Side-by-side analysis of what each approach would mean for tribal sovereignty, treaty obligations, healthcare, land rights, and Native communities.
We're a policy platform with 50 researched positions on every major issue. This page compares indigenous rights approaches across parties — but there's much more to explore.
The United States has signed over 370 treaties with Native American tribes and broken nearly all of them. Today, 5.2 million Native Americans live in a country built on their land, with a federal government that has legally binding obligations to provide healthcare, education, and protection — and consistently fails to fund them. Native Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group in the US, the highest poverty rate, and the highest rates of police violence. These are not accidents. They are the predictable consequences of centuries of broken promises.
The three major approaches to indigenous rights differ in how seriously they take these obligations. Democrats have been more willing to acknowledge historical injustice and have directed some funding to tribal communities, but have often fallen short on the structural reforms tribes actually need. Republicans have generally prioritized resource development on or near tribal lands and opposed expanding tribal sovereignty. The Common Good Party proposes treating treaty obligations as what they legally are — binding commitments — and funding them accordingly, while maximizing tribal self-governance and addressing the specific crises facing Native communities today.
This page breaks down each approach honestly — what it gets right, what it misses, and what it would actually mean for tribal sovereignty, healthcare, safety, and self-determination. No spin, no talking points, just the policy.
How the three approaches stack up on the issues that matter most to indigenous rights.
| Issue | Democrats | Republicans | Common Good |
|---|---|---|---|
| Treaty obligations | Acknowledge, partial funding | Minimal recognition | Legally binding, fully funded |
| Tribal sovereignty | Support with limitations | Limited, favor state authority | Maximum self-governance, expanded jurisdiction |
| IHS funding | Increase incrementally | Flat or reduced | Parity with VA, mandatory funding |
| MMIW crisis | Savanna's Act, task forces | Law enforcement funding | Close jurisdictional gaps, tribal authority |
| Sacred site protection | Strengthen consultation | Prioritize development | Free, prior, and informed consent |
| Land rights | Support land-into-trust | Restrict land-into-trust | Streamline restoration, co-management |
| Education funding | Modest increases | School choice, vouchers | Full parity, tribal-controlled curriculum |
| Infrastructure | Some BIL funding directed | Compete for general funds | Dedicated tribal fund, tribe-directed |
| Environmental justice | Include tribes in EJ framework | Oppose EJ mandates | Tribal consent, cleanup obligations |
| Self-governance | Expand compacting | Limited support | Maximum self-determination, full compacting |
Sources: National Congress of American Indians, Indian Health Service, Government Accountability Office, party platform documents. See the compact comparison view for a quick side-by-side summary.
The Democratic approach to indigenous rights centers on acknowledging historical injustice, increasing federal funding for tribal programs, and supporting tribal sovereignty within the existing federal framework. Key proposals include incremental increases to IHS funding, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act with expanded tribal jurisdiction provisions, directing infrastructure funding to tribal communities, supporting land- into-trust applications that restore tribal land bases, and strengthening consultation requirements before federal projects affect tribal interests. Democrats have also supported the Native American Voting Rights Act and cultural preservation programs.
Democrats have been more willing than Republicans to acknowledge the scope of injustice against Native Americans and to direct federal resources toward tribal communities. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included the largest single investment in tribal infrastructure in history. VAWA reauthorization expanded tribal criminal jurisdiction to cover non-Native offenders for certain crimes — a critical step in addressing the MMIW crisis. Democrats have also been more supportive of tribal sovereignty in general, opposing efforts to restrict the land-into-trust process and supporting tribal self-governance compacting.
The fundamental problem with the Democratic approach is that incremental increases to chronically underfunded programs do not close the gap — they just make it slightly smaller. IHS spending per capita is still less than half the VA rate, and no Democratic proposal has aimed for parity. Consultation is not consent — tribes are "consulted" on pipeline projects and mining operations and then overridden anyway. Democrats approved the Dakota Access Pipeline, authorized drilling near sacred sites, and have repeatedly failed to act on the fundamental structural issue: that tribal program funding is discretionary rather than mandatory, meaning it can be cut in every budget cycle. Until treaty obligations are treated as mandatory spending — like Social Security or VA benefits — they will always be subject to political whims.
For more on the legal framework, see the full indigenous rights explainer.
The Republican approach to indigenous rights emphasizes economic development, resource extraction, and reducing federal regulation on tribal lands. Key proposals include supporting energy development on and near tribal lands as an economic development tool, opposing expansion of tribal sovereignty that could limit state or federal authority, restricting the land-into- trust process, maintaining flat or reduced IHS funding, and supporting school choice and voucher programs for Native students. Republicans have generally opposed strengthening consultation requirements, arguing they create regulatory barriers to development that could benefit tribal economies.
Republicans are correct that economic development is critical for tribal communities — reservation poverty rates exceed 30% in many areas, and economic opportunity is essential for self-determination. Some tribes have chosen to pursue energy development on their lands and should have the sovereignty to make that decision. Reducing unnecessary federal bureaucracy in tribal program administration is a legitimate goal — the Bureau of Indian Affairs is widely acknowledged, including by tribal leaders, as inefficient and paternalistic. The emphasis on self-reliance rather than dependency aligns with many tribal leaders' own goals.
The Republican approach has a fundamental contradiction: advocating for tribal economic self-reliance while opposing the sovereignty that makes self-reliance possible and underfunding the treaty obligations that the federal government is legally required to provide. You cannot tell tribes to be self-sufficient while restricting their jurisdiction, limiting their land base, and failing to fund the healthcare and education you promised them in exchange for the land you took. Energy development can benefit some tribes, but promoting it as the primary economic strategy ignores that many tribal communities have explicitly chosen to protect their lands from extraction — and sovereignty means respecting that choice.
Reducing IHS funding while Native Americans have the lowest life expectancy in the country is not fiscal conservatism — it is breaking a treaty. Opposing tribal jurisdiction expansion while Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the national average is not supporting law and order — it is tolerating a crisis. The "states' rights" approach to indigenous policy ignores that tribes are not subdivisions of states — they are sovereign nations with a government-to-government relationship with the federal government, recognized by the Constitution itself.
For a deeper analysis of tribal sovereignty, see our indigenous rights explainer.
The Common Good Party treats treaty obligations as what they legally are: binding commitments of the United States government that must be fully funded. We propose converting IHS funding from discretionary to mandatory spending and increasing per-capita spending to parity with the Veterans Affairs system. We support maximum tribal self-governance through expanded compacting — where tribes administer federal programs themselves — because the evidence shows tribe-run programs outperform BIA-administered ones. We propose closing MMIW jurisdictional gaps by expanding tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Natives who commit violent crimes on tribal land. We require free, prior, and informed consent from affected tribes before any federal project on or near sacred sites. We establish a dedicated Tribal Infrastructure Fund for water, broadband, housing, roads, and energy. And we streamline land-into-trust restoration while creating co-management frameworks for federal lands that hold cultural significance to tribal nations.
Unlike the Democratic approach, the CGP plan doesn't settle for incremental increases to fundamentally inadequate funding — it establishes parity as the standard and mandatory funding as the mechanism. Unlike the Republican approach, it doesn't treat tribal sovereignty as an obstacle to development — it treats it as the foundation for genuine self-determination. The CGP framework is built on a simple principle: the United States signed treaties. Treaties are law. Fund them. Honor them. And let tribes govern themselves.
This is not theoretical. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development — the most comprehensive research initiative on tribal governance and economic development — has consistently found that the single most important factor in successful tribal governance is genuine self-determination. When tribes control their own resources, make their own decisions, and administer their own programs, outcomes improve across every metric: economic growth, health, education, and public safety. The Self-Governance Demonstration Project showed that tribes administering federal programs through compacting achieved better results at lower cost than the BIA.
Countries that have embraced indigenous self-governance — including New Zealand (Maori co-governance), Canada (modern treaty process), and the Nordic countries (Sami Parliament) — have seen measurable improvements in indigenous outcomes. The evidence is clear: self-determination works. The federal government's role should be honoring its obligations and then getting out of the way.
Policy is abstract. People's lives are not. Here's what the three approaches would look like for real Native Americans and communities facing real decisions right now.
Want to explore how the CGP plan addresses indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty? Read the full policy breakdown.
Read the Full Indigenous Rights PolicyCommon questions about how the three approaches compare on indigenous rights.
Have a question not answered here? Read the full indigenous rights explainer or visit our site-wide FAQ.
Dive deeper into indigenous rights policy with these pages.
The United States made binding commitments to sovereign tribal nations. Those commitments remain unfulfilled. Read the full plan and see what honoring our obligations actually looks like.
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