How Does Tribal Government Work?

Jordan Thompson, acting executive officer of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, recently joined the commissioners for a jam-packed episode on tribal government.

Jordan gives a history lesson on the formation of the Flathead Indian Reservation, a breakdown of land ownership and so much more. Don’t miss this behind-the-scenes look at CSKT!

 
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

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Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:10] Well, welcome back to the agenda with your Missoula County Commissioners. I'm Commissioner Dave Strohmaier and I am here today with my fellow commissioners and friends Josh Slotnick and Juanita Vero. Today, we are delighted to be joined by Jordan Thompson with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Welcome, Jordan.

Jordan Thompson: [00:00:28] Well, thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here with you all.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:30] And before we get into the meat of this, maybe just tell us, Jordan, a little bit about yourself, your role with Cskt and, uh, who you are.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:41] How you got there?

Jordan Thompson: [00:00:42] Yeah, well, I graduated from law school at University of Arizona with a certificate in Indigenous Peoples Law and policy in 2011. So during my time in law school, I started doing some intern work at the Cskt legal department. So Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Cskt I'm gonna use those interchangeably. So I started working in the legal department in 2011, really focusing on water issues, energy issues. In 2013, we stood up Energy Keepers Incorporated, which was a tribal energy company. So I started working over there, did a really cool externship in Washington, DC with a firm we contracted out there. So that was kind of fun to be a Georgetown lawyer for a year. Came back, went back to the legal department in 2015 and worked there for about 6 or 7 more years. And during that time, I really started getting into state politics. I became the state lobbyist for Cskt and did the legislative sessions in 2017, 19 and 21. And then additionally, I went back to get my MBA in American Indian Entrepreneurship at Gonzaga University in 2018. So I really like to think I use three lenses for my current role as acting tribal executive officer, which is kind of like the government CEO. And I just really feel like I have a good lens to look through legally, politically and economically. So I think those really come in handy in my in my current role.

Juanita Vero: [00:01:58] Which is. Describe your current role.

Jordan Thompson: [00:02:00] Exactly. So the tribal executive officer, right now we have a ten member tribal council.

Juanita Vero: [00:02:06] When I think of executive officers, it sounds like a nonprofit, but.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:08] And the and the tribal councils all elected.

Jordan Thompson: [00:02:10] All elected. Yep. And so we have a ten member tribal council elected from our membership. And so unlike probably a lot of places, our membership, we have about 5000 members that live on the reservation and 3000 that live off the reservation. So 8000 tribal members total. The folks on reservation vote for our ten elected representatives from eight districts, two at large positions. And then every other year, we elect five representatives on council.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:39] Can members.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:40] You mean they term out?

Jordan Thompson: [00:02:41] No, they don't term out. But we have staggered terms. So every two years, five like us.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:46] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The staggered term. So this the the number, the ten. It stays ten. They're just rotating.

Jordan Thompson: [00:02:52] Yep. They rotate. But regardless of where you live on the reservation, you vote for each council member.

Juanita Vero: [00:02:57] So like.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:58] Us.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:58] So they're elected at large. Can tribal members who are not living on the reservation vote?

Jordan Thompson: [00:03:04] No, they can't right now. And, um, yep, that's an issue we hear about. But right now they can't vote.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:09] So does the structure with the chief executive officer kind of mirror a nonprofit in that the board of directors hires the executive director, and then that person hires everybody else. In this case, the board hires you. And then are you responsible for all the other employees, the folks who work for the tribes?

Jordan Thompson: [00:03:26] Exactly. And so.

Juanita Vero: [00:03:27] The board being tribal council.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:28] Correct.

Jordan Thompson: [00:03:29] You guys got it? Yeah. So we got our ten member council from the council themselves. They elect a chairman, vice chairman, treasurer and secretary. And so that's how we get our elected officers from the council. And then the council appointed me as acting executive officer. And I've been doing that for about the past year and a half.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:47] So that's a long time to be an interim.

Jordan Thompson: [00:03:49] Yep. Um, but I enjoy it learning a lot and I sure enjoy working. I should mention I'm a tribal member too, so I really enjoy working for my tribe and doing the good work, and I feel like it really aligns well with kind of just what I value and really enjoy, really enjoy the work.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:05] The tribal government provides services given they're a government, but they don't levy taxes. How does the tribal government generate the revenue necessary to provide services?

Jordan Thompson: [00:04:14] I love talking government with you all so we can just do this all day.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:04:18] Dive in.

Juanita Vero: [00:04:19] It might be a three part series.

Jordan Thompson: [00:04:21] So underneath my position we have four directors. And then under the four directors we have over 20 different departments. And they do everything from tribal education, forestry, natural resources, law and order, environmental health. [00:04:35] Yeah, pretty much everything any government does we do it to. And then I say and beyond because as you just mentioned, Josh, we don't have too great of an ability to levy taxes. We can over our own membership. But we really don't get into that too much. And so we raise less than 1% of our government monetary needs through any kind of tax generation. And so we have a huge reliance to generate revenues in other ways. [00:04:59] And the main way the Cskt does that is through tribal corporations. And so I think a big difference then a lot of governments I'm familiar with is the cskt. We set up tribal corporations and we can do that under federal law, under tribal law, and very rarely. But we could under state law, set up corporate structure. And so we've done that in several instances. The one I'm most familiar with is energy keepers. And so we set that up in 2013 to take over what was then Kerr Dam. Now we call it SKC or Salish Ksanka Carlsbad Dam. We purchased that in 2015 and that's been generating hydropower ever since. And so that's again, our tribal council switches their hat from a board of elected officials to our shareholders, representative.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:44] Directors.

Jordan Thompson: [00:05:45] And then they appoint a board of directors that oversees that, then appoints the energy keeper CEO. And then they have a whole separate corporate structure underneath that. They also do that with SNK gaming, SNK electronics, SNK technologies.

Juanita Vero: [00:06:01] So all your kind of enterprising activities. But then who does like the the services? What I'm thinking of services. Yeah. What did you have.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:09] When.

Juanita Vero: [00:06:10] You.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:10] Were provision of services? Like there are people working on natural resources or doing law enforcement.

Juanita Vero: [00:06:15] Or who does like the health department regulation, that sort.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:19] Of thing. That was just jumping to mind, though, listening to you was how often have we heard people say, you need to run government like a business, and you guys are kind of doing that.

Juanita Vero: [00:06:27] Or is it that you're providing different services?

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:30] Yeah. What are what are the services you would provide?

Jordan Thompson: [00:06:33] So we've got a lot of ground to cover. And it's can I take a step back and say whatever you want.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:39] Whatever you want.

Jordan Thompson: [00:06:40] All right. Because we're talking so much about contemporary operations of Cskt. But it's really, I think, important to understand how we got here, because there was a lot that's happened over the past 150 to 200 years or so. And so if I could just take a minute to kind of catch us up.

Juanita Vero: [00:06:55] Thank you. Yeah.

Jordan Thompson: [00:06:56] We like to say, since time immemorial, since time began, three separate and distinct tribes. The Ksanka Band of Kootenai Indians. They're the most northern part of the tribes that make up the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. And so they have a lot of sister bands that are up in Canada, over in Idaho. And so they're the southernmost band of Kootenai Indians, traditionally living around the lake where the Ponderay or Kalispell. Kalispell Indians. And so the Kalispell's lived right around Flathead Lake, all the way down the Flathead River drainage system, all the way into what's now Spokane. And so a lot of the folks that are on the Kalispell tribe, which is in eastern Washington, are really close relatives to a lot of us on the Flathead Reservation. And then the Bitterroot Salish lived around this area and down south in the Bitterroot Valley. And then we also had bands on the other side of the Continental Divide that really stretched all the way to Yellowstone. And so we say we've been here since time immemorial. Our creation stories really put us in this place. And so when you listen to our creation stories, you can only tell those when the snow is on the ground. And so now is the time to do it. I'm not going to tell any here, but basically coyote would cruise around with his relatives, fox and other animals to really make the landscape ready for the people yet to come.

Jordan Thompson: [00:08:12] And so there's just these incredible stories of the landscape and the mountains and the big draw area being created, with coyote oftentimes getting into trouble with his, with his other animal friends. And so it really tells how the landscape was created. Interestingly, when archeologists go back and line up our creation stories with natural events that have happened, they say, well, it's clear you guys have been here since the last ice age, which was 12,000 years ago. But there's a lot of evidence that we were here even 40,000 years ago, too. And for much of that time, things remained very much consistent, the same. And as I've been told by our elders, life was good. Things really experienced a rapid change and a lot of big events happened in the 1600s with the introduction of horses, with the introduction of guns, and then with a lot more mobility. There is a lot more interaction, a lot more conflict and a lot more disease. And so with the introduction of disease in the 1600s and 1700s, it's estimated that about 90% of our tribal people disappeared when Lewis and Clark came through.

Juanita Vero: [00:09:15] 90%.

Jordan Thompson: [00:09:15] 90%. And so when you say decimated, that's a literal word.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:20] Do you know what disease we're talking about? Smallpox?

Jordan Thompson: [00:09:23] Yeah, in large part. There's probably others, but I think the one that I've been most familiar with, just wiping out so many of our people was smallpox. So Lewis and Clark came through 1805, and they were greeted by Salish Indians. And so there's a pretty dramatic portrait behind the the state legislature in Helena that depicts that incredible scene. And so there's a great book, Expedition of Lewis and Clark that our Salish Culture Committee wrote. I'd recommend taking a look at that does a great telling of the history. I won't get into that now, but the first contact we had with non-Indians was in 1805. And then, as you guys know, just the spread of the United States West and the settlers and people and gold and railroad and timber and agriculture just exploded the population and the migration out west. And so we signed the Hellgate Treaty in 1855. Sorry, this has taken a little longer, but.

Juanita Vero: [00:10:15] Great, great.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:15] Stuff.

Jordan Thompson: [00:10:16] George, I really also just want to mention, like when we signed the Hellgate treaty in 1855, we, the tribes here had no idea that the.

Juanita Vero: [00:10:24] Council grove.

Jordan Thompson: [00:10:25] At Council Grove. Yep. Right outside of town. Yeah, it's a great place to go check out. And we have some great signage up there that kind of tells that story. What the tribes didn't know was several decades prior, the 1820s, 1830s, the United States was a young country really trying to get its foothold on how it was going to establish itself and how it was going to set itself up to expand and acquire more territory. And so, Chief Justice John Marshall, it's known as the Marshall Trilogy, really set the framework for federal Indian law. And so there's some pretty big tenants that come out of the Marshall Trilogy. I'll just mention those briefly right now. But one is there's a trust relationship between the United States and tribes. Two, Congress has plenary or absolute authority over tribes. Three treaties should be read as tribes would have understood them, and four tribes have inherent sovereignty. That goes back since the beginning of time. And so whatever hasn't been taken away through either a congressional act or a Supreme Court decision remains. And so really, that's the the framework of federal Indian law. And it's not law for Indians or even to benefit Indians. And so but there are protections in there. And so even though when you read those decisions, it's very much, I'd say based on racist notions of Indians. And when you look at other laws like the Jim Crow era laws or internment camp laws, those were eventually overturned. Federal Indian law still a good precedent today. And so that's kind of on the negative side of things. On the positive side of things, the United States still treats its indigenous people better than, I'd say, 90% of the rest of the world. So there's that. So kind of going back to the treaty of 1855, we signed the treaty. We thought we'd have actually two homelands in perpetuity for our exclusive use and benefit. Through some technicalities and I'd say less. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Less than honorable dealings. The Bitterroot Salish were removed from their homeland and forcibly removed up to the main reservation, which was called the Jocko. Now the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:18] Was that.

Jordan Thompson: [00:12:19] That was in the final. Uh, folks moved up in 1891. And we have.

Juanita Vero: [00:12:24] A 13th.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:12:25] Which is why we have bear tracks bridge recognizing that great.

Jordan Thompson: [00:12:29] Celebration. That's a great celebration. And just I just have to say, you guys do a really good job of really honoring our relationship. So I just want to say thank you for that. I'll try to wrap this up in the next minute or so. But, uh, 1855 was the treaty. And so federal Indian law and policy is like a pendulum. It swings over from tribes to remain independent sovereign and in control of their own destinies. On one end of the pendulum. On the other side of the pendulum is Indians should just assimilate into mainstream society and just participate like everybody else in the American Dream. And so when treaties were getting signed in the mid 1800s, it was really a tool for the United States to put tribes on different patches of land. And for us, it was part of our territory since time began. And so we gave up. We ceded 22 million acres for the exclusive use and benefit of our 1.2 million acre Flathead Reservation. Now Bitterroot reservations. Another story. And then at the end of the 1800s, we really got into the assimilation and allotment era. And so that's the era of the boarding schools of the Court of Indian Offenses.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:33] I don't mean interrupt, but could you describe what allotment is?

Jordan Thompson: [00:13:35] Sure. And so in the late 1800s, that plenary power was used. And so Congress, with its plenary power, absolute power over Indian affairs, said, you know what? I know we signed these treaties. I know they were supposed to be forever, but circumstances have changed. And so actually, to make more room for non-Indian settlement and to benefit the Indians and the United States, along with European, always likes to throw in the benefit for the other people, too, and they never asked us about it. We actually sent many delegations to say please don't, but they said it's actually going to benefit you to assimilate and become farmers. And so the policy at that time of the United States, through the the Dawes Act or the General Allotment Act, was allotment in many instances for individual reservations. They had to have an allotment act. And so when you look at old maps from the reservation, say that end of the 1800s, early 1900s, you'll see the Flathead Reservation and it was all green. And that indicates that was tribal land. More accurately, it's tribal trust land, because in that martial trilogy, the Supreme Court said, well, actually, tribes, you don't actually own any land. The United States owns all that land through the doctrine of discovery. We discovered.

Juanita Vero: [00:14:47] This.

Jordan Thompson: [00:14:48] And so that's actually our land. But tribes do have the right of occupancy until we either extinguish that through purchase or conquest. And so that's why when we talk about trust land, it's held in trust by the United States government for the benefit of either the tribe itself or after we get the allotment, which I'll get into in one second, you have trust land held in trust by the United States government for the benefit of an individual Indian. So the Allotment Act allotted each individual Indian on the reservation about 80 or 160 acres, depending on the land type. We have elders that say that was the worst thing they ever done to us. Absolutely, because before that, the tribe still lived a very much tribal oriented life as a community, as families. We had herds of cattle, of pigs, of even buffalo up there.

Juanita Vero: [00:15:34] They were managed communally.

Jordan Thompson: [00:15:36] Exactly.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:37] And people move around. Were they nomadic within a space?

Jordan Thompson: [00:15:41] Absolutely. And so traditionally, our tribal lifestyle was following seasons, and so in the early spring we would celebrate the return of the Bitterroot. And so we'd go collect Bitterroot, and then some folks would go over the Continental Divide and hunt buffalo, and then we'd go back over to visit with relatives in Spokane, and then we'd make our way back, either hunt buffalo again or make winter camp. And that's really a time for storytelling and ceremonies in the winter. After we established the reservations and the Jesuits, that was a huge part of it, too. They set up a mission there, but people were really encouraged to stay a lot more local and move around far less. Even though the Hellgate treaty set up off reservation hunting and fishing rights, really reserved those off reservation hunting and fishing rights so tribe members can go off reservation to hunt and fish. We had instances where game wardens would.

Juanita Vero: [00:16:31] But they had to get a permit to do that. Right. And it was.

Jordan Thompson: [00:16:33] Yeah, I mean, not according to the the terms of the treaty, but you'd have a lot of harassment by state game wardens. And so we have stories of people going off reservation, actually getting killed for exercising those treaty rights. And so while we reserve the right to actually practice, it was much different. And so a lot of our sacred sites on reservation became much more important because we travel off reservation less. But yeah, we would still hunt and fish on reservation to supplement gardening in that communal herd type lifestyle. In 1904, they passed the Flathead Allotment Act, and then in 1910 they actually implemented it, where they allotted each individual Indian 80 or 160 acres, and then the excess lands or the extra lands were opened up to homesteading.

Juanita Vero: [00:17:18] Did you see the listeners aren't seeing the massive air quotes that Jordan is putting around?

Josh Slotnick: [00:17:24] Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:17:25] Extra, extra land.

Josh Slotnick: [00:17:26] What sort of proportion are we talking about? Extra.

Jordan Thompson: [00:17:29] As you guys are visualizing.

Juanita Vero: [00:17:30] A map in your head, what extra was or where extra was?

Jordan Thompson: [00:17:34] I think a lot of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and so as I mentioned, we sent several delegations to really try to go lobby and say, please don't allow our our homeland. But that wasn't listened to. They allotted it. And so after allotment, if you're looking at a reservation land status map, you're going to see three big colors. You're going to see green, which is tribal trust land held in trust by the United States for the benefit of tribes. And so they didn't all of it. So whatever the United States didn't a lot. The tribes retained allotments to individual Indians. Those are now orange on the map and then everything else. Um, if you ever just Google Flathead Indian Reservation, we're kind of a model for an allotted reservation, and you'll see just all of the cream colored land. And so that's all of the homesteaded land or what we call fee land, land that's held in fee simple status. In addition to that, there were state lands allocated to the state to really support with, uh.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:29] I just want to be clear, just for our listeners, too, that fee simple land means non-tribal members can buy that land.

Jordan Thompson: [00:18:34] Yes. Yeah. And so really, as a tribal lawyer and now as an executive officer, it's I call it, trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again when the federal government allotted that land to your earlier question. Shortly thereafter, non-Indians outnumbered Indians on our reservation.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:52] Shortly thereafter, it didn't take long.

Jordan Thompson: [00:18:54] Like within ten years. Wow. Within ten years. And then by 1930, so 20 years after the implementation of allotment, I think the tribes owned about 30% of the reservation land base.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:19:05] Jordan, can you can you explain what the importance, the kind of abiding importance of the exterior boundaries of the reservation are? Because some folks might might think that that, that that's a thing of the, the past now that it's been so chopped up and, and checkerboarded with non-Indian ownership of that land. What are those boundaries still mean today?

Jordan Thompson: [00:19:28] So when the tribes were first on the reservation, up until the early 1900s, I'd say late 1800s, tribal control was very much still prevalent. But towards the end of the 1800s, early 1900s, we started having a lot of federal control. The BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, really came in, started saying what we could do, what we couldn't do. Your kids got to go to boarding school. Your religion and culture is outlawed. You're not able to speak your language in schools. Just horrendous abuses in the schools, which is probably a story for another day. But up until 1934, the federal government really controlled so many components of life on the reservation. And then with the opening of the reservation and the fee lands, you get a lot of non-Indians. And really, under state law on those fee portions in 1934, that pendulum swings the other way. And we have the Indian Reorganization Act. And so that was an act that really provided tools for tribal governments to organize, organize in ways that the federal government could understand and interact with them easier. Before we had the traditional chief system and subchiefs, and the way that system has been explained to me is if you really liked somebody and they listened to you. You'd follow them. And if you didn't like the way they led, you wouldn't. And so it was really a very flexible and, and kind of a, a lot of freedom for families, communities and bands to kind of organize how they wanted. In 1934, the traditional chiefs were still honored and recognized, but the the Cskt adopted a constitution, which is how we have our current government set up right now with the ten member council set up from eight different districts. And it like really lays out all of the powers and duties of our.

Juanita Vero: [00:21:12] The Cskt were like the first in Montana to or in the nation to.

Jordan Thompson: [00:21:17] I heard that we were the first tribe in the country to organize under the IRA, the Indian Reorganization Act. And so, yeah, we really took the lead. And we like to pride ourselves on taking the lead in several areas and took the lead and reorganizing. And so that's how we have our current government today. I'm just going to fast forward really quick to the 1950s was the termination era. So the federal government was really intent on terminating that special relationship it has with tribes. But then we get the 60s and eventually the 70s. And Richard Nixon was really good for tribes and passed the Indian Self-Determination act. And so that was an act that provides the ability for tribes to contract or compact for all of those federal programs. So up until 1970s, the federal government ran Indian Health. They ran our Indian education, they ran our tribal forestry. And so all of those big federal programs today, Cskt manages and operates. And so that was probably the hugest shift. I've gone to Indian law conferences and just visited with some of the old timers sitting next to me, and they say that was by far the most effective thing for Indian self-determination that the federal government has ever done.

Juanita Vero: [00:22:24] Was that.

Jordan Thompson: [00:22:25] 1975?

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:26] So prior to 1974, the federal government was doing this work. Does that mean, post 1974, the federal government pays tribes to do this work, or are you on your own to come up with revenue to do that work.

Jordan Thompson: [00:22:38] Yeah. So I think we're finally getting back to your guys's questions. Yeah. So, yeah, but now we got the history. So my answers will make a little bit more sense. And so you're exactly right for federal programs. So I like to throw forestry or Indian health. The federal government has a trust and treaty obligation to provide those services to us under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, or ISDa. That law provides the ability for the federal government to provide funds directly to tribes to do those federal functions. And so now Cskt operates all of those federal functions, and we have a BIA office, but it's kind of a little tiny corner office in the basement of the old complex. So a very small BIA presence. They still need to sign off on federal functions like leases and things like that. But for the most part, we do pretty much everything. Now, back to your question. We're very limited because the feds don't fund everything that we want to do. And so anything extra that really includes culture and language and taking care of our elders, that's up to us to figure out how to pay for.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:44] And so you have to do that out of revenue from your businesses or from grants.

Jordan Thompson: [00:23:48] Both. We do both. And so we're pretty good at writing grants. And it's just a lot of staff, people really rolling up their sleeves and doing that. But the other thing, as you just mentioned is we do generate revenues through those businesses. And so those are so critical for our culture, our language, our elders, and a lot of our youth programs.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:24:08] Jordan, let's go back just just a bit in terms of tribal government and leadership structure. So talk to us a little bit about how the two culture committees fit into all of this, and the council councils of elders, because I think that's a common stumbling block for folks to understand just how these seemingly different pieces fit together in terms of tribal leadership.

Jordan Thompson: [00:24:34] Yeah, that's a great question and really interesting story there. And so I don't want to get my ears wrong, but I'm 99% sure it was the 1970s. Ah, we had some tribal elders that were looking around and really thinking, man, we got to just start recording some of these stories. And so at least with the Salish Culture Committee or the SKC, we had some people and they just had a tape recorder and they just invited elders to come and they just said, hey, let's visit. And so they would just visit. And so they'd have these recordings of just tribal elders talking. A lot of times in the language and just talking and telling stories. And that was really the genesis of our SKC, our Salish culture committee. And I don't even think they had much of a budget other than probably for the tape recorder and some volunteers at the beginning. Kootenai culture committee, I think they were established around the same time. And so fast forward 50 years and they are both very robust departments in our tribal government. And so in those departments, they do a lot of consulting when there's federal projects or tribal projects. They're out there really giving their observations, their knowledge about these areas. They go around all over Montana and beyond and record place names.

Jordan Thompson: [00:25:46] They do a lot of cultural events so we can convey those stories not only to our kids, but also just to adults and our older folks who just want to learn more and just connect to. And so through our culture committees, we have language apprentice programs. And we also have and I think this is what you're kind of getting to is our elders committees. And so we have two culture committees, the Kootenai Culture Committee and the Salish Culture Committee. Because Salish and Kalispell shared the same language, a lot of the same cultures and traditions. And so that was a natural alignment. And so each of our culture committees has a group of elders, advisors. And so those advisors meet once a month, one up in Elmo, one down in Saint Ignatius. And so tribal leaders, tribal departments, and then just folks that have cultural questions can go to those elders and just ask questions and get guidance. I really enjoy going to those meetings. I learn a lot. I go get guidance and every now and then I get set straight, which I need and I appreciate that. And so yeah, just really great resources for our community and our tribes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:51] So Jordan, I know this from just chatting with you in other contexts, that food sovereignty, if we don't mind switching subjects, is important to you. What are you all doing around food sovereignty?

Jordan Thompson: [00:27:00] Yeah, we lost so much. Like when you look at what happened after allotment and how our community was before versus after. It just so fundamentally changed how we lived life. And then kind of everything that goes along with that. Our economy changed from just one of really reciprocity and relationship and and caring for our community to now really being based in capitalism. We have instead of communally held lands, we have private property instead of communal food systems and really reliance on fish and deer and elk and buffalo and our roots and berries, we became much, much more reliant on federal commodities. And so our food system changed, and as a result, our health started changing, too. When the Seeley or the Salish people describe themselves, they say we're scaly. Who, as I understand that that comes from two words scales, which is the flesh or meat and stool, which is the land. And so flesh of the land is literally who we are. And so, as it's been told to me, when you're eating like the land, whether it's berries or the, the animals from that and then you return to it, you're literally a part of that. Well, now we're getting, you know, our commodity cheese or commodity bacon coming in from who knows where. And so even who we are as a people has changed. That's been noticed, especially in the past decade or so. Food sovereignty has been a really big topic for a lot of folks, tribal folks as well.

Jordan Thompson: [00:28:28] And so at the end of the 2000 teens, we had a chairman who was highly invested in food sovereignty and a council that supported that. So they set up the food sovereignty team. And I was a Shelley. Yep. You got it. And so I was voluntold to be on the food sovereignty team. And so we were we were on a roll. We went to one one conference and then Covid hit. And so we thought, man, all of the wind in our sails was gone. And we're just going to have to sit this one out for who knows how long COVID's going to last. But interestingly, Covid came a lot of funding. And so Cskt got funding to do different things. One of the buckets the funding went to was food security. So Council gave the food sovereignty team the food security bucket to go see what we could come up with to really promote food security on our reservation. We talked with our leadership, with our elders, community members and just people in the food system that were familiar with it. And what we found is over well over 90% of our food is coming from the outside in. We live in one of the best agricultural valleys that I'm aware of, and that is all getting shipped out. And then we're getting Food Services of America and those types of places bringing food in. The other thing is affordability. And so with our families, a lot of times they go to the fast food places or the Walmarts.

Jordan Thompson: [00:29:40] And so it's just really not the most high quality, nutritious food that is making up our current food system. So how do we deal with that? How do we how do we start taking steps to rebuilding our food system? And so you were able to come visit our Food Sovereignty Center up at the old Kicking Horse Job Corps. And so that's been redesigned to really do a lot of things, including having our Food Sovereignty Center. We've got a wonderful staff over seven strong, and we have a lot of other workers through vocational rehab, those types of things, college interns, AmeriCorps folks going up there just to really build our skill set so we can start getting high quality food back out into our community. And so about three years ago, we started having a garden community garden network, and that's been pretty good. I think it's been a good step just to really start practicing growing high quality foods, getting our community interested and their skill set built up to start growing their own high quality foods. We started putting out food boxes of organic, local produce. We're really partnering with Western Montana Growers Co-op and other local places to get high quality local foods out to our community. We started our Elders Soup program, and so that's one thing we're really proud of, where we deliver over 200 soups to over 200 elders twice a week. So they.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:51] Just. And you guys are growing the feedstock for the soups.

Jordan Thompson: [00:30:55] Yep. So that's a lot of that's coming right from our very own gardens. And a lot of it includes deer, elk and buffalo that we either hunt locally or get from our treaty Reserve bison at Yellowstone.

Juanita Vero: [00:31:06] And that's all prepared at the.

Jordan Thompson: [00:31:07] Yep.

Juanita Vero: [00:31:08] At the At Kicking Horse. Yep.

Jordan Thompson: [00:31:09] Okay. And so we have a with a Covid funding. We totally it was gutted after Job Corps left the end of 2000 teens. That was totally gutted. So we rebuilt the cafeteria and kitchen. And it's got commercial grade equipment up there. And so we've got amazing cooks. Every time I go stop in there, they always make sure I, I leave smiling. And so yeah, we just cook everything right there. And then we have a some great folks that go out and deliver that. And so as you guys I'm sure know it's more than just food. It's also just that visiting contact. Yep. And so now what. We're really excited. I think we're off to a great start. But now it's getting into the growing. Like how do we really grow our own food and put that into our own food system. And so to start we're really looking at how do we start getting food for our local schools, how do we get it for our local businesses? How do we get that to our elders programs? Even more so, and just really any food that the tribal government is purchasing, how do we provide that and grow that ourselves? And then how do we really support our membership to build their own skill sets to do that as well?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:32:10] So one thing that I've not kept my finger on the pulse of, but a few years ago I was hearing about is the effort to get meat processing going on the reservation. Where is that at?

Jordan Thompson: [00:32:22] Yeah, we're we're coming around the corner on that. I think we're on target to have our own meat processing facility up by spring 2026.

Juanita Vero: [00:32:30] Wow. This spring.

Jordan Thompson: [00:32:31] Amazing. Yeah. Don't don't quote me on that, but I think.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:32:34] That's too late.

Jordan Thompson: [00:32:35] You are right. I'm on. I'm on record. So. Spring.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:32:37] That's okay. Spring 2026, everyone.

Juanita Vero: [00:32:41] But it's not a mobile unit. It's a it's a.

Jordan Thompson: [00:32:43] Yep. Yep. Right outside of Ronan. It's going to be a USDA certified facility. And it was really important that not only did we have the ability to process local, uh, cattle and that sort of thing, but also wild game. Yeah. And so wild game has been a big issue and hunting has been a big issue on the reservation. And [00:33:03] so we've really taken, I'd say, great strides to really manage the big game up there. And part of that is getting them back into our food system. So we have our natural resources department has hunting efforts, and our food sovereignty department also has efforts to go out, do administrative hunts, and then take that meat and put it back into our food system a lot of times through soups, a lot of times through meat distributions. And then that facility is going to be really helpful to just even provide more of that really high quality traditional meat to our community. [00:33:34]

Dave Strohmaier: [00:33:34] Wow. That's fantastic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:33:35] That's super great. I really hope I get to come up and talk some more with you on food sovereignty. That was an inspiring visit. So what are the other opportunities that we can work together?

Juanita Vero: [00:33:45] We being Missoula County and.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:33:47] Not just Josh Slotnick.

Josh Slotnick: [00:33:50] That's fun too. I, like.

Jordan Thompson: [00:33:52] You guys are.

Josh Slotnick: [00:33:53] How can Missoula County collaborate more with Cskt?

Jordan Thompson: [00:33:56] Well, you guys have always been great in my time at Cskt, so I'd say we've got a great relationship to start with, but I'd say just the sky is the limit on what we're able to think about. I know that we do a great job already, partnering for things like the Bear Tracks, Bridge Celebration. That's wonderful. I know there's a lot of opportunities to work with our cultural committees to get signage around town for just places that are really significant to us there. And then, you know, I think Tribal Council and you guys have a good relationship. And relationship. And so that's really where the ideas come. I'm more of just how do we get those ideas into action? But like I said, I think you guys are well on your way and we're already doing quite a bit of good stuff.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:34:36] One thing that we are exploring right now and Jordan, you're you may be aware of this also is is there an opportunity for internships with.

Josh Slotnick: [00:34:46] Students way this is underway.

Juanita Vero: [00:34:48] This is happening.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:34:49] With the with the college. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:34:51] I don't know if you heard about that at all, but yeah.

Jordan Thompson: [00:34:53] Yeah. That's exciting. I mean, we have just so many opportunities within our tribal government. We have over 1400 jobs. We're the largest employer in western Montana. So we've got plenty of opportunities. And then our business side of things even more so. And so one thing though, that I'm always trying to explore different ideas is how do we start skill building and mentoring our younger tribal members into getting into these positions? And so I think that's a really wonderful start for you guys to be exploring that idea.

Josh Slotnick: [00:35:23] Yeah, we're excited about it.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:35:25] So if you were to look out five, ten years and you name the the vision that, uh, that you and, and, uh, Tribal Council has right now, where do you see cskt over a time horizon like that, economic development wise? Uh, moving portions of the reservation from fee to trust, you name it.

Jordan Thompson: [00:35:47] I was talking earlier about the different eras of kind of federal Indian law and policy, and right now a lot of folks who were in the nation building era. And so what does that look like? A lot of people say we're in the nation rebuilding era because we had very successful nations. But what does it look like to really reinvigorate us as nations? And so I think it's always important to think about how we're going to be as self-sufficient as possible. And so how do we generate even more revenues. And so we've got some really exciting businesses, and we're always looking at opportunities to kind of further that land. I think that's another thing that we're talking about is how do we really protect and manage our landscape and the best way possible with the federal government. We have a lot of federal partnerships, and so that's one way to do it. I was kind of surprised. After law school, you learn so much about the opportunity with federal government and tribes because that's who our trustee is. And so they have a trust responsibility. They have treaty obligations are kind of scope of our sovereignty is really defined and strengthened by our relationship with Congress, the executive, and the Supreme Court. But working actually on the ground, you start to see how much relationship there is with the state. And so over the past ten years, I think our relationship with the state has, at least in my opinion, really strengthened. We've got really good relationships with the NRC, with F-w-p, with the administration, with just different efforts all over the place. And then locally, we've got four counties that intersect on the Flathead Reservation.

Jordan Thompson: [00:37:18] And so I really appreciate coming to visit with you all, and it's just exciting to think about how we can continue to strengthen those relationships to really get after the things that are important to all of us, like aquatic invasive species. Keeping Flathead Lake clean, right? I mean, that's one of our biggest efforts, is aquatic invasive species and keeping those little critters out of Flathead Lake. And so that's a total team effort. Back to your question, though. Colonization had a huge impact on us. When you look at sort of the charts for statistics in Indian Country, you see, well, tribal people are kind of at the lower rung of education and socioeconomics and health and, you know, kind of incarcerate all of those. But we just haven't been in this system for very long, like 100 and some years as, as long as we've been in it. So I think we're still kind of getting our footing. And then once we are, we really have an opportunity to, to grow a nation, build beyond that. So how do we get our people healthy? How do we get our food system healthy? How do we get our economy healthy? How do we get our lands healthy? How do we get our waters healthy? And those are all questions that are probably beyond my understanding today. But ten years from now, if we could just be a lot healthier. And when I say we, I mean all of our relatives, us, the animals, the air, the water, the lands, all of it. And I hope, I hope.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:33] That is a great vision.

Jordan Thompson: [00:38:35] Oh, good.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:35] Compelling?

Jordan Thompson: [00:38:36] Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:37] For sure.

Jordan Thompson: [00:38:37] Yeah.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:38] Is there anything that.

Juanita Vero: [00:38:39] You wish.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:39] That we would have asked you that we did not?

Jordan Thompson: [00:38:42] Um, yeah, I was I had a lot of fun, number one. But I was really prepared to talk a lot more about the exterior boundaries question. And then I kind of lost track of it. But just like, what is the significance of being within the exterior boundaries?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:54] What is.

Juanita Vero: [00:38:55] The.

Jordan Thompson: [00:38:55] Significance? And so even with like fee land being part of the reservation, there's still just so many kind of interplays that the tribe has with the counties and with the state and with Indians, nonmember Indians, meaning Indians from other tribes and then non-Indians. And so, like, who has jurisdiction over what? And for the most part, that's such a tough legal question with so much unpredictability. The Supreme Court has called itself schizophrenic when it comes to federal Indian law. I think that was actually Scalia that said federal schizophrenic. And so there are so many questions that are just really hard to know the answer to. And then even when you think you do, you take it up to the Supreme Court and they decide the other way. And so one thing that's been so beneficial is having cross governmental agreements. And so with criminal jurisdiction, for instance, tribes don't have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians and state doesn't have criminal jurisdiction over Indians. And so how does that work on the current reservation, where you've got 35,000 people, 30,000 people are non-Indians, 5000 are Indians. And a lot of times you got Indians living with non-Indian families and there's a dispute. And so who can arrest who? Well, we have a public law to 80 state tribal cooperative agreement. And so that just really answers a lot of those questions. Same thing with hunting. That was another issue that kind of popped up. Like who can hunt big game? Who can fish? Well, we solved that question by entering into another state tribal cooperative agreement called the Bird Hunting and Fishing Agreement. And so that really lays out who can do what on the reservation. And so maybe that's a material for for part two of our podcast series. But I just think that's really interesting because once you start understanding, well, I'm a non-Indian on a reservation. What does that mean for me?

Juanita Vero: [00:40:44] What about like mortgages or homeownership or like loans or can.

Jordan Thompson: [00:40:48] Mhm. Yeah. I mean that's.

Juanita Vero: [00:40:50] I mean if you're.

Jordan Thompson: [00:40:51] Luckily the tribes have our own bank and so we're a lot more flexible with providing loans because the hard thing is with trust land, that's pretty tough to get somebody to take that as collateral because the United States isn't going to give it up. It's protected by the United States interest. And so if I wanted to go to a regular bank and put up my my trust land for collateral, a lot of times I'll say, no thanks. You're going to have to find someplace else to go get a loan at.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:41:17] And my understanding is that with allotments allotted land that is held in trust, it could be highly fractionated with many, many owners, which I'm sure lending institutions would also wonder what would I do with this.

Josh Slotnick: [00:41:33] That that population statistic you just tossed out is really powerful. 35,000 people, 30,000 non-native, 5000 native on reservation land.

Jordan Thompson: [00:41:43] Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:41:43] Yeah. I think that's a much a much larger, disproportionate number of non-natives than a lot of people would imagine, especially folks who don't live here.

Jordan Thompson: [00:41:51] Interestingly enough, when I mentioned the land ownership by 1930, by 1930, the tribes owned about 30% of the reservation land base. Now we own just under 70%. And so over the last hundred years, we've made enormous strides to purchase a lot of our reservation back. And we have to do that on the open market. So we just go look for willing sellers, and then we purchase and then upon purchase.

Josh Slotnick: [00:42:16] And that's land that's owned by the tribes.

Jordan Thompson: [00:42:19] Yeah. Yep. And so we might have Joe Farmer saying, hey, I want to sell my 100 acre farm. And so he pulled it on the open market. And so the tribes will say, well, we budget money every year to purchase lands. And so we might decide that's one that we'd like to purchase. And so we'll purchase that in fee status. And then the federal government has a very lengthy fee to trust process that we go through to put that land back in.

Josh Slotnick: [00:42:41] You put it, you take that land and put it back into trust. Yep.

Jordan Thompson: [00:42:44] Well, we try to we try our best. And so it's a long, slow process.

Josh Slotnick: [00:42:48] That's a pretty successful run to go from 30% to 70%. And I think 100 years.

Jordan Thompson: [00:42:53] Yeah, it's a little bit lower than that. But I am including, I think, the southern end of Flathead Lake. And so that's you know, but but despite that yeah, that's.

Josh Slotnick: [00:43:02] And these statistics, how do they compare to other reservations across our state.

Jordan Thompson: [00:43:07] Like I say on my federal Indian class, we really use the Flathead Indian Reservation as sort of the model for allotment because it was so heavily allotted, and there's such a big non-Indian population there. And so, as far as I know, I think it's the heaviest allotted reservation in the West that I'm aware of.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:43:24] I bet. Well, what's the value of just with the scenario you painted earlier in terms of, uh, willing, uh, the tribe purchasing and, and, uh, in fee that that land, what's, what's the value of then moving it into trust? Is it to not have to pay taxes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:43:43] On on the same thing? Yeah. Why not just hold it in fee yourself? Why? Why put it into trust?

Jordan Thompson: [00:43:48] Yeah. So the big thing is taxes. And so the tribal government has to provide a lot of services to our people, to the landscape, to roads. And so we have to reserve as much money as we can for those governmental purposes when we own land in fee. Right now, we're paying a lot of money to other governments like the counties.

Josh Slotnick: [00:44:11] And so if you own land in feed, you pay property taxes.

Jordan Thompson: [00:44:14] Yeah, that was kind of an issue at the state legislature for a while, but right now, the way it works is if the tribes purchase a piece of property, there's a five year window where the state says, we're not going to tax you for that five years. If the tribes don't get the land put into trust within the five years, then the state through its counties has the ability to tax that land property tax. So after five years, the tribes are going to be paying property taxes on any land.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:44:42] Does it take has it been taking that long to get to the fee to trust process?

Jordan Thompson: [00:44:46] And a lot of instances it has.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:44:47] Yeah, really.

Juanita Vero: [00:44:48] And again, why is it why does it take so long.

Jordan Thompson: [00:44:51] It's just a about a 20 step process. And so you got to go through the process and enter it into a certain system, have the feds check it. And if certain parts of the process don't get done by a certain amount of time, it's like you got to start back.

Juanita Vero: [00:45:06] I mean, is it designed to cause people to fail or not be successful?

Jordan Thompson: [00:45:11] I just think there's a lot of bureaucracy. And so we've worked with different secretaries of the interior to try to really shorten that process. And I hope that we're getting better, but we've still got a ways to go to really make that a more streamlined process. And so, yeah, the big issue with putting those lands from fee into trust is the taxation and then jurisdiction. That's a little bit more complicated. But when it's federal trust land held in trust for the tribe jurisdiction is a lot cleaner when you're trying to exert your sovereignty or when you're trying to exert your ability to exclude or just things like that. Sure. One other footnote I will say, just because I said it a lot, a lot of times in my professional capacity, I'll use the word Indian. And I know a lot of the old timers use Indian, but it's also a term of art. So in federal Indian law, it's just kind of got like a certain legal meaning. And so in my personal life I'll probably say native or Salish or, you know, Kootenai. But when I'm talking federal Indian law, I will say Indian a lot.

Josh Slotnick: [00:46:08] That's an important distinction. Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:46:10] And I guess, yeah. Before we close, can you share with us a good book or a nugget of wisdom you've come across recently. It doesn't have to be a book.

Jordan Thompson: [00:46:18] Yeah. Ah! Holy moly. I've just.

Juanita Vero: [00:46:20] Music, song, podcast poem.

Jordan Thompson: [00:46:22] I feel like I just got shot out of a washing machine or something, because I just got done teaching federal Indian law at Gonzaga. And so.

Josh Slotnick: [00:46:32] I saw your water.

Jordan Thompson: [00:46:32] Bottle. Yeah, yeah. So it was a great semester, but that's what I do for fun.

Juanita Vero: [00:46:38] Uh, what what age? Like, who are your students?

Jordan Thompson: [00:46:40] Um, law students at Gonzaga.

Juanita Vero: [00:46:42] Oh, wow. And so I was thinking undergrad. Sorry.

Jordan Thompson: [00:46:45] I'm an adjunct professor over there. And so I do it all online. And so. Yep, after my day job, I been teaching. And so that's been great. And so we just went through a pretty hefty sized case book, just kind of reading all about federal Indian law. But the nugget I want to share with you and your listeners is, I think, one thing that I, I always like to remind folks, and it's been reminded me this is by no means means my idea, but I heard it once and I just repeated every chance I get that we're all treaty people. And so I've talked about the Hellgate treaty today. And oftentimes when I talk about that, it seems like people think, well, that's an Indian. That's a tribal thing. But that's not true. That's really every American citizen thing because American citizens government signed treaties with tribal citizens, governments. And so we have probably over 400 treaties as United States citizens that we should be aware of. But I'd say particularly know the treaty in the area we all live in. So if you get a chance, I'd say just Google up the Hellgate treaty and take a look at that, because I think that's just a good thing for all of us to, to know and and read.

Josh Slotnick: [00:47:47] Yeah. Especially for people who live here. Yeah.

Jordan Thompson: [00:47:50] And Council Grove's right down the road and that's a great place to go visit. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:47:54] Our valley part of our county.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:47:56] Well thank thanks so much, Jordan.

Josh Slotnick: [00:47:58] No kidding. This is an incredible, incredible history lesson. Thank you Jordan.

Jordan Thompson: [00:48:01] Well, that went by so quick.

Juanita Vero: [00:48:02] I gotta have you back.

Josh Slotnick: [00:48:04] To have you back.

Jordan Thompson: [00:48:05] Yeah, well, that was great. No. Great visiting. Like I said, I always love visiting government.

Juanita Vero: [00:48:09] So.

Josh Slotnick: [00:48:10] Man, really appreciate you made the time to come see us.

Jordan Thompson: [00:48:12] Absolutely.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:48:13] Thank you.

Juanita Vero: [00:48:13] Thank you so much.

Josh Slotnick: [00:48:15] Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Juanita Vero: [00:48:24] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:48:29] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:48:41] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to communications@missoulacounty.us.

Juanita Vero: [00:48:49] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening Missoula County, go to Missoula. Updates.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:48:57] Thanks for listening.