Members of the Blackfeet Nation have voted to reform the tribe’s government and rewrite their constitution.
On July 8, enrolled Blackfeet members voted in an informal poll that asked if they wanted to change the tribe’s current form of government many have blamed for its political issues in recent years. The final vote tally was 412 people in favor of change and 255 against.
For more than a year, tribal members have been meeting to talk about reform. Blackfeet Tribal Business Council member Joe McKay, who has organized most of the gatherings, said those meetings would continue this fall in an effort to educate members about what is wrong with their current government and how it can be changed. McKay, who is also an attorney, said although he is a tribal council member, his work on constitutional reform has nothing to do with that position.
“People have always been getting upset with the tribal council and they always yell and scream that the system is broken. But then there is an election and a new council gets to work and people say the system works again,” he said. “But that’s not true. The system is broken.”
One of the biggest criticisms of the Blackfeet government – or any tribal government established through the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934 – is that there is no separation of powers and the tribal council controls everything. That dysfunction was on full display in 2012 and 2013, when the tribal council split into two factions and the government had to shut down on multiple occasions.
In June 2008, voters on the Blackfeet reservation overwhelmingly passed a referendum to reform the constitution and implement a government with three branches, much like Crow Nation did in 2001. A constitutional committee was established, but after a few years the effort faltered.
McKay said he believes this time around will be different because it is a grassroots effort. However, there is no timeline for when a constitutional convention would be held and McKay noted that it took another tribe more than a decade to reform their government.