American Indian Policy in the States

Abstract

Objectives We investigate whether American Indian legislation is prevalent in state legislative agendas. Methods We examine proposed and passed legislation in states for the years 1998–2007. Results Our findings suggest that states with legislative and executive institutions that address Native issues, as well as larger American Indian constituencies, are more likely to initiate and pass American Indian legislation. We also find that states with larger legislative agendas propose and pass more Native legislations, although the amount of Native legislation has been dropping in recent years. Conclusion Native legislation is on the state policy agenda and both Indian Nations and state governments influence the size of the Native policy agenda.

Incorporating Native American History into the Curriculum: Descriptive Representation or Campaign Contributions?*

“…Our analyses suggest these interactions are especially pronounced with political campaign contributions. Forced interactions with U.S. state governments—the result of devolved federal power (see Witmer et al., for a discussion)—has necessitated that Native American nations adapt politically and vie for power like other interest groups.…”

“…While these studies help us understand local politics and the interactions between tribal and local governments, in most instances the focus is on issue areas that directly affect indigenous governance and sovereignty. We shift the focus to a policy type that impacts all citizens, and that is the most common type of Native American policy proposal: the recognition of identity and culture (Witmer et al., ). In doing so, we elucidate the mechanisms at work when it comes to policy bargaining between Indian nations and U.S. states.…”

“…Thus, in this article we ask two related questions involving whether and when : What explains the adoption of policies mandating Native American history be incorporated into the state education curriculum, and what explains the timing of the passage of these policies? The answers to these questions are important as Native American legislation makes up a sizable portion of many state agendas, and policies involving the recognition of culture and identity are among the most commonly proposed types of Native American legislation (Witmer et al., ).…”

Text as Policy: Measuring Policy Similarity through Bill Text Reuse

“…The NCSL is a nonpartisan organization that provides informational assistance to state legislatures, and maintains databases of state‐level legislation and law (Rivera, ). The NCSL tables are regularly used in state politics research to identify comparable bills and policies across states (see, e.g., Brown, ; Commins & Wills, ; Marquez & Schraufnagel, ; Witmer, Johnson, & Boehmke, ; Ybarra, Sanchez, & Sanchez, ). We collected a sample of these tables with the following procedure: Collect all URLs returned by the web search query: “site:ncsl.org ‘legislation.aspx”’ Sample 100 URLs Select bills that fulfill the following three conditions: The website is a NCSL table The table refers (at least in part) to legislation introduced in 2011 or later The table contains less than 100 individual bills Collect all bills from these tables …”

Civic engagement and political participation among American Indians and Alaska natives in the US

“…Given the nature of the Electoral College and overall power of numbers in elections in the U.S., at first glance the relatively small population numbers of this community may lead many to question the relevance of this population to electoral politics. However, it is important to recognize that this population is concentrated in several states where their political voice is more pronounced (Conner 2014, Witmer, Johnson, and Boehmke 2014). Geoff Peterson (1997) notes that while AI/ANs are only 2 percent of the total voting age population, their concentration in states with low population makes them important political actors.…”