As the Senate vote was tallied around party lines (with Sen Shiozawa dissenting and joining the democrats to vote nay) on HCR 11 – Concurrent Resolution Urging the President to Rescind the Bears Ears National Monument, and as the resolution was prepped for a fast track signature by Governor Gary Herbert, not all of those in attendance were pleased.

Moroni Benally, a Native spokesman pointed to the irony of Utah’s politicians decrying the intrusion on their sovereignty while ignoring that of First Nations peoples whom the Bears Ears National Monument honored. “I’m incensed that they would claim that all of the Native American people were consulted and agreed that the monument designation was a bad idea.”

He went on to describe that the U.S. Constitution designates native peoples as sovereigns themselves, yet in HCR11, they were being denied the voice that the federal government had acknowledged.

Benally’s comments, in his own words, are presented as an audio file here.

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