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[source: NativeNews; Sun, 13 Feb 2000 10:48:20]
 

distributed via Nativeamericanlaw list
 
Bradley no hero in South Dakota

WASHINGTON (AP) - Should presidential hopeful Bill Bradley
win the Democratic nomination, his campaign is likely to hit
a brick wall in South Dakota. Make that a Black Hill.

Bradley, a hero in New York and other states because of his
playing days with the NBA's New York Knicks, has a less
favorable legacy in South Dakota. As a senator from New
Jersey in the 1980s, he sponsored legislation to return the
Black Hills to the Sioux Indians, a wildly unpopular move
in the state.

"He's more likely to win another NBA championship than the
general election in South Dakota," quipped Rep. John Thune,
a Republican who represents the entire state.

Bradley discusses the legislation at length in his 1996
memoir, "Time Present, Time Past."

As a Knick in the early 1970s, he and teammate Phil Jackson
would travel to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South
Dakota and give basketball clinics. Eventually Bradley was
made an honorary member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe,
and in 1983, in his first term in the Senate, "several
Lakota Sioux visited me with a request to redress an old
wrong," Bradley wrote.

He goes on to describe how the United States, in 1868,
signed a treaty setting aside the western half of South
Dakota, including the Black Hills, for the Sioux. Six years
later, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and white
prospectors swarmed the land. The resulting battles
culminated in the Battle of Little Big Horn, where General
Custer and more than 300 of his soldiers were killed.

Congress responded by voting to cut off all food, medicine
and blanket rations until the Sioux gave up 7.3 million
acres of land including the Black Hills, which some did the
following year, 1877. Lakota's claim the number of
signatories was not enough to usurp the 1868 Fort Laramie
Treaty.

"They literally gave up gold mines for welfare checks,"
Bradley wrote.

A century later, in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
the government had illegally seized the Black Hills, and
upheld a $105 million award to eight Sioux tribes (the value
of the land in 1877 - $17.5 million - plus interest).

The Sioux refused to take the money, however, holding out
for the land, which they consider sacred. In the meantime,
the award has been put in a government account, earning
interest.

A request for help from eight Sioux tribes struck a chord
with Bradley.

"The suggestion was a big-picture reform that remedied
injustice," Bradley wrote. "I had gotten into politics to do
exactly that."

Bradley drafted legislation that would return 1.3 million
acres of land in the western part of the state to the Sioux,
including the parts of the Black Hills owned by the U.S.
government. The Sioux would also receive the Supreme Court
award, which by the mid-80s was approaching $200 million.

Bradley wrote that he tried to take into account the
political environment in South Dakota by exempting private
land, Mt. Rushmore, Ellsworth Air Force Base, and federal
courthouses; grandfathering timber, mining and grazing
rights; and preserving rights of free passage through the
1.3 million acres.

That didn't quite do it.

"Introducing the Black Hills bill was like dropping a match
onto a pile of oil-soaked rags," he wrote.

"It was very controversial at the time," recalled Thune, who
was working for Sen. James Abdnor, R-S.D. "It had people in
South Dakota very much worked up."

The South Dakota congressional delegation strongly opposed
the bill, calling Bradley an intrusive Easterner trying to
impose a divisive solution.

"Even the late Governor George Mickelson, who launched the
Year of Reconciliation and later the century of
reconciliation, did not want to approach the Black Hills
issues," said Bob Burns, distinguished professor and
chairman of the political science department at South
Dakota State University in Brookings.

Indeed, Mickelson, who was governor at the time, met with
Bradley and presented him with a detailed memo that argued,
among other things, that the Sioux had no historical claim
to the land.

Not all the opposition was as reasoned. Bradley received
hundreds of letters, some of which threatened physical
violence if he ever set foot in the state. And South
Dakota's attorney general, Mark Meierhenry, suggested giving
New Jersey to Sicily, because "most of us recognize that
Sicilians run and own New Jersey anyway."

Bradley called it a "gross smear of Italian Americans,".
 

 -" ...it was meant to match the stupidity of his bill with
the stupidity of my comment." Meierhenry said.

Meierhenry, now a personal injury lawyer in Sioux Falls,
joked he may have to move to Mexico if Bradley becomes
president.

"Looking back, I was wrong but so was he," Meierhenry said.
"Every restaurant I went in I was a hero because I told that
dumb-ass Bradley where to get off."

Prospects for the bill, remote in any event, evaporated when
two Sioux tribes withdrew their support, enticed by a rival
effort by a man claiming to be part Sioux to seek $3.1
billion in compensation,and return the entire Black Hills -
which also went nowhere.

Bradley campaign spokeswoman Kristen Ludecke said that
without a consensus among the Sioux, Bradley would not push
the proposal again as president.

"He continues to believe there is an injustice and the
problem is still there. If there was a consensus, and it
didn't impose a hardship on South Dakota, he'd be
interested," she said, adding that Bradley still believes
his legislation did not impose a such a hardship.

South Dakota's June primary is so late as to be irrelevant
to the nominating process, but should Bradley advance to the
general election, some politicians think he would have a
hard time winning votes in the state.

"When his name comes up, invariably it's linked" to the
Black Hills bill, said Thune. "That's what people think of
when they hear Bill Bradley."

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said Bradley's sponsorship of the
bill would "be a bit of political baggage."

But Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota's
senior senator, said Democratic candidates for president are
generally doomed in the state anyway.

"If you look at the record for Democratic presidential
candidates, we haven't won one since 1964," he said.

The Bradley campaign argues voters will look beyond the
Black Hills issue.

"He's always been straightforward about where he stands.
Often people respect his honesty even if they disagree with
him on a particular issue," said spokeswoman Ludecke,
reiterating a central campaign message.

And the issue is likely to help Bradley with American
Indians, who make up about 9 percent of the state's
population.

"I know the majority of Sioux voters will vote for Bradley
because of his support for the Black Hills bill," said Gregg
Bourland, tribal chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux.

"It's the birthplace for the Sioux nation. It's our
spiritual homeland. It's equivalent to what Jerusalem is to
the Israelis, Palestinians and Christians. Only one senator
has stood up for the great Sioux nation to have our homeland
returned to us, and that was Senator Bradley."
 

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