Our advocacy on Native American issues makes connections with Congress, tribal groups, faith community partners, and more.
Our advocacy on Native American issues makes connections with members of Congress and their staff to promote legislation to support Native rights. Members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs (part of the Natural Resources Committee) frequently consider issues affecting Native peoples. We meet regularly with these members to support legislation or share concerns. Native American issues bring us into partnership with some offices that disagree with FCNL’s policy positions on some other issues, providing an opportunity for us to increase understanding to benefit not only our work on Native issues but in other areas as well.
As important as our relationship with members of Congress is our relationship with tribal leaders and groups. FCNL’s advocacy on Native American issues is based on the concerns and priorities of Native people, not on our own assumptions about what they need. We work closely with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and consult with other Native American groups that specialize in health care, education, and Native rights.
A key connection we make is among faith community partners. We organize briefings, convene strategy sessions, and initiate sign-on letters, and organize lobbying efforts with our faith-group partners who carry a concern for Native Americans. We are pleased that many of our faith partners are naming concerns for Native Americans as part of their advocacy programs. FCNL’s monthly Native American Legislative Update email serves as an important focus for this advocacy, as we identify legislative opportunities and updates in the months ahead.
FCNL’s multi-issue advocacy gives us the ability to make connections among issues in a productive way. For example, our work on Indian energy legislation is informed by our sustainable energy and environment program’s focus on green energy development. Our environmental lobbyist came to FCNL after working on energy issues for NCAI, strengthening these connections. Our work on military spending issues helps us raise the disparity between the money spent for school reconstruction in the Department of Defense ($315 million) and that allocated for school reconstruction in Indian Country ($2 million). Native issues are not isolated concerns of just one constituency or one committee but are interwoven into every issue Congress addresses. FCNL’s perspective helps to emphasize these connections.
Finally, this advocacy builds stronger connections among us all. Doing this advocacy requires us to pull back the curtain on our country’s often shameful history in relationship to Native Americans. Seeing the violence and broken promises on which our country was built can be painful, but doing that work together can also create strong bonds of purpose and commitment. This year FCNL has helped bring an experiential workshop about this history to our staff, our interfaith colleagues, and several large interfaith gatherings. These workshops have been emotionally powerful and helped create new and stronger alliances in our work on Native issues.
