Category Archives: State-Tribal Policy

Equal Pay Day for American Indian women is September 23, 2019. It marks the amount of time an American Indian woman has to work into 2019 to make in wages what a white man made in 2018 for the same occupation—a full nine months later.

The gender wage gap affects all women, regardless of income, educational attainment, occupation, and job sector.

On Monday, August 26, the State-Tribal Relations Committee (STRC) held its first meeting of the interim. During the 2001 legislative session, the Montana Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 10, which established the STRC. SB 10 outlined the STRC’s responsibilities as: Acting as a liaison with tribal governments; Encouraging state-tribal and local government-tribal cooperation; Conducting interim […]

The consequences of colonization on indigenous peoples and nations are well-documented and far-reaching, and food is no exception. As colonists and the federal government forcibly removed indigenous peoples from their homelands to largely remote areas, indigenous peoples often lost access to a variety of food sources.

In many cases where food became inaccessible because of forced relocation from homelands, the federal government provided rations that were often culturally inappropriate and lacking nutritional value, like flour and lard, for example.

Indigenous peoples make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population but speak a majority of the world’s 7,000 languages. According to the United Nations (UN), the majority of languages disappearing are indigenous, where approximately one indigenous language disappears every two weeks.

MBPC is excited to announce Daliyah Killsback as our new State-Tribal Policy Outreach Coordinator.

Daliyah conducts research, analysis, and outreach on state budget, taxes, and other policies affecting Indian Country in Montana and aims to increase tribal engagement. Prior to coming on board to MBPC, Daliyah served as a legislative assistant to Washington State Senator John McCoy, working on state and tribal policy issues ranging from K-12 education to tribal fishing and water rights.

“One of the ways that there is a continuing genocide against American Indians/Alaska Natives is through data. When we are invisible in the data, we no longer exist,” says Abigail Echo-Hawk, Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, an organization reorienting its own research process to decolonize data.

Decolonizing data reclaims the indigenous value of data collection, analysis, and research; prioritizes data for indigenous people, by indigenous people; and recognizes the inherent strength of indigenous people.

With the 2019 legislative session behind us, it is time to share updates on a number of key bills that impact Indian Country.

Montana State Budget

House Bill (HB) 2, the General Appropriations Act, is the bill that provides for Montana’s state budget and includes several direct investments in Indian Country.