Western Congressional candidates discuss indigenous issues at Thursday forum

More needs to be done at the federal level to ensure Native Americans in Montana have equitable access to things like healthcare and voting, candidates for Montana’s western congressional district said on Thursday.

The three Democratic candidates for Montana’s western congressional participated in a forum held by Western Native Voice focusing on issues facing the state’s native population. All candidates were invited, but only Tom Winter, Monica Tranel and Cora Neumann agreed to participate. Two of Montana’s seven Indian Reservations are located in the western congressional district.

Keaton Sunchild, political director for Western Native Voice, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for Native rights in Montana, said that half of its members believe their access to healthcare is inadequate and asked the candidates how they would address the disparities if elected to Washington, D.C.

In 2020, COVID-19 was the leading cause of death among Montana Native Americans, according to the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Neumann, a public health expert who has worked in the nonprofit sector for the last 25 years, called the health disparities between natives and non-natives “egregious” and advocated for more investment in the Indian Health Services.

“So making sure that there’s a full investment in IHS and also supporting tribal initiatives … So making sure that funding is readily available so that tribes can implement a health care system that really supports and meets their needs,” she said.

Along with more funding for IHS, Neumann called for more investment in indigenous scholarships to increase the number of indigenous healthcare workers.

“One of the major challenges is not only are there funding disparities, but there’s also the racism that individuals face when they seek care,” she said.

Monica Tranel, a former Olympian and current attorney, also called for more healthcare funding in Indian Country along with expanded healthcare access.

“The Indian Health Service should be able to negotiate independent contracts. The funding for the Indian Health Clinics is lower than the funding that we give to the VA … and that’s wrong, and we need to fix that,” she said. “In order to have proactive health care, we need to make sure that providers are available and serving all of our populations.”

To increase access to healthcare, Tranel proposed various options like expanding Medicare and Medicaid and increasing broadband for easier access to telehealth.

Like Neumann and Tranel, Winter, a former state legislator, also agreed that IHS is underfunded and pitched Medicare for all as a solution.

“The way to fix it is to actually advocate for health care for all … The idea that we’re going to fix this in some small way by tweaking tiny bits of law. We have tried for years, and they will still stop us. For-profit health care will always target the young, the poor, the native, the Black, Hispanic, for bad care and bad outcomes. We can do Medicare for All and still preserve the IHS,” he said.

In Montana, 60% of missing people are indigenous, and candidates were asked what they would do to bring that number down.

Winter praised the work already done, like the passage of the Savanna Act, which directs the Department of Justice to review, revise, and develop law enforcement and justice protocols to address missing or murdered Native Americans, and said he would collaborate with native partners to expand the work already being done.

“I would want to, of course, be of assistance but approach it with humility. The person who represents the state of mind, on the western portion of the state of Montana, has the ability to lend a helping hand essentially, or lend a good imprimatur of the people in the sovereign nations of Montana, to legislation being put forward by Native legislators who are not necessarily from here,” he said.

Tranel said there needs to be more investment in investigative resources to make sure children are being found and the perpetrators held accountable.

“The investigative resources that have been allocated to the reservations and the tribes need to be increased and bolstered so that we can really investigate what’s happening,” she said. “And when someone is missing, that we are investigating it quickly, swiftly, and with the same kind of force and reaction that we give to anyone, and especially white kids who are missing.”

And Neumann called for more action in congress and accountability for the agencies investigating the crimes.

“This is something that needs to continue to have a critical mass of legislators at the federal level, building coalitions to push this forward because we certainly have the funding for it,” she said. “And if we can make sure to hold the FBI and federal authorities accountable to the fact that families here are losing their loved ones with no repercussion and no justice, that can end.”

During the last legislative session, Republicans, citing election security concerns, pushed through a handful of bills that critics said would restrict voting access for Native Americans. On Thursday, each candidate was asked if they believed Montana’s elections were secure.

All candidates agreed that Montana’s elections were safe and secure but said the right to vote for Native Americans is not.

“I think this issue is one that has been brought up to just soften our confidence in our elections and to bring some kind of an institutional softening to our government and to our democracy. And I am very, very troubled that any kind of narrative has gotten any traction like this,” Tranel said.

Neumann echoed Tranel’s message. “That is really at the core of what’s deteriorating our democracy … voter suppression and trying to keep young people and traditionally marginalized communities from voting,” she said.

“Our state legislature and other legislatures … are coming for the voting rights of native people coming and also for the voting rights of young people, of poor people, of rural people. They’re doing this on purpose, so I want to reiterate to anyone listening here, that American elections are safe and secure, but your right to vote is not,” Winter said.

Mail-in ballots for the June 7 primary were mailed out on May 13.