U.S. House candidate from South Dakota calls for ending Indian reservations

A Republican candidate for South Dakota's U.S. House seat is calling for an end to the reservation system for Native Americans.

Neal Tapio, a state senator from Watertown, said the current system in which Indian tribes are sovereign entities within designated trust lands is a system that has failed generations of Native Americans. Tapio said the majority of people living on reservations are victims of "incest and molestation" leading to welfare dependence, despair and high suicide rates.

"To continue down the same path is simply wrong," Tapio said in a telephone interview. "We need to address the system, not just the symptoms. We need to renegotiate the treaties that are holding down a once very proud people."

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There are nine federally recognized tribes in South Dakota. Nationally, there are 573 tribes on 326 land areas recognized as reservations, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Tribes hold more than 56 million acres of land in trust.

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South Dakota's reservations are among the poorest places in the United States. But Steve Emery, the secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tribal Relations and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said Tapio's proposal would be deeply unpopular in Indian Country.

"I know that both tribal members and tribal governments in the state would be very opposed to it," Emery said.

Ending the reservation system would entail breaking treaties that the federal government signed with tribes. Congress has the power to pass legislation superseding those treaties.

Tapio said he hadn't spoken with tribal leaders about his proposal, but felt it was important to start a conversation as tribal leaders and the state officials hadn't done enough to improve conditions on the reservation.

"I’m not saying that I have the answers, but I’m saying we have to start down completely different path," Tapio said.

Tapio accused his opponents in the race, Dusty Johnson and Shantel Krebs, of supporting a system that has "line(d) the pockets of current and former state employees" while the needs of Native Americans go unmet.

Johnson said he agrees that the reservation system is not working, but he believes it's important for the U.S. government to work with the tribes rather than acting unilaterally. The country, he added, has moral and legal obligations to Native Americans.

"The reservation system doesn't work," Johnson said. "It's a failure of American socialism. In that way, reform is clearly needed."

Krebs, who worked closely with tribes to address voting issues as secretary of state, did not respond.