American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights

by Laughlin McDonald

The struggle for voting rights was not limited to African Americans in the South. American Indians also faced discrimination at the polls and still do today. This book explores their fight for equal voting rights and carefully documents how non-Indian officials have tried to maintain dominance over Native peoples despite the rights they are guaranteed as American citizens. Laughlin McDonald has participated in numerous lawsuits brought on behalf of Native Americans in Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. This litigation challenged discriminatory election practices such as at-large elections, redistricting plans crafted to dilute voting strength, unfounded allegations of election fraud on reservations, burdensome identification and registration requirements, lack of language assistance, and noncompliance with the Voting Rights Act. McDonald devotes special attention to the VRA and its amendments, whose protections are central to realizing the goal of equal political participation. McDonald describes past and present-day discrimination against Indians, including land seizures, destruction of bison herds, attempts to eradicate Native language and culture, and efforts to remove and in some cases even exterminate tribes. Because of such treatment, he argues, Indians suffer a severely depressed socioeconomic status, voting is sharply polarized along racial lines, and tribes are isolated and lack meaningful interaction with non-Indians in communities bordering reservations. Far more than a record of litigation, American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights paints a broad picture of Indian political participation by incorporating expert reports, legislative histories, newspaper accounts, government archives, and hundreds of interviews with tribal members. This in-depth study of Indian voting rights recounts the extraordinary progress American Indians have made and looks toward a more just future.

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[David Martínez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a non-Indian attorney who has represented multiple tribal plaintiffs as part of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, McDonald delivered an informed and impassioned argument on behalf of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its application to Indian Country. In addition to chapters covering the history of federal Indian law and policy and an explanation of how the VRA, in particular Sections 4 and 5, McDonald focuses on Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, which correspond to the cases he has led against state and local governments that have violated Indian voting rights through such tactics as literacy tests, drawing unequal legislative districts, exploiting at-large elections and polarized voting, all of which, in the context of hostile Indian-white relations going back to when these states were still territories, inevitably leads to the suppression of the Indian vote. Although McDonald's, published in 2010, appeared before the infamous 'Shelby County v Holder (2013)' case, which vacated Sections 4b and 5 of the VRA, this book is still an important contribution to the field of Voting Rights scholarship. Indeed, I would say that this book makes a compelling argument for regarding the voting franchise as significant to two major issues for Indigenous nations in the United States, namely the federal trust relationship and sovereignty. If the US is sincere about supporting tribes in their effort at nation-building and self-determination, then they need to support the VRA provisions that can protect tribes from state governments that all too often want to disempower Indigenous people from having their voices heard. As sovereignty, Indigenous people need to think about voting less as a colonial institution and more as a tool, even a weapon, against the colonization that surrounds them.

[Lillian Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for everyone - ESPECIALLY my Indigenous brothers and sisters!