Policy Document Series · Issue 23 of 35 · April 2026
Honor the Treaties. Fund the Obligations. Respect the Sovereignty. Return What Was Taken.
Tribal nations are sovereign entities with treaty rights — legal contracts the United States signed and systematically violated for 250 years. This is not charity. It is obligation. The U.S. signed 370 ratified treaties between 1778 and 1871. These are the supreme law of the land under Article VI of the Constitution. The U.S. has violated nearly all of them.
The United States signed 370 ratified treaties with tribal nations between 1778 and 1871. Under Article VI of the Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land. The United States has violated nearly all of them. What follows is not policy preference — it is the minimum legal and moral obligation of a nation that claims to govern by law.
The Common Good Party's position is unambiguous: this is obligation, not charity. The federal government made enforceable legal promises. It broke them. The consequences are measured in human life: Native American life expectancy is 70.1 years — 8.3 years shorter than white Americans. The Indian Health Service is funded at 48.6% of demonstrated need. Federal prosecutors decline 37% of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women cases. The federal government spends more per capita on healthcare for prisoners than for the Indigenous people it has a treaty obligation to serve.
This platform addresses the full architecture of the federal government's failure through eight pillars: treaty obligations enforcement, IHS reform and economic justice, MMIW justice and tribal safety, land restoration and sacred sites protection, water rights, education and cultural sovereignty, environmental justice and climate resilience, and Native American voting rights. Each pillar operates under the Universal Mandatory Duty to Act Standard — meaning inaction is itself a violation subject to enforcement.
The 1980 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Sioux Nation confirmed that the seizure of the Black Hills was an illegal taking. A trust fund exceeding $1.4 billion sits unclaimed — because the Sioux want their land back, not money. The legal record is settled. The question is whether the United States has the political will to honor its own Constitution.
The consequences of 250 years of broken treaties are not abstract. They are measured in mortality rates, poverty statistics, unsolved murders, and communities without running water. Four structural failures define the current crisis.
The water crisis: 30–40% of Navajo Nation households lack running water. Navajo people are 67 times more likely to lack piped water than white Americans. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty promised a "permanent home." Arizona v. Navajo Nation (2023) ruled the federal government has no duty to secure water for the Navajo — despite that promise. Justice Gorsuch, in dissent, wrote that the government may keep treaty promises "only when it is convenient."
The dispossession of Indigenous peoples was not incidental — it was policy. Specific, documented, legislated policy enacted across four distinct eras, each compounding the last.
1778–1871
250 Years of Broken Treaties
The United States signed 370 ratified treaties with tribal nations — each one the supreme law of the land. The pattern was consistent: promise land and sovereignty in exchange for peace, then break the promise when the land became valuable. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteed the Black Hills to the Great Sioux Nation "in perpetuity." Gold was discovered. The U.S. seized the land. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled this was an illegal taking — the trust fund now exceeds $1.4 billion, still unclaimed, because the Sioux want their land back, not money.
Systematic Dispossession — Four Eras of Land Theft
| Policy | Period | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Indian Removal Act / Trail of Tears | 1830s | 100,000 displaced; 15,000 deaths; 25 million acres opened for white settlement |
| Dawes Act / Allotment | 1887–1934 | 90 million acres lost; tribal holdings fell from 138M to 48M acres |
| Termination Era | 1940s–1960s | 109 tribes lost federal recognition; 3+ million additional acres lost |
| Total (1830–1970) | 140 years | From ~2.4 billion acres to ~56 million in trust (2.3% of U.S.) |
1978–2023
Judicial Erosion of Sovereignty
Even as Congress recognized tribal sovereignty, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled it. Oliphant v. Suquamish (1978) stripped tribes of criminal jurisdiction over non-Native people on tribal land — creating zones of legal impunity that directly drive the MMIW crisis today. Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta (2022) gave states concurrent jurisdiction in Indian Country, overturning nearly 200 years of practice. Arizona v. Navajo Nation (2023) ruled the federal government has no duty to secure water for the Navajo — despite a treaty promising a "permanent home."
1819–1969
The Boarding School Legacy — Cultural Destruction by Policy
The United States operated 367 Indian boarding schools with the explicit goal of cultural destruction — "Kill the Indian, save the man." Children were forcibly removed from families, prohibited from speaking their languages, and subjected to abuse documented by the DOI's 2022 investigation, which identified over 500 child deaths — with the actual number expected to be far higher. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission drove a national reckoning after the discovery of 1,000+ unmarked graves at similar schools. The United States has had no equivalent reckoning. This platform creates one.
The United States is not without models. Other nations with comparable histories of colonization have developed institutional mechanisms for treaty enforcement, land restoration, and Indigenous self-governance. The mechanisms exist. The outcomes are documented.
| Country | Mechanism | Key Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| New ZealandWaitangi Tribunal | Treaty of Waitangi claims process | 101 treaty settlements totaling NZ$2.76B; Maori asset base grown to NZ$126B — an 83% increase in 5 years. The model this platform's Treaty Rights Commission is built on. |
| New ZealandTe Urewera Act 2014 | Legal personhood for land | Te Urewera Act granted the forest legal personhood with no owner — it represents itself. The Whanganui River similarly recognized as a legal person. A model for U.S. sacred sites protection. |
| CanadaSection 35 + TRC | Constitutional recognition + self-government agreements | 25 self-government agreements in place; C$23.34B child welfare settlement in 2023 — the largest settlement in Canadian history. Key lesson: Canada's 94 TRC Calls to Action show recommendations without binding enforcement stall (13–15 implemented after a decade). |
| Norway / Sweden / FinlandSami Parliaments | Elected Indigenous parliaments | Advisory and consent authority on land use and cultural matters for Sami peoples across three nations — demonstrating that transnational Indigenous governance structures are workable. |
| AustraliaClosing the Gap | National agreement on 19 socioeconomic targets | Indigenous land rights via Native Title Act; formal targets with annual progress reporting. Demonstrates that measurable accountability frameworks for Indigenous outcomes are administratively feasible. |
The Waitangi Tribunal model works. It has completed 130+ inquiries and driven NZ$2.76 billion in settlements — and pioneered legal personhood for landscapes, recognizing that land has rights independent of any human government. The U.S. Treaty Rights Commission in this platform is modeled directly on this approach, adapted for the scale and complexity of 370 federal treaties spanning 93 years. The critical lesson from Canada: recommendations must produce binding obligations, not advisory suggestions.
The Common Good Party's Indigenous rights platform addresses the full spectrum of federal obligations — from treaty enforcement to water infrastructure, from MMIW justice to cultural sovereignty. Each pillar operates under the Universal Mandatory Duty to Act Standard: inaction is a violation.
Treaties are not aspirational documents. They are the supreme law of the land. This pillar codifies that legal reality and creates the enforcement infrastructure to make it mean something.
The IHS funding gap is $11.2 billion per year. The U.S. spends $886 billion on defense annually. The gap represents 1.3% of the defense budget. This is a question of priorities, not affordability.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis is not a mystery — its cause is legally documented. Oliphant v. Suquamish stripped tribes of jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators, creating zones of legal impunity. 86–96% of sexual assaults against Native women are committed by non-Natives. Restoring tribal jurisdiction is the single most recommended structural reform by every commission that has studied this crisis.
The U.S. federal government holds 640 million acres of land. Tribal trust land is 56 million acres. Even a modest land return program targeting federally held ancestral territory not in active use could dramatically expand tribal holdings without displacing a single private landowner.
30–40% of Navajo Nation households lack running water. Navajo people are 67 times more likely to lack piped water than white Americans. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty promised a "permanent home." In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled the federal government has no duty to secure that water. Justice Gorsuch's dissent put it plainly: the United States may keep its treaty promises "only when it is convenient."
The U.S. operated 367 boarding schools with the stated goal of cultural destruction. The DOI identified 500+ documented child deaths in 2022 — with the actual number expected to be far higher. There has been no federal reckoning equivalent to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This pillar creates one — and funds the restoration the destruction was designed to prevent.
The 1979 Church Rock spill was the largest radioactive release in U.S. history — larger than Three Mile Island — on Navajo land. Residents near abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation face 28.6 times the lung cancer risk of the general population. 144 Alaska Native villages face existential climate threats. The burden of American energy production has fallen disproportionately on Indigenous communities, and the benefits have flowed everywhere else.
Native Americans face the worst voter suppression of any demographic group — an 11-point turnout gap that rises to 15 points in presidential elections. Reservations often lack physical polling places. Tribal IDs are rejected at polls. District lines are drawn to dilute tribal political power. This is voter suppression by infrastructure failure as much as by law.
Honoring treaty obligations is not a new expenditure — it is paying debts the federal government already owes. Many of these programs already exist and are simply chronically underfunded. The total investment, while substantial, represents a fraction of the economic cost of continued neglect and a fraction of the defense budget this platform reduces (Issue 9).
The sequencing prioritizes immediate executive action to halt ongoing harms, followed by foundational legislation, then structural investment, and finally the long-horizon treaty remediation that requires the Treaty Rights Commission's work to complete.
Phase 1 — Immediate Action
Months 1–6
Phase 2 — Foundation
Months 6–18
Phase 3 — Build
Years 2–3
Phase 4 — Expansion
Years 3–5
Phase 5 — Full Implementation
Year 5+
The arguments against honoring treaty obligations are predictable. Each has a documented answer rooted in legal precedent, comparative evidence, and the Constitution itself.
"Tribal sovereignty creates a patchwork of jurisdictions."
The current system is already a patchwork — one created by the federal government. Oliphant stripped tribes of jurisdiction over non-Native offenders, creating zones of legal impunity that directly drive the MMIW crisis: 86–96% of sexual assaults against Native women are committed by non-Natives who face no tribal court accountability. Restoring tribal jurisdiction does not create complexity — it eliminates the gap that allows crimes to go unprosecuted. VAWA 2013 and VAWA 2022 already restored tribal jurisdiction for domestic violence and additional specific crimes. There have been no reported due process issues. The model is proven.
"Land return is impractical."
New Zealand has completed 101 treaty settlements involving land return, co-governance, and economic development — and the Maori asset base has grown to NZ$126 billion, an 83% increase in five years. The U.S. federal government holds 640 million acres of land. Tribal trust land is 56 million acres. Even a modest program targeting federally held ancestral territory not in active use could dramatically expand tribal holdings without displacing a single private landowner. Co-management — as the Bears Ears model demonstrates — produces better conservation outcomes while honoring sovereignty. Impractical is a rhetorical claim. The evidence from comparable countries contradicts it.
"We can't afford to fund IHS at parity."
The IHS funding gap is $11.2 billion per year. The U.S. defense budget is $886 billion. The gap represents 1.3% of defense spending. The federal government currently spends more per capita on healthcare for federal prisoners than for the Indigenous people it has a treaty obligation to serve. This is not a question of affordability — it is a question of priorities. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development has documented that tribal self-governance produces dramatically better health and economic outcomes at comparable cost. Underfunding IHS is expensive; the cost is just paid in lives rather than dollars.
"These treaties are too old to enforce."
Treaties are the supreme law of the land under Article VI of the Constitution. They do not have expiration dates. The Supreme Court itself acknowledged in United States v. Sioux Nation (1980) that the seizure of the Black Hills was an illegal taking — a ruling that stands today. Germany has paid $90+ billion in Holocaust reparations over 72 years and is still paying. Japan pays annual war reparations to this day. The U.S. paid Japanese American internment survivors in 1988 — for events that occurred in the 1940s. The argument that obligations expire is not a legal position. It is a political preference to ignore the law.
"Tribes should assimilate into the broader economy."
The United States already tried forced assimilation — through 367 boarding schools explicitly designed for cultural destruction, the Dawes Act's destruction of communal land ownership, and the Termination era that stripped 109 tribes of federal recognition. By every measurable standard, it was a catastrophe: cultural destruction, land theft, intergenerational trauma, and the economic devastation visible in today's reservation poverty rates. Self-governance produces measurably better outcomes. Tribes that manage their own programs through self-governance compacts see 61% higher per capita income and child poverty rates cut nearly in half. The evidence is unambiguous: sovereignty and self-determination work. Forced assimilation does not.
The following statistics underpin the policy positions in this document. Each is sourced from federal agencies, peer-reviewed research, or established investigative reporting.
Indigenous rights intersect with nearly every domain of federal policy — from healthcare infrastructure to climate response to criminal justice. The following cross-references identify the most significant dependencies and complementary policies across the platform.
| #1 | Healthcare | Medicare for All integration with IHS as a culturally specific supplement. Maternal and infant mortality crisis on tribal lands. IHS to mandatory funding addresses the structural underfunding. |
| #3 | Housing | NAHASDA funding increase; tribal housing infrastructure investment; trust land as collateral reform to enable mortgage financing on reservations. |
| #4 | Education & Student Debt | BIE school per-pupil parity; Tribal Colleges and Universities at full funding; boarding school truth and healing commission; Indigenous language revitalization. |
| #11 | Climate & Energy | Tribal renewable energy sovereignty; uranium mine remediation; $5B climate relocation fund for 144 Alaska Native villages; integration of traditional ecological knowledge into federal land management. |
| #12 | Criminal Justice | Tribal jurisdiction restoration (reversing Oliphant); MMIW justice infrastructure; public safety investment; BIA law enforcement tripling; tribal court $1B investment. |
| #18 | Voting Rights | Native American Voting Rights Act; tribal ID acceptance as federal identification; satellite polling on reservations; redistricting protections; language access for ballots. |
| #20 | Corporate Power & Antitrust | FPIC as a legal requirement for corporate resource extraction on or through tribal land — no more Dakota Access Pipeline-style projects imposed without consent. |
| #21 | Internet, Privacy & Big Tech | Universal broadband on all tribal lands at 100/100 Mbps — the Navajo Nation's 33% broadband access rate is a civil rights issue as much as an infrastructure one. |
| #22 | Racial Justice | Intersectional justice framework; Truth, Accountability & Reconciliation Commission includes Indigenous testimony and harm documentation; environmental justice sacrifice zones disproportionately affect tribal communities. |
"The United States signed treaties. Treaties are the supreme law of the land. Honoring them is not generosity — it is the bare minimum of legal and moral obligation."— The Common Good Party
Sources & Citations