|
(Continued from page 16)
passed Jolene's Law. The task force is named after Jolene Loetscher who has shared her story of sexual abuse as a child in an attempt to address the problem.
• "I honestly imagine throughout our work that we will end up with statute that we need to bring forward and that will be an extension of naming it after our own citizen that's willing to put a face to this," Soholt said.
• Last year's studies on domestic abuse and school funding led to multiple new laws and impacted the amount of money allocated to education in the annual budget.
• Maher said some lawmakers are lobbying this year for a three-tiered review of the alcohol industry in the state, looking at manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. Another lawmaker has suggested studying social and financial effects of gambling.
• "It's a big election year this year, lots of new faces. The old legislators will be serving on the task forces who won't be here to serve. I think that's a big thing," Maher, an Isabel Republican, said. "They're going to work through the summer to fill in their duties, but they won't be here to vote on the bills. And they won't have the knowledge of the task force."
•
US sends 16,000 offers to buy back tribal lands
REGINA GARCIA CANO, Associated Press
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday announced that it has sent nearly 16,000 new offers to owners of parcels on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as it tries to buy back land that was given to individual Oglala Sioux Tribe members more than a century ago and return it to the tribe as a whole.
• The buyback program stems from the settlement of a nearly 17-year lawsuit over more than a century's worth of mismanaged trust royalties. The 1887 Dawes Act split tribal lands into individual allotments -- 80- to 160-acre parcels, in most cases -- that have been passed down to multiple heirs. The Interior Department said the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is among the most fractionated in the U.S., with land interests owned by various individuals, including members of other tribes.
• The Interior Department is now trying to buy back those lands, consolidate them and hold them in trust for the tribe. The offers announced Tuesday are the second round the department has sent to the reservation and total more than $100 million. The buyback program is voluntary, meaning owners do not have to sell their so-called fractionated interests.
• "Consolidating and returning these lands to tribes in trust will have enormous potential to unlock tribal community resources," the department's assistant secretary (Continued on page 18)
|
|
