Kaine: Monacan recognition hinges on floor-vote strategy

The bid to get federal recognition for the Monacan Indians and other Virginia tribes has enough votes to pass the Senate, provided it can make it to the floor for a vote, said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a sponsor of the bill.

“We’re trying to strategize how to do that now,” said Kaine, D-Va., adding he’s encouraged the bill already got an early nod of approval in committee.

“If I can get it on the floor for a vote, it’s going to pass,” he said. “I won’t lose any Democratic votes on this, and I have a lot of Republicans who will vote for it, and did vote for it in committee.”

The Monacans and five other tribes already long-recognized by the state have been seeking federal recognition since the 1990s.

The status would unlock grants and other services, and also give the tribes legal standing to request the return of cultural artifacts.

“We believe federal recognition is our civil right and a matter of human justice,” said Sharon Bryant, chief of the Monacan Indian Nation rooted in Amherst County.

The tribe, which has about 2,300 members nationwide, remains cautiously hopeful about the federal legislation, Bryant added.

“We bring the same hope every time we submit this bill,” she said. “Because we do believe it is our right and we deserve — our people, our ancestors and our future — deserve this federal recognition.”

The bill seeking recognition has passed the House of Representatives before, most recently in 2009, but always fizzled in the Senate.

But Kaine, a supporter of tribal recognition since his days as governor, said the biggest stumbling block always was staunch opposition from Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, who’d put a hold on the bills and block them from reaching a final vote out of a conviction these decisions should be made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not Congress.

Advocates, in turn, note the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ extensive, records-heavy requirements put most Virginia tribes at a disadvantage.

The Virginia tribes made peace with settlers early on, prior to the formation of the United States, leaving them without U.S. treaties.

In later centuries, destruction of records repositories during the Civil War and a state policy — sometimes referred to as “paper genocide” — that prevented tribe members from claiming their heritage on government records further decimated their documentation.

Coburn retired last year. Kaine said representatives are reaching out to other opponents and hope to persuade them to allow this year’s bill to advance to a floor vote.

“The good news is this thing gets just a little more every year,” he said, noting the latest bill already cleared its committee vote in March, giving supporters some 21 months to negotiate a floor vote before the 114th Congress ends.

The denial of federal recognition is an injustice highlighted near Capitol Hill itself, where the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian has a permanent exhibit on the Virginia Indians, Kaine said.

“That is a unit of the federal government that is recognizing our tribes, but only as a museum piece and not as a living group of people,” he said, calling it a “bizarre, Kafkaesque” disconnect.

The recognition bill wouldn’t allow the six tribes to run gambling operations unless state law is changed to allow it — an attempt to cut off a frequent point of contention that’s rearing its head in a separate request being pursued by the Pamunkey Indians in King William County.

Bryant said the focus on gambling in these debates is an insult to the tribes.

“What does gambling have to do with my blood and my descendancy,” she said, adding recognition is about acknowledging the tribes and securing grants to improve housing, education, health care and other priorities.

“Those are the things we’re interested in and want to have access to in order to change our people’s lives and improve their quality of life,” she said.

The recognition bill is sponsored in the Senate by Kaine and Sen. Mark Warner. In the House, it’s carried by Virginia Congressmen Rob Wittman, Bobby Scott, Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer.

If approved, it will confer recognition on the Monacan, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Nansemond tribes.

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