WEBVTT - The Pivot 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.320 It was on the second page. The tagline was if 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:09.320 it stinks, will find it eventually. This is Louise Redcorn. 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.480 She's a journalist. She used to run The Big Heart Times, 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.439 the newspaper that published that list of all the non 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.560 os aged head right holders back in two thousand nine. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.440 The papers had a lot of taglines over the years. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.680 The former owner of the paper had it just been 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.360 the only newspaper in barn in the Barnstall area that 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:31.840 gives a deadly and I thought, no, that's just not 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.200 good enough. So I changed it to the only newspaper 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.599 in the world. And they came over and they're like, Louise, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.519 that's just a really gross exaggeration. Louise works for the 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.080 oth Age News now. She's married to Raymond Redcorn, the 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.920 former assistant Principal chief who delivered the bid for the 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.120 Blue Stem acquisition. These days, Louise mostly covers the oth 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.760 Age Nation, but she's been a lot of her career 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.560 writing county news. And you can't cover Ocge County without 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.080 covering the Drummonds. I mean, I've written a lot of 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.040 stories about them, from you know, speeding tickets to assaults 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.759 to exaggerated statistics at the mercantile in terms of how 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:16.080 busy they are. These stories date back a while speeding 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.760 tickets that were dismissed at the time of Drummond punched. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.920 A police officer getting a Drummond represented him in court 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.600 and the man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanors. Saw an 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.960 officer a story about read Drummonds mercantile and Pahuska. Whether 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.240 it was actually seeing that thousands of visitors a day, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.440 she said it was. I think sometimes there is the 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.960 afore aforementioned hutzpah that they don't always follow the rules 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.160 the way everybody else does. A lot of people cow 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.720 tow to them, cow tow to the dramas and just 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.360 sort of give them a green light. And I think 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.600 the reason in Pahuska is that the Drummonds have done 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.080 a hell of a lot of good for Pahuska. You know, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:05.120 sales tax collections are between thirty and over pre mercantile times. 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.960 They built a new football field at the high school. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.160 They're they're in the process of building an animal shelter 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.200 that and they've never sought I mean, they've kept those 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.240 things secret almost I mean, they just had not even 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.959 ever claimed credit for those for those two items. So 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.480 I mean there's a certain amount of gratitude that is natural. 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.320 I've heard this from other people too, that there are 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:35.079 Drummonds today who have helped revitalize POSCA. They've brought jobs, tourists, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.960 money to a place that needed it, that they've given 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.359 back to the community. And not everyone feels that way, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.400 of course, But what Louise is talking about here, it 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.000 gets at the complexity of it all, the complexity of 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.280 a place shaped by a hundred years of history, with 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:57.320 shifting rules and fortunes and power dynamics, a place where 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.160 tremendous wealth was lost and gain. My families were still 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.240 neighbors who run into each other at the store, we're dinner, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.680 we're Friday night football games. In that complexity, it doesn't 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.840 just describe the relationship between the Drummonds and the os 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.320 Age Nation, because there's another character in this story that's 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:23.840 been here all along, the United States Government. Howid hey 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:30.240 who agree tjo wash Nikahi are. My name is Jeane Dennison. 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.760 I'm a citizen of the Nation from Oklahoma and an 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.200 associate professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.360 Jean was one of the first people I interviewed for 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.920 this story. I was nervous. I was an oil reporter 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.080 from Houston. A lot of this history I was learning 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.200 about for the first time. I couldn't figure out if 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.040 the trust relationship with the US government was a good thing, 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.280 We're a bad thing if os Age citizens liked it. 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.880 And Jeane told me I wasn't going to find one answer. 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.880 She said over and over again that this story, the 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.720 oth Age nation story, is really complicated. When Jane and 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.560 I talked this last time, it was about that trust 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.680 relationship with the US government, something oth Age leaders have 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.240 fought tirelessly for for over a century. Something they want 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.640 to use today to protect the land they bought from 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.360 Ted Turner by putting it back into trust with the US. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.960 I wanted to ask Jean, why why pursue the trust 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.919 relationship if it's been so flawed in the past and 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.039 occasionally even today. I guess I wanted to know why 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:46.200 bother there was a lot of failures to honor the 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.159 kinds of promises that were made in these treaties by 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.200 the United States government, but ultimately these treaties really did 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:58.120 offer the United States um access to our lands, but 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:02.880 they also offered oth Ages is the ability to UM 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.240 have some kind of protection against other kinds of threats. 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.400 So that's really what this trust relationship was about, was 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:24.760 this ability to have UM increased protection against the threats 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.400 that were rising in our territories. In other words, the 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.200 federal government was a tool, a tool to keep the 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.359 state out of the oath Age nation. Jean says it 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.960 was a flawed one, but it was the best tool 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.640 the oth Age Nation had at the time. And so 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.520 what we see again and again UM is these kinds 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.320 of looking at the world around us and trying to 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.400 figure out what are the tools, what are the things 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.640 that we can do to make this pivot again and 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.600 again looking at the situation around us and saying, Okay, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.880 structures that we have in place right now are not 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.960 working for us. They're creating more chaos than they are 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:17.920 creating order, and so we're going to pivot. The o 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.479 Stage Nation is in the middle of a pivot, one 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.240 that involves land, oil, and sovereignty that will determine the 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.080 future of who controls these nearly one point five million 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:38.400 acres and how this is in trust. I'm Rachel Adams 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.800 heard and in this episode, you're also going to be 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:47.000 hearing from someone else, Alison Edita. She's a contributing reporter 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.040 on the series, and she's here to help me explain 0:06:50.200 --> 0:07:06.400 this pivot. I did a presentation for the Stage Nation 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.240 employees back. I believe it was in two thousand and 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.440 nine or two thousand and ten. This is Elizabeth Sloha Homer, 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.200 the lawyer in d C who sits on the O 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.880 Stage Nations Supreme Court. I had told people, I had 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.239 said this before the Rby decision came down. If there's 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.840 any justice left in America, the oh stages win the 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.040 Irby case. The Irby case, this is just one and 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.200 a whole bunch of reservation cases in recent years that 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:41.119 are incredibly important for understanding where everything stands today, where 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:46.800 the state's jurisdiction ends, in tribal nations jurisdiction begins. No 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.960 one's covered these cases more closely than Allison Edita, the 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.400 Indigenous affairs reporter for KOs U, a public radio station 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.600 in Oklahoma. She's going to help me out on this one, 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:04.400 Alison so Irby. It was a case about taxation, whether 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.200 the state could collect income taxes from O s Age 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.400 citizens who live and work in os Age County. But 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.120 just like all of these cases, the Irby case was 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.440 about something much bigger than that, because at the center 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.320 of it was a question was there still an O. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.400 S Ge reservation or had it been disestablished when the 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.760 US divided up all the surface land into parcels under 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.760 the nineteen o six Altman app I talked to a 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.520 lot of federal Indian law experts and they all pretty 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.560 much said no, the O. S Age Reservation was never disestablished. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.880 The nineteen o six Act did a lot of things, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.120 but it didn't get rid of the reservation. That's what 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.240 Elizabeth was saying in that presentation back she thought the 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.840 os Age Nation had an even better case than a 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.439 lot of other tribal nations because of the O. S 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.800 Age mineral estate and all the underground land that the 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:59.480 os Age Nation thought to hold onto. Then the decision hit. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.240 I was sitting in front of my computer at my desk, 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.000 and I got an electronic copy of Herby and started 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.640 reading it. And the next thing I know, I'm like 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.880 having a hard time breathing, you know, I was just, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:22.439 oh my god, this is the worst, the worst opinion. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.640 The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.319 ruled the O s Age Nation reservation had been disestablished, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:35.160 that it was no longer Indian country. And so to me, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.480 the Irby decision truly struck me as there is no 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.760 justice left in the United States, And as an officer 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.880 of the Court and a lawyer for my entire life, 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:54.600 my entire career, that that just was emotionally wrenching, devastating 0:09:54.640 --> 0:10:02.120 to me because it was so wrong, so wrong. In 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.680 the decade after the Rby decision, the OCGE Nation tried 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.679 to find a path forward, another way to get its 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.480 reservation recognized by the Court, but they were kind of stuck. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.840 You can't bring the same case twice. The Court had ruled, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.880 and it ruled that the O C reservation was disestablished. 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.160 But then we'll hear argument first this morning case eight 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.800 McGirt versus Oklahoma, Mr. Chief Justice, and may have pleased 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:38.359 the court. Something big happened another case mcgert the Oklahoma 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.480 This case is resolved by the fundamental propositions that decisions 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.720 about sovereign rights so for Congress to make, and Congress 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.880 makes those decisions by speaking clearly in the text, the 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.880 decision below must be reversed because the text makes clear 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.839 that Congress never terminated the Creek Reservation and never transferred 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.400 federal criminal jurisdiction to Oklahoma. Mc group was enough case 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.400 involving a reservation in Oklahoma, but this time it was 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:08.160 the Misgogy Nation reservation, also known as the Muscogee Creek Nation. 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.520 This case was about a felony crime and whether it 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.160 should be prosecuted in federal or state court, But just 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.440 like the Irby case, it was also about something much bigger, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:24.160 whether the Misgogy Nations reservation still existed. The mcgurt case 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.480 went all the way up to the Supreme Court. It 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.440 was decided on July nine, the last day before the 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.680 court said it would recess, and as someone who has 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.960 covered indigenous affairs for a while, I'll just never forget it. 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.760 This was one of the biggest wins for tribal sovereignty 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.120 in decades. The highest court in the land ruled that 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.640 the Misgogy Nation reservation still existed. The allotment era when 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.320 the US government divided up native land didn't change that. 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.520 In the months after the mcgurt decision, other tribal nations 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.640 in Oklahoma asked state courts to apply the ruling to 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:04.080 their own reservations. The Chickasaw Cherokee Choked On Nation Seminal 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.000 and Quapa they had their reservation status as affirmed too, 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.280 but it hadn't been applied to the se Nation, at 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:20.160 least not yet. McGirt is um is a case in 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:25.000 my mind of one of great hope but also great pain. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.320 This is Wilson pipe Stem, the attorney who's represented the 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.600 os Age Nation and the oth Age Minerals Council. You 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.720 heard from him a couple of episodes ago. Alison and 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.920 I went to his office and Pulsa over the summer 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.280 to talk to him about these cases, how they affect 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.480 the Osage Nation, what O s Age leaders want to 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.160 do moving forward, and Wilson said one of the biggest 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.720 things McGirt highlighted to him was what could have happened 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.240 during the nineties if the os Age Reservation had been recognized, 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.480 that would have been federal jurisdiction over all of those murders. 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.640 But they treated the Sage Reservation like it didn't exist anymore. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.440 So they were bringing you had to bring a case 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.680 against somebody in O Sage County court where justice was 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.800 not to be found right. So it wasn't until somebody 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.439 was murdered on trust land, or Henry Rowan was murdered 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.760 on trust land that they decided it's federal jurisdiction. Now, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:26.040 to me, that shows you the protection that reservation status 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.760 can bring, because those cases would have would have been 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.960 federal jurisdiction to start with, and we may have been 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:41.600 able to avoid the loss of many lives if the 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.240 federal government had respected the homelands of the O s 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.640 h people and treated as a reservation as it should 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.040 have been for over a hundred years. Now, what Wilson 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.079 is talking about here gets at the importance of having 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.800 these reservations in the first place. It affects who gets 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.400 to tax you, protect you, and punish you. You know, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.480 there's just no doubt in my mind as a legal matter, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.760 the Sage Reservation was never disestablished. It just never was. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.200 The language is not in any of those laws. And 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.680 even when the tense Circuit Court of Appeals and Herby said, well, 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:17.600 we looked at all the statutes. We don't find any 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.240 language of disestablishments, so we'll go to these other things 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.040 that now McGirt in the Supreme Court has decided no, 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.160 you can't get past that first question. So um uh, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:34.160 the Sage reservation was never disestablished. Elizabeth and Wilson are 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 not the only ones who feel this way. The oth 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.680 Age leaders I've talked to our adamant their reservation still 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.560 exists and eventually they'll get the court to recognize that. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.600 And the sooner we can get to that ruling, the 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.080 easier the transition will be. This past year, the Sage 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.920 Nation piggybacked on a criminal case to try to get 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.320 the mcgert decision applied to them. They lost for the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.160 state district judge force Age County. But we've reached out 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.200 to the tribe. They said they're still weighing their options, 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.760 deciding the best way to move forward a pivot, but 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:16.200 that's not the only pivot the nation is planning when 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.880 we come back. We talked to the man leading another 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:30.040 big pivot. UMU. The kind of person that likes to 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:35.160 understand things, even though over again I realized how limited 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:43.720 we all are and trying to understand everything. It's been 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:48.360 on my mind day and night. And now, ladies and gentlemen, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:57.920 has some words to say to us is inaugural address? Yeah, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:08.960 there was a written stage kay on June. It was 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.880 less than two weeks ago an election in the state 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:19.080 of Oklahoma was held and in that election, several officials 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.960 of the state who have pledged opposition to the Native 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:34.320 American self governance one their primaries. That was illustrated the 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:40.680 next day June when the Supreme Court of the United 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:44.800 States of America ruled in the case of Castro A Wuerta. 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.840 This is Jeffrey standing Bear, the principal chief of the 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:54.360 Osage Nation. He's leading the tribe through all this how 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.040 to respond to the mcgart case in the current state 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:01.360 of Oklahoma politics. Standing Bears Chief who decided to bid 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.159 the maximount the Congress would allow back when the tribe 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.159 bought the land from Ted Turner, and over the summer 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.760 he won another term as chief. He gave his inauguration 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.560 speech at the Osge Casino in Tulsa, and during it 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.760 he kind of dropped a bomb. I looked to my 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.960 left and I saw our Minerals Council. Minerals Council, it's 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:29.480 time for you to fully manage our mineral estate for 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.560 our people. And I looked over to my right where 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:37.760 the Osage Congress, our legislature was sitting and said, Congress, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.520 we need you to enact the laws of the os 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:50.920 Age Nation to do this. What Chief Standing Bears proposing 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.159 is a big deal. After more than a century of 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.560 the Bureau of Indian Affairs managing the O. S H 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.680 Mineral Estate, the O s H Nation would be taking 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.240 it over. Are all the duties that fell to the 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.200 b a A would now be the O s Age 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:09.520 Nation's responsibility overseeing leases, making sure oil states get cleaned up. 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.560 This hasn't happened yet, and it still has a long 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.400 way to go. Part of the reason Standing Bear wants 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.520 to do this is pretty practical. He thinks the os 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.280 Age Nation can do a better job than the US government. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.000 The b i A is, after all, a federal bureaucracy. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.639 Stuff takes a long time. There's internal office politics, outdated software, 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.680 staffing issues. But Standing Bear says this is also about 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:40.440 something much bigger. All of our areas that are engaged 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.720 and sovereignty. In my view, the one area that is 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:49.120 most exposed is our O. S Age mineral state. So 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.760 we need to get in there, pre empt that with 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.320 self governance, and use that mineralist state as our people 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.200 who we purchased this naralist state in eighteen seven, need 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.280 too with our own money. Let us use it the 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.960 way our elders intended it for us to use it. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.399 Allison and I wanted to talk to Standing Bear after 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.800 he gave this speech. We wanted to know why now, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.640 why after so many decades, would the Stage Nation want 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.439 to take it over. So we called him just a 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.920 few days after that speech to ask him about it. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.600 This is a threat that's unique from the others. It 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:31.760 is a threat of control by the state on a 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:39.040 regulatory basis, taxation basis, criminal basis um. Those are powerful forces. 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.360 In other words, this is about keeping the state Oklahoma 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.760 out of the Stage Nation. And Standing Bear said it's 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.119 more important than ever because of how Oklahoma responded to 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.439 McGirt by bringing another case. He mentioned castro Berta, the U. S. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.160 Supreme Court ruling on criminal jurisdiction on tribal land in Oklahoma. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.440 So this ruling to day means the state of Oklahoma 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:06.760 can exercise criminal jurisdiction over non Native Americans on tribal land. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.520 This comes after the case of Oklahoma versus Castro Huerta, 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.640 which questions who could prosecute non tribal members who committed 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.520 crimes against Native Americans. And of course this ruling here 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.120 narrows the decision Regret versus Oklahoma, which said that Native 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.520 Americans another court case, I know, but this is important 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.720 because when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:34.159 Miskogee Nation, Oklahoma wasn't happy. On the other side of 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.800 all this is Kevin Stitt. He's the governor of Oklahoma 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.760 and his office has been at the forefront of trying 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.240 to undo mcgurt, that decision that meant so much for 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:50.040 tribal sovereignty. Still says by taking away the state's control, 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:54.320 Oklahoma risk becoming some sort of lawless land with thousands 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.520 of criminals released from jail. But Allison has done some 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.159 reporting on this. My reporting part Rebecca and Eagle and 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.320 I pulled data from all the tribes over three years 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.040 to see how many cases would actually be affected by 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.480 the mcgert decision, and what we found was fewer than 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.600 one thousand cases in Oklahoma were affected. But Oklahoma stands 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.320 by their number and that argument that thousands of criminals 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.159 would be released has been a pretty key part of 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.520 the state's response to mcgurt, and over the summer, Oklahoma 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.280 was successful in limiting the impact of mcgurt. The Supreme 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.040 Court ruled in the state's favor in the castral work 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.200 the case. Stick is running for re election this year. 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.760 It would be his second term as governor. He easily 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.600 won the primary in June, and his next stop is 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:55.720 the general election in November. In that election is also 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.399 where over a hundred years of o s Age Nation 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:03.520 history and Drummond history collide in the present day. Because, 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.800 as we've told you, the Republican candidate to become the 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.520 next Attorney General of the state, the chief law enforcement 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.200 officer for all of Oklahoma is the lawyer and big 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.959 landowner whose family has deep roots in os Age County, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:23.040 getting a Drummond. This is a pretty important role at 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.679 an even more important time, especially when it comes to 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.280 who gets to prosecute whom. The a g after all, 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.080 is the one who guides the state's response on matters 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.360 like this. During that first interview in his office, Gettner 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:39.520 said one of the things he was running on was 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.560 a promise, a promise to work more with tribal nations 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:50.440 in Oklahoma than still has with the Cacaffey surrounding the 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.520 moderate decision. Our governor for some reason just can't see 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.959 it in himself to act rationally, and so he's driven 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:01.000 a wedge between the name of American tribes in the 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:03.000 state of Oklahoma, and I can I think that I 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.560 can undo that. Tribal leaders in Oklahoma supported Getner, and 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.080 their support means a lot. When the final votes were 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.919 rolling in during the June primary, Choctaw Nation Chief Gary 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:18.120 Batten put out a statement saying this was a win 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.080 for tribal sovereignty. So here we have a drumming about 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.080 to be the next attorney general of the state, vowing 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.040 to work for tribal sovereignty at a time when the 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.880 chief of the Osage Nation sees an existential threat from 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.840 the state, a threat he's worried would affect the o 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.720 Sage mineral estate, the same one that members of Gettner's 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.720 family had fought to get a piece of a century ago. 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:46.000 If your head is spinning, so we're hours. We asked 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.240 standing Bear about what he thinks all this means how 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:52.679 this history impacts the state of play today, and his 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:57.720 answer was, basically, it's complicated, and not just because of 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:04.000 the Drummond's history in Osage County. During the election, we 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:09.360 met and I said, uh, I know, Gettner um pretty good. 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:13.919 He's he's a good guy in my mind, except his 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:20.440 views on protecting his ranch and service owners have come 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:24.880 into conflict with us in our mineralist state. I said, Getner, 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:30.520 if you would pledged not to sue os Age Nation 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:37.359 again on these issues between the surface land and the 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:42.720 mineralist state, I will ask for Minerals Council to support you, 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:46.800 and I would support you for Attorney General. He would 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:55.159 not do that. What standing Bear is saying here is 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:57.679 something we haven't told you about yet, but comes up 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:01.760 a lot in oth Age County, get As lawsuits. Get 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.720 Nurse firm brought a lot of lawsuits against oil companies 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:08.400 in the area on behalf of other landowners. He considers 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:11.040 himself a steward of the land. He has a lot 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:13.479 of it. After all, land that he says has been 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:17.280 damaged by oil and gas production that whole time, all 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:19.520 the royalties from that oil and gas are going to 0:25:19.560 --> 0:25:22.879 head right holders. If you injure the land, you fix it. 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:26.159 That's all. That's all I asked. I was litigating on 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:29.480 a case by case basis on my land. If you 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.280 dumped thousands of gallons of salt water. I would require 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:34.880 you to clean it up, and if you wouldn't clean 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:38.560 it up, then I'd suit you. But in Gettner and 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:42.000 his law firm did something more drastic. They bought a 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:46.080 lawsuit on behalf of an Osage rancher and another landowner 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:49.680 in o Sage County. When we'll stepped back in one 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:52.600 of my very intelligent attorneys in this law firm or 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:55.920 live as well, there's a NIPA National Environmental Protection Act, 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:58.320 and let's go use NIPA to make the b i 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:01.520 A do its job. And they that's what we did. Basically, 0:26:01.640 --> 0:26:04.560 they didn't just go after one oil company, they went 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:07.200 after the whole system the way that b i A 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:10.879 was permitting wells in Osage County. This was one of 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:13.040 the biggest lawsuits to affect the O s Age in 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:17.520 mineral estate. Ever after Gettner and his law firm brought 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:20.120 the case, the BIA said it would re vamp its 0:26:20.160 --> 0:26:24.240 process for permitting wells in Osage County, but those permits 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:27.760 started to take a long time. All the while oil 0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:31.200 prices were super low, head right payments were taking a 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:34.760 huge hit. A lot of Osage head right holders saw 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:37.520 it as an attack not just by the b A, 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:42.560 but by Gettner Drummond himself. Gettner says he was a 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:46.960 convenient scapegoat, but Standing Bear says that case has him 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:50.919 and other Sage leaders on guard. We have to be 0:26:51.080 --> 0:26:56.760 connizant that the new attorney general the local home ours. 0:26:57.119 --> 0:27:01.800 We believe you'll be the new tonat generals displayed interests 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:06.960 adverse to our legal interests in our policy interests. We 0:27:08.280 --> 0:27:14.080