Enrollment for Dummies

Earlier this month, the Tribe hired a company known as the Falmouth Institute to fly into Grand Ronde and lecture a number of us on enrollment requirements. The name of the training was “Amending and Updating Enrollment Requirements”. Costs for this training were more than $5000, in fact it might have been closer to $8000. We had elected to bring the training to us because most of Council and the Enrollment committee expressed a desire to attend the conference/workshop, what with our present situation and all, and the session that drew interest was to be held in Las Vegas (for the record I’ve never attended a conference in Vegas, but of all places I can’t think of one that would provide more distractions from any sort of productivity.) Our decision to host our own Falmouth deal was purely because had we spent the money for airfare, per diem, hotel rooms and conference registration, the cost would have soared who knows how high.
I haven’t finished reading the 1.5 inch-thick booklet that accompanies the training. But I did sit in on the two-day session that was held at the Education Division classroom, along with four other Council members and nearly the entire Enrollment Committee, plus various staff from Enrollment Dept., Member Services, and invariably, Legal.
To say that the training was “enlightening” might be a stretch, and somehow “informative” seems like an understatement. I can definitely say “insightful”, because the man who they sent to lecture us, Terry Rainey, also works for us through the Election Board. He is the tall professional-looking fellow sent down to oversee our Tribal Council elections as a third-party administrator. His knowledge of other tribes, while not scholarly, is somewhat encyclopedic–he know the goings-on of numerous tribes, and that information came in handy throughout our discussions.
Given that we met for 12 hours over two days, it would be hard to give a brief summary. While enrollment seems like a simple subject on its face, it becomes quite complex when you start getting into family histories, blood quantum (one tribe has got the denominator down to 2048), and the increasingly complicated realm of DNA-testing. In Grand Ronde we have a simple line, you are either a Tribal member or you ain’t. With other tribes its not quite so simple.
Some tribes, Rainey told us, have “standings” for their members. Felonious tribal members might find themselves getting less benefits. One tribe will garnish per capita should they prove that a man is selling his sperm. In the case Rainey cited, a fellow was penalized $500,000 in per capita for selling his sperm to five different women. Of course, that particular tribe also gives out $20,000 per month in per capita. Another tribe also penalized an incarcerated tribal member who impregnated two different women during conjugal visits.
Rainey also pointed out the chaos that ensues when tribal laws are inconsistent. With a tribe in the mid-West, one man was elected to the Chair position by reaching out to non-local members and campaigning on high per capita. It worked in the election. Problem was that same tribe could remove Council members with a certain number of votes at General Council meetings, which is precisely what happened. Not surprisingly, with such a law, Rainey added, that tribe had gone through eight chairs (presidents, actually) in 10 years, with only one serving the entire duration of the four-year term.
A lot of what this training confirmed for me was how chaotic many of the situations have become in Indian country, and not with just enrollment. My suspicions these days are that Indian gaming brought more problems, like high-stakes greed and power-mongering, that many tribes weren’t prepared to deal with, as is demonstrated by what appears to be loopholes in tribal laws and constitutions. I think sometimes that tribes must be very hard entities to work for, being constantly political, and stability more a dream than reality.
I believe enrollment, like gaming, is the one issue that symbolizes the struggles tribes must face, and even then it all boils down to a struggle for resources, to keeping the slices of pie thick versus thin. In many ways, its sad. I thought about all this during the training because it was obvious that there were people present who wanted the upcoming Constitutional election to crash and burn. As we introduced ourselves during day one, and revealed our expectations, even that took a political tone. The movement to amend our Constitution was blown off as people just wanting money and benefits. I had to bite my tongue on a couple of occasions. For one, it bothers me to no end to hear one or two Council members popping off about his whole issue when only two weeks previously they sat there at the General Council meeting and told the membership it was important to not have an opinion. Second, it would seem that opposing the amendment is fueled by a fear of getting less. Because if it cost us nothing (or little), but would mean a better life for others, why on earth would we oppose it?
Insightful, indeed.