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Pauly Denetclaw
ICT
WASHINGTON — Nearly one year ago, the Democratic National Committee made a controversial decision to make South Carolina its first primary election stop in the nation. Both Republicans and Democrats have started their presidential election schedules in Iowa and New Hampshire for years.
The move to South Carolina was a simple reason: it was more diverse than Iowa and the DNC cares about diversity. However, tribal leaders from the only federally recognized nation in the state, Catawba Nation, haven’t heard from them or any other political party including the Republican National Committee. No congressional or presidential campaigns have engaged with Catawba in 2023 and this election year, according to leaders from the tribe.
“Chief and I are not on the same page, necessarily, when it comes to larger politics,” Roo George-Warren, council member for Catawba Nation, said with a laugh. “But our belief is that we will work with anyone for the benefit of our people.”
To put it into perspective: the 2020 Census says Iowa has 8,502 Native American and Alaska Natives and South Carolina holds 32,273. This data is focused on the alone and in any combination. Iowa also has one federally recognized tribe, the Sac and Fox Tribe of Mississippi, otherwise known as the Meskwaki Nation.
The Democratic National Committee’s Native American Caucus sent out two general emails in 2023 through their Native Coalitions Newsletter, that the public can subscribe to, to connect with Native voters and leaders. The South Carolina Democratic Party has also done outreach in York County, where the Catawba Nation is located.
“The DNC is committed to tribal outreach and engages with communities across the country, including the Catawba Nation,” Sarafina Chitika, DNC national press secretary, said in a statement to ICT. “The South Carolina primary on February 3 is historic, and we will continue our work to bring voters of all backgrounds into the process to make their voices heard.”
Zero polling locations on Catawba
To go even further than outreach, there isn’t a single polling location on their sovereign lands, forcing Native voters out of their community and down the road, where folks in town often don’t know they live near the Catawba Nation.
“I’ll give you one example when we talk about culture and heritage and people really not wanting to leave the reservation,” Brian Harris, chairman of the Catawba Nation, told ICT. “We have one fellow that drives a John Deere lawn mower. If there was a polling place at our tribal government, he would come and vote. That’s one vote that we don’t get because he’s not going to drive it on the main road. He drives it to the senior center. He drives it to government functions. He drives it over here. He drives it everywhere.”
In the West, it’s common for even small Indigenous communities located near large towns to have a polling location on their lands. On the Navajo Nation, in the community of Nenahnezad, New Mexico, with a population of 438, there is a polling location for state and federal elections at their local chapter house, which is a Navajo governance building. Nenahnezad is right next to Kirtland, New Mexico, a small off-reservation town.
Nenahnezad Chapter House is just a five-minute drive from the nearest Kirtland polling location at the local high school. It’s more common than not for Indigenous communities in New Mexico to have a polling site for state and federal elections.
Native voters are often disenfranchised and not having a polling location on their lands becomes another barrier to casting their ballots.
“I think by having a poll in place on our reservation, even though there might be one, 5, 10 minutes away, it’s not here in our community,” Harris said. “It’s not a minute away. It’s not two minutes away. For that reason alone, I think it’s very advantageous for our tribe to have a polling place on our reservation.”
The history of Native Americans and voting goes beyond the Indian Citizenship Act of 1923, that technically granted the right to vote. In South Carolina, for example, there are Catawba citizens who still remember the first time their parents were able to vote.
“One of our amazing potters who talks about (how) she remembers vividly the first time her parents were able to vote in the late forties, early fifties,” George-Warren said. “This is a very recent thing that Catawba has even been allowed to take part in the voting process. Even though we are technically allowed to, there’s still all these barriers to us being able to access it.”
Tribes in the East battle erasure
George-Warren talked about how, a few years ago, he and a few other Catawba citizens noticed that the race listed on their voter registration had been changed to White.
“One of the things we hear all the time is there’s no Catawbas that vote and how would they know?” George-Warren questioned. “Because there’s not good data. Of course this is a similar issue we have with the Census.”
Whether county, state and federal officials know, they have legal obligations to fulfill for the Catawba Nation and that reason alone should be worth doing voter engagement.
In 2011, Harris was newly elected and had gone to Washington, D.C., to advocate for his nation. The U.S. representative for York County, where Catawba lands are, was Mick Mulvaney.
“We were having a conversation with Mick Mulvaney and this vibrant, vivacious guy came in, Trey Gowdy, who represented the Spartanburg, Greenville, area at the time,” Harris recounted in disbelief. “(Mulvaney) stood up and he introduced us. Trey Gowdy, who was a United States (representative) for South Carolina, did not know he had a federally recognized tribe right at his back door. Absolutely amazing.”
Gowdy, a Republican, served in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2019.
‘Just have a conversation with us’
County, state and federal officials often don’t speak to the needs of the Catawba Nation, which are woefully different from other communities in the state.
Native nations are sovereign governments and cannot be conflated with any racial group.
“I think that economic development is a challenge that we need to have to talk about. Healthcare is a huge challenge,” Harris said. “Indian Health Service is always underfunded. Why is that? Why is everything else overfunded and the fiduciary responsibilities that the United States government has with Native American tribes, they should not be underfunding any program that we are, by having that government-to-government relationship, entitled to.”
South Carolina has yet to codify its own version of the Indian Child Welfare Act into state law. This law would ensure that regardless of legal challenges at the federal level, South Carolina would continue to keep Native American children in their communities.
The separation of Native American children from their communities through state and federal programs goes all the way back to Indian boarding schools. Then, in the 1950s and 60s, it morphed into adoption programs, where Native American children were taken by state agencies and adopted out to non-Native families. Today, Native American children are still disproportionately represented in the foster care system.
“The Indian Child Welfare Act has been under attack and adjudication so many times. I would love to see South Carolina work with us on getting that into South Carolina law,” George-Warren said. “So that if anything happens at the federal level around the Indian Child Welfare Act, we still have those protections in our state where most of our children are located.”
Another challenge for the nation is culture and language revitalization.
“There’s so little funding from the federal government for culture,” George-Warren said. “It’s often treated like, ‘oh, it’s just this extra thing.’ But culture was what was targeted in our communities through boarding schools, through other policies.”
George-Warren added that the starting amount the federal government should put into culture and language revitalization is how much was needed to fund federal Indian boarding schools for over 100 years.
“Once it reaches that federal funding level, then we can come back to the table and talk about other monies,” he said. “To me, because it was such a target of the federal government, it should be a priority.”
Increasing the number of Catawba language speakers is a top priority for the nation and one of the solutions is a tribally-run school. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Indian Education told the nation it put a moratorium on funding any new schools. So, the nation is looking at other avenues like a charter school or even self-funding through gaming revenue.
“They don’t know about the specific concerns that we have as a tribal government,” George-Warren said. “This is the piece that I’m begging from all politicians and all people at all levels is, actually come and just have a conversation with us. They will learn so much. We’ll probably learn a few things too.”
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