is not a member of an Indian nation, we will see to it that it is prosecuted. We will change the culture by doing that.”

Biden also wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which now contains a safety provision for Native women. In the four-year period between 2004 and 2007, 62 percent of tribal court criminal cases were declined by federal prosecutors.

According to Biden, “Under an Obama/Biden Justice Department, you will have federal prosecutors prosecuting these crimes. … It will be a priority.”