Representation, participation, and influence: Comparing Native American advocacy with organized interests at the federal level

ABSTRACT

American Indians occupy a unique space in U.S. politics because they act as governments, businesses, and citizen groups. Yet studies of organized interests and intergovernmental lobbies rarely mention them. This study draws on original research on reported lobbying, reported lobbying expenditures, and advocacy efforts by tribal governments and organizations at the congressional hearing level. It compsares lobbying, lobbying expenditures, and congressional testimony by American Indians to that of organized interests and state and local governments to determine how well represented and successful Natives are in the legislative process. It finds that tribal governments and Native organizations lobby extensively on Indian affairs but constitute only a small portion of all lobbying, spend considerably less on lobbying than businesses and trade associations, and experience the most success in the legislative process when they unify in opposition to federal legislation.

KEYWORDS:

• Advocacy
• Legislation
• American Indians

Notes

¹ The time frame, 1998 to 2012, was chosen in order to compare the data to other studies using a similar time frame.

² The Indian/Native American Affairs issues index was used to identify tribal governments and organizations that reported lobbying in a given year (OpenSecrets, Indian/Native American Affairs, n.d.e). This list was then cross referenced with the Gaming, Gambling, and Casinos issues index (OpenSecrets, Gaming, Gambling, and Casinos, n.d.d). Some of the tribal governments and organizations that reported lobbying listed human rights as well as Indian affairs and/or gaming on their lobbying disclosure forms. Tribal governments were added to the list regardless of the issue upon which they reported lobbying. The list compiled from these indices does not match the list of tribal governments and organizations included in the OpenSecret’s Industry Lobbing bulk data file. These indices generate a list of 177 tribal governments. In comparison, only 169 tribal governments appear in the Industry Lobbying file. The following are not listed in the Industry Lobbying file: Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa-Chippewa Indians, Ione Band of Miwok Indians, Manzanita Band of Mission Indians, Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, Yurok Tribe. Moreover, lobby disclosure forms may undercount tribal governments and Native organizations lobbying before Congress because some tribal leaders may see visiting members of Congress or testifying before a congressional committee as part of their official duties and not feel that they have a duty to report.

³ I generated this percentage by dividing 325 by 566. It does not accurately represent the actual percentage because the number of tribes increased rather than remained constant over the time period studied. As a result, the actual percentage may be higher. I used data collected from the OpenSecrets issues indices described in footnote 1 to calculate this percentage and the proportion of tribal governments reporting lobbying in 2012.

⁴ I calculated this percentage by taking the number of large businesses identifying as reporting lobbying by Drutman (2015) in 2012 and dividing it by an estimate of all large businesses in the United States (3587/16055). The estimate of large businesses came from Thomas (2012). A large business is defined as “company with more than 500 employees” (Thomas, 2012). This estimate may not be perfect. As Drutman explains, these numbers may underrepresent the true percentage of large businesses engaged in corporate lobbying (Drutman et al., 2019).

⁵ A difference in proportion test showed that difference between the proportions of tribal governments and businesses lobbying was significant at the 0.00 level.

⁶ A difference in proportion test showed that difference between the proportions of tribal governments and cities with populations over 25,000 lobbying was significant at the 0.02 level.

⁷ I downloaded the Industry Lobbying data from the bulk downloads section of the OpenSecrets website (OpenSecrets, Bulk Data Documentation, n.d.a). The file includes 11,174 records.

⁸ Tribes consistently reporting spending over $200,000 annually on lobbying included the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the Gila River Indian Community, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the Oneida Indian Nation, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, and the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians.

⁹ In comparison, the Indigenous Affairs subcategory of the Comparative Bills Project database is much more limited with only 2909 bills for the same time period.

¹⁰ Representatives of state, local, or federal agencies (e.g., the Bureau of Indian Affairs) were not counted as Indian witnesses even if the witness identified as Indian and spoke to the Indian issues in the bill because the witness was not representing Indians. For similar reasons, I also excluded friends of the Indians, e.g., non-profits that seek to assist Indians but are not made up of Indians such as the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

¹¹ I relied on the issue identification done by OpenSecrets to determine Indian affairs. For information on OpenSecrets issue areas, see https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-issues. OpenSecrets identifies issues based on self-reporting by lobbyists on Lobbying Disclosure Forms.

¹² Comparison of Indian-related bills with hearings with Indian testimony and Indian-related bills with hearings without Indian testimony indicates that a majority, 99%, of Indian-related bills with hearings without Indian testimony were not assigned to a committee with jurisdiction over Indian affairs. Similarly, less than one quarter, 23%, of these bills created Indian affairs policy. These findings suggest that Natives were more likely than non-Natives to testify on Indian-related bills that made Indian affairs policy and/or were considered by an Indian affairs committee. See Table A2 in the Appendix.

¹³ I suspect that federal agencies, which historically have had tremendous influence over federal Indian policy, testified on a high percentage of Indian-related bills without Indian testimony, but I have not tested this hypothesis.

¹⁴ Bills on the status of Native Hawaiians may account for the high number of Indian witnesses in the 106th Congress. These bills often attracted written submissions by Native Hawaiians.

¹⁵ This finding is confirmed by comparisons between Indian-related bills with hearings with Indian testimony and Indian-related bills with hearings without Indian testimony. Over three-fourths, 77%, of Indian-related bills with hearings without Indian testimony are general bills.

¹⁶ Scholars have regularly divided Indian related bills into three types: (1) pan-tribal bills, which have an overriding purpose of developing federal Indian policy by addressing an issue faced by all Indian Nations or Indians; (2) tribe specific bills, which address a specific issue for one or a few but not all tribes; and (3) general bills, which have a main substantive focus other than Indians (such as health, education, employment, etc.) but specifically include Indians (Carlson, 2015; Wilkinson, 1987).

¹⁷ Indian witnesses cannot be directly compared to the other groups due to the research design. Tribal government witnesses serve as a good proxy for comparison purposes. They represent almost half of all Indian witnesses and testified at 84.6% of the hearings on Indian related bills with Indian witnesses.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Law and Social Science Program under Grant 1353255.