Tribe Cancels Public Vote On Grazing Council Heatedly Debates Whether Non-Indians Should Be Permitted To Run Cattle On Tribal Lands

The Colville tribal council Thursday rescinded a plan for a second membership vote on whether non-Indian residents of the Colville Reservation should be banned from raising cattle on the reservation.

Thursday’s 6-2 vote came after three hours of sometimes heated discussion in which the planned referendum was likened to a defeated boxer trying to add a 16th round to a 15-round fight.

Councilman Lou Stone was the losing boxer in Councilwoman Margie Hutchinson’s analogy. She and others view Stone, chairman of the council Election Committee, as the leading proponent of the proposed ban on non-Indian cattle grazing.

Tribal members rejected the measure by a 3-2 margin, 270-176, in an advisory ballot at a closed membership meeting March 18. The margin of opposition was even stronger, 2-1, to proposals to jack up Indian ranchers’ grazing fees and to eliminate the open-range designation that protects ranchers from liability if their cattle get loose.

Stone said his three-member committee properly proposed both the advisory ballot and the scaled-down binding resolution that was to have been presented to voters June 17.

Several critics said the issue should have gone through the Natural Resources Committee, but Stone said that committee “elected not to discuss this.”

He said some of his constituents complained that the Colville Indian Livestock Association “intimidates the council, and they can’t stand up” to the ranchers. “I was hoping we could take the emotion out of it by letting the whole membership decide,” Stone said.

But Councilman Deb Louie, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, said the issue needed more careful consideration.

“You don’t just go out in one day and wipe out people’s whole livelihood,” Louie said. “We’ve got to have more class as a council than that.”

Louie said he doesn’t like having “cows up in our mountains,” but “there are ways of going about things.” He said the tribal government negotiated an agreement with the state government to ban non-Indians from hunting big game on the reservation, but unilateral attacks on non-Indians could backfire.

Other governments “aren’t going to just stand by when you start whacking their constituents,” Louie said, citing tribal casinos as potential targets for retaliation.

Still, several tribal members told the council they favor removing non-Indian ranchers from reservation land.

“They have far too many privileges on the reservation as it is,” Jim Best said.

Stella Runnels, 83, agreed: “We do not need them here. They have taken our river away from us, and they don’t give a damn about us. … If there is any white man here who has cattle, he better damn well sign them over to his Indian wife.”

The potential to split families is why Colville tribal member Virgil Allen opposed the referendum. He and many other Indians are married to non-Indians, and their children don’t have enough Indian blood to qualify for tribal membership.

Already, Allen said, his children can’t get tribal benefits, and the cattle-grazing ban would prevent him from passing his ranching business to them.

He was among some 30 people who packed into the council chamber Thursday. Many in the audience were tribal ranchers, who believe their cattle would be the next target of those who say cows pollute streams, trample culturally important plants and compete with wildlife.

Among council members, only Ted Bessette joined Stone in defending the referendum, and Bessette said little. Councilman Kevin Rosenbaum opened the door for the turnaround with a parliamentary maneuver that Stone contended was improper.

Rosenbaum voted for the measure last week, giving him the right to ask for reconsideration this week. Chairwoman Colleen Cawston and Councilman Mathew Dick Jr. praised Rosenbaum for giving council members who were absent last week a chance to be heard. Although Cawston votes only to break a tie, she added her voice to those who called the referendum ill-considered. She said the language is unclear, and could be construed as an attempt to tell non-Indian residents they can’t raise cattle on land they own, in addition to land they lease from the tribal government.

Voting to rescind the referendum were council members Dick, Hutchinson, Louie, Rosenbaum, Jeanne Jerred and Gene Joseph. Doc Mellon abstained, and Richard Swan left the room. Doll Watt, Mike Marchand and Bob Louie were absent.

Thursday’s action reflected a different mix of council members than the previous week, when Cawston presided while Stone, Watt, Marchand, Bessette and Rosenbaum voted to put the referendum before voters. Swan abstained last week, and other council members were absent.