Sen. Dorgan Will Not Seek Reelection

U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced yesterday that he will not seek another six-year term.

Dorgan, representing North Dakota in the U.S. Congress for almost 30 years, is chair of several Senate committees, including the one on Indian Affairs (in which he was serving his second term).

Over the last year, Dorgan was making plans to run again, but, as he said in a press statement issued yesterday, he recently started wrestling with the question of whether committing to serve another seven years (next year and the six-year term) was the right thing to do.

“It has been a long and wonderful career made possible by the people of North Dakota. And I am forever grateful to them for the opportunity,” Dorgan said. “Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life.”

Dorgan Introduces Carcieri Fix

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has introduced legislation amending the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, providing the long-anticipated “fix” to the Supreme Court ruling in Carcieri v. Salazar.

In Carcieri, the Supreme Court held that the Secretary of the Interior exceeded his authority by taking land into trust for the Narragansett Tribe, which was not under federal jurisdiction, or recognized, at the time the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934. Dorgan’s technical amendments to the IRA would reaffirm the Secretary’s authority to take lands into trust for Indian tribes, regardless of when they were recognized. The amendment also ratifies the prior trust acquisitions of the Secretary, who for the past 75 years has been exercising his authority to take lands into trust, as intended by the Indian Reorganization Act. Read more here.

Leadership Chosen for Indian Affairs Committee

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Thursday, elected its leadership for the 111^th Congress, returning Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) for another term as Chair, and choosing Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) to succeed Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) as Vice Chair. Murkowski stepped down from the Vice Chair post but will remain a member of the committee.  

Dorgan Objects to BIA's Police Shuffle

Last week the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent 25 additional police officers to the troubled Pine Ridge Reservation to supplement the police force there. The problem is, according to North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, the agency took six of those officers from the Standing Rock Reservation in his state.

“The Standing Rock Reservation had a crime rate that was more than five times the national average," Dorgan told the Bismarck Tribune. "The additional police officers moved there by the BIA have substantially reduced the crime rate. This is not the time to reduce the number of police officers."

The BIA should use the $23.7 million appropriated last year by Congress for the Safe Indian Communities Initiative to put more officers in American Indian communities with high crime rates, Dorgan said.

Dorgan Wants Tribal Input on Contract Health Services

Sen. Byron Dorgan, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, says he will hold hearings on the Contract Health Service program and he wants tribal leaders and others involved in Indian health care to speak up.

In a letter to tribal leaders, Dorgan said the program is “not working well, and many individual Indians are often faced with having to pay enormous bills that are supposed to be covered by the federal government.”

In fact, the CHS program is generally funded at about half the need and tends to run out of money about eight or nine months into the fiscal year. After the money runs out, only emergency and acute urgent care is provided, giving rise to the wry maxim: “Don’t get sick after June.”

Dorgan would like comments from tribal members and tribal leaders on how the current CHS program is working and to be informed of any problems tribal communities are facing regarding health care.