Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

For some months The Day has reported and editorialized regarding my actions as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, and now concerning my return to the private sector. Your Jan. 26 editorial (“Around and around it goes”) had several inaccuracies and omissions that need to be corrected.

Prior to being assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, I was a lawyer and lobbyist for Indian tribes. Now that I have left government, I have returned to my profession. I would hope that neither you, nor your readers, are surprised or dismayed. I left a lucrative law practice three years ago, reluctantly, to serve in the government. Had it been a condition of serving in government that I could not engage in my chosen field after government service, I would not have served, nor would many other people upon whom presidents must call.

You indicate that I am free to represent tribes before the Interior Department “because Indian tribes are viewed as disadvantaged.” This is incorrect. Anyone who has left government is free to represent state, local, and tribal governments before the agencies in which we worked, not because they are disadvantaged, but because they are governments.

You failed to inform readers of the ethical requirements that applied to me while I was in government and that apply to me now. I was recused from any involvement in the Golden Hill Paugussett case while assistant secretary. Your omission of this fact might lead readers to believe I did favors for my old client while in office. I did not, and I challenge anyone to produce evidence that I failed to meet my ethical obligations. You also failed to note that I am prohibited, forever, from any involvement in any specific matter in which I was substantially involved as assistant secretary. Moreover, I may represent only federally-recognized tribal governments before the Interior Department for the next year. I cannot represent before the department the non-federally-recognized tribes in Connecticut or elsewhere.

Your editorial also troubles me because it echoes a disturbing tone in the overall dialogue in Connecticut about Indian affairs. You appear to suggest that, among all the governments in the land, only the Indian tribal governments should not be allowed to call upon the expertise of recently-departed appointees. This would be an unlawful double standard, compounding the injustices against Native Americans since first contact with Europeans. This is a tone I have heard before: In Wyoming, where a white man was assaulted because he was mistaken for a tribal attorney; in New Mexico, where Indian alcoholics were hunted for sport; in Wisconsin, where pickups bear bumper stickers reading, “Save a Fish, Spear an Indian.” People of color feel in their bones when they are being attacked for what they are, rather than what they do.

Connecticut has nothing of which to be proud in its treatment of Indians. Its settlers tried to destroy Indian tribal communities and nearly succeeded. Yet a few of the conquered somehow survived. While I do not blame contemporary non-Indians for what happened in the past, I do believe that much of the prosperity of this great nation was made at the expense of Indians, and that the historical conduct of this nation and its states is directly responsible for the generations of Indian poverty, ignorance, and disease that continue into the present.

Tribal governments should be empowered sufficiently to overcome these problems, rather than relying on handouts from the United States for their economic survival. I also believe that tribal governments should be responsive to the concerns of their non-Indian neighbors, that tribal sovereignty means not just power, but also responsibility. Tribal, state, and local governments should communicate and negotiate their differences in a principled and respectful way. I have tried to play a constructive roles in these matters, and I hope you will try to do so as well.

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Kevin Gover is the former Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Mr. Gover is now a practicing attorney, specializing in, Indian and Administrative Law, at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, Washington, D.C.