Montana Republican Looks to Change Indian Reservation System

A Montana state lawmaker is running a resolution to “investigate alternatives to the American Indian reservation system” as tribal governments around the country have begun to gain increased recognition of their sovereignty.

Earlier this winter, Republican state Senator Keith Regier introduced a resolution that, if adopted, would urge the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to examine the more than century-old reservation system and, eventually, push previously sovereign tribes and the lands they control to assimilate with the United States.

The two-page resolution claims the Indian reservation system was “created in a different time and place and under circumstances that no longer exist,” establishing a race-based dichotomy between Indigenous tribes and U.S. citizens that has led to rampant levels of “drug abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, welfare dependence, poverty, and substandard educational achievements.”

That dynamic, the resolution claims, has resulted in a “lack of opportunity for their future well-being and happiness.”

“We believe the investigation of alternative ways of approaching the reservation system can and will produce a new system that will enhance the lives, the happiness, and the opportunities for our Indian citizens while at the same time promoting peace, harmony, and stability for all,” the resolution reads.