This, from the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:

MISSION — The secretary for Housing and Urban Development is scheduled to tour the Rosebud Sioux Reservation on Tuesday to see projects operating with the help of HUD money and the dire housing conditions faced by members of the tribe.

Shaun Donovan will tour the area with Sen. Tim. Johnson, D-S.D.

On Wednesday, Donovan is scheduled to give testimony in Rapid City during a joint field hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Next week’s scheduled visit to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by U.S. Senator and former funnyman Al Frank has nothing to do Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s re-election campaign.

At least, so says Herseth Shandlin, who spoke with Kevin Woster of the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D. (Rapid City Journal)

Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., said she invited Franken, D-Minn., who sits on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, to meet with officials of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge on Aug. 7 because he is knowledgeable and influential on Native American issues and is in a position to help Native people.

Housing is one of the key issues Franken will discuss with officials while at Pine Ridge, Herseth Sandlin said.

Herseth Sandlin tells Woster that “I’m worried about my constituents. And I have constituents in Indian Country who are on waiting lists as far as the eye can see for quality, safe housing.” She tells him she hasn’t given a thought as to whether the visit could help her campaign.

But Betty Smith, a professor of political science at University of South Dakota in Vermillion, tells Woster that Franken’s visit could help shore up Herseth Sandlin’s standing among liberal constituents angered by her vote against health care reform.

And, as Smith reminds us, “the Native American vote in this state can be very important in a close election.”

National attention focused on Pine Ridge in 2002, when the votes from Shannon County, where the reservation is located, decided the U.S. Senate race in favor of Democrat Tim Johnson over Republican John Thune. Thune went on to defeat Democrat Tom Daschle two years later.

Gwen Florio

Here’s the story from the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., will visit Pine Ridge on Aug. 7 at the invitation of Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., to attend a powwow and discuss housing issues with Oglala Sioux Tribe officials.

Franken is a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and also sits on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has authority over tribal housing programs. Herseth Sandlin issued the invitation to Franken for the Pine Ridge visit after the two discussed Native American housing issues.

Herseth Sandlin also will host a field hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee on Aug. 6 in Eagle Butte. Tribal leaders will testify at the hearing, which will focus on education, school facilities, Native languages and other issues.

Franken will not be able to attend that meeting, Herseth Sandlin’s staffers said.

Rob Capriccioso of Indian Country Today takes an in-depth look, here, at the Tribal Law and Order Act just approved by Congress and expected to get President Obama’s signature.

Obama called the bill “important step to help the federal government better address the unique public safety challenges that confront tribal communities.”

And the bill was one of the top priorities for Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who spoke of the “crisis” in law enforcement on many reservations.

Capriccioso details some of the bill’s provisions:

Under the bill, tribal courts will be allowed to impose sentences of up to three years, but their authority is affected in some ways, like being required to follow U.S. court system procedures.

Also, tribes prosecuting individuals for crimes that could land them in jail for more than a year must provide defendants with the same right to a lawyer that they would have in state or federal court. …

Under the new law, when a tribe provides a defendant a lawyer, he or she must be licensed in either federal, state, or tribal court, and that court has to have “appropriate professional licensing standards and effectively ensures the competence and professional responsibility of its licensed attorneys.” Similarly, tribal judges have to have “sufficient legal training to preside over criminal proceedings” and also be licensed in federal, state, or tribal courts to practice law.

However, the story notes that the bill will end up costing some tribes as they implement its standards.

Gwen Florio

Here’s the story by Matt Volz of the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. House of Representatives attached a $3.4 billion government settlement with Indian trust beneficiaries to a war-funding bill that it passed just before breaking for the July Fourth holiday.

The settlement was one of several additions made late Thursday to the $80 billion appropriations bill that includes funding for the troop surge in Afghanistan and money for federal disaster assistance. It authorizes the Obama administration to settle a class-action lawsuit with between 300,000 and 500,000 American Indians who claims the Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held in trust by the government.

The House originally authorized the settlement in May, but it was tucked into the Democrats’ jobs legislation that stalled in a Senate filibuster late last month.

The plaintiffs hope including the settlement in the war-funding and disaster-relief bill will mean the Senate will approve it.

“We expect that the Senate must give prompt and serious consideration to the bill because, without enactment, there are no funds for our war efforts and no funds for FEMA,” plaintiffs attorney Dennis Gingold said Friday. “The bill is too important to this country. Partisan politics must not obstruct passage.”

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Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) – The chairman of the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee says the group has launched an investigation into Indian Health Service facilities in four states, sparked by a revolving door executives at a North Dakota hospital.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said Wednesday that the committee is looking into alleged “mismanagement, malfeasance, retaliation against whistleblowers as well as potential criminal behavior” in the Aberdeen Area of the IHS, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.

“I believe this type of mismanagement in the region over a long period of time has negatively affected health care provided to the Native Americans,” Dorgan said in a release. “These problems must be remedied.”

Officials with the Aberdeen Area IHS did not return phone and e-mail messages left Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The investigation centers on the Quentin N. Burdick Memorial Hospital in Belcourt, on North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, where there have been five different CEOs in about two years.

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Friday is the court-mandated deadline for congressional approval in the Cobell v. Salazar settlement.

But as Indian Country Today’s Rob Capriccioso reports, here, there are increasing concerns that might not happen, due to objections from some Republicans. Chief among them is Wyoming’s John Barrasso:

U.S. Rep. John Barrasso (AP photo)

The vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs wrote a letter to Indian country in April suggesting several changes to the proposal.

Among his suggestions were limiting pre-settlement lawyers’ fees to $50 million. The settlement now caps fees at $100 million, but a judge would ultimately determine the exact amount.

Barrasso also proposed limiting incentive awards to the named plaintiffs to “actual, unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses incurred by that plaintiff,” and wanted to require the Interior Department to consult with tribes about the proposed $2 billion land consolidation fund that’s part of the plan.

If Congress doesn’t approval the settlement, lawyers for lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Browning, have said they’ll move forward with their suit. But that would mean forfeiting the historic $3.4 billion in compensation for federal mismanagement of Indian trust funds.

In a Montana Public Radio interview, Cobell termed those actions an attempt “to try and divide and conquer – to divide the tribal leadership against the individual Indians.”

Gwen Florio

Each week, Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the landmark class action $3.4 billion Indian trust case, answers questions about the settlement, and updates people on the process that should eventually result in money for thousands of Native Americans.

This week, she addresses – among other things – the issue of whether Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is vice-chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, sent a letter to tribal leaders trying to kill the settlement.

The short answer is yes.

For the long answer, click here on Cobell’s weekly column.

People with questions for the column can e-mail Cobell at askelouise@cobellsettlement.com, or send a letter to:

Ask Elouise
Cobell Settlement
PO Box 9577
Dublin, OH 43017-4877

Gwen Florio

Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press on this latest wrinkle:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee said Tuesday he is concerned about the fairness of a proposed $3.4 billion settlement against the government for mismanaging Indian trust funds and is suggesting some revisions.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso said he thinks attorney fees and costs should be capped at $50 million – up to $50 million less than proposed. He also suggested setting aside $50 million of the settlement money for certain lawsuit participants who receive “insufficient or unfair” amounts under the settlement’s payment formula. The money would be distributed by a “special master” appointed by the court.

The Wyoming Republican called on tribal leaders across the country to share their input.

“Since it was announced last December, there have been many questions asked about some aspects of the proposed settlement,” Barrasso said in a release. “Some people support the settlement in its current form. Some do not. In fact, some voices have expressed very strong concerns about it.”

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