Banner Year for American Indians on Capitol Hill

By any measure, 2010 was a banner year on Capitol Hill for American Indians. And a huge factor was the pending retirement of a lone senator -- North Dakota's Byron Dorgan. After years of trying, Congress passed several landmark bills for Indians, including laws overhauling tribal health care and law enforcement and settling a 15-year legal battle over lost royalties for mismanaged Indian lands. Congress continued parceling out $2.5 billion in economic stimulus money to tribes and resolved four long-standing water disputes totaling more than $1 billion. Tribal leaders and advocates call the two-year session that ended last week the most productive for American Indians in four decades...more