From Wounded Knee to Capitol Hill.

• Author: Johnson, Susan
• Position: State government relations with Native American tribes - Includes related articles on the nation's Indian tribes, their territories, sovereignty and welfare program

As Congress surrenders more powers to Indian tribes, the reverberations trouble many state officials. But lawmakers are finding that states can profit from good relations with tribes.

The year was 1973 - not 1873. But as members of the American Indian Movement took control of Wounded Knee for 71 days - complete with armed guards it was reminiscent of the bloody era that spanned the 18th and 19th centuries as native peoples and recent European arrivals clashed over the land that became the United States.

Times have changed. Recently, 275 tribal leaders from around the nation met in Washington, D.C., to prepare for this year's legislative calendar and push their political concerns. On the agenda are issues such as casinos, taxes and natural resources, all needing to be cooperatively addressed by tribes, states and the federal government.

Native Americans have traveled a long and bumpy trail since Europeans came to this country. Over the years, the federal government has endorsed widely varying, often conflicting, policies in dealing with the natives of North America. Today, the angle is "self-determination" - a push toward autonomous tribal governments. And in some cases, it's working. The trails are becoming smoother for many American Indians, and many are now running parallel to the main streets of state-federal governance. Tribal governing capacities are expanding as more and more tribes seek to preserve their cultures and govern themselves. The tribes are at a "convergence of economic strength, legal muscle and political will," says New York Times reporter Timothy Egan.

But states are uneasy with this convergence. As the federal government continues to work out details of its relationships with tribes, state governments - the tribes' closest neighbors - have a separate relationship with them, and it's often strained. The lack of state jurisdiction over Indians and reservations, federal controls and inherent tribal sovereignty have all resulted in ongoing disputes between tribes and states. Native Americans are not only citizens of the tribe, but also of the United States and the state in which they reside. This "triple citizenship" creates an ambiguous matrix of regulatory and other jurisdictional requirements for Indians, on and off their reservations. Jurisdiction over non-Indians on Indian land also is murky.

But as Native Americans gain more and more clout, state leaders are learning that it is more productive and mutually beneficial to work with, not against, the tribes.

TRIBES AND THE STATES

Many states have dealt successfully with tribes on specific issues, but others have resorted to the courts. Terry Williams, director of the Tulalip Tribal Environmental Program in Washington, calls state-tribal relations a "roller coaster ride."

It's not that states and tribes don't have mutual interests - they do. Human services, environmental protection and economic well-being create opportunities to cooperate and develop solutions, while maintaining autonomy. The Hualapai Indian Nation and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, for example, recently signed an agreement to protect water quality on and off tribal lands. The move will "help the state and tribe work closely with one another to protect water quality resources," says Russell Rhoades, director of ^DEQ. Such agreements can be effective tools. In Akron, Ohio, a university nursing school teamed up with an American Indian cultural center to open a free medical clinic. While the clinic's mission is to treat the Native Americans of the area, African Americans make up 40 percent of the clinic's patients and whites make up 30 percent.

And certainly, in many cases, states have a chance to profit economically from good relations with tribes. In Wisconsin, where sport fishing is a business worth nearly a billion dollars a year, Native and non-Native fishing guides are trying to learn from each other and work together to make sure the limited natural resource is managed wisely. Agreements can set up revenue sharing from tribal gas, liquor and cigarette taxes or that contentious cash cow - gambling.

Wisconsin businesses rake in nearly $150 million a year providing goods and services to Indian casinos. Two Wisconsin tribes reported 30 percent drops in welfare caseloads as a result of casino jobs, resulting in taxpayer savings of $470,000. In Minnesota, Indian gaining has become the state's seventh largest employer, creating more than 10,000 new jobs - 7,500 of which are held by non-Indians.

Wisconsin Senator Bob Jauch recognized back in 1990 that states and tribes "need to sit down and try to work out together what their mutual needs and concerns are, and find a system by which they can, harmoniously and jointly, cooperate to reach some common ground." The same is true today. But before such cooperation will be effective, lawmakers must understand how tribes are becoming more self-sufficient and politically savvy and how these changes affect state governance.

TRIBES AND POLITICS

Tribes are adapting their inherent sovereignty to the present-day federal system. On Capitol Hill, some tribes make full use of their economic clout. The...