This half of the 20th century leaves history with relatively few prominent U.S. politicians whose careers, spanning decades, were based on overt, vile racism. Future museums will show their awe-stricken, repulsed visitors portraits of George Wallace in the schoolhouse door; Jesse Helms, in the early days, as a '50s Raleigh TV commentator railing against the Negro menace; and Slade Gorton's relentless, despicable attacks on Native America.

Gorton's latest: another bill, in concert with Conrad Burns (R-MT), that would require tribes to waive their rights as sovereign nations, including immunity from lawsuits, and require means testing to receive federal funds. It's gotten little notice here, but has Native America up in arms.

It would be considered preposterous if Congress required Seattle to waive immunity from lawsuits over land use decisions in order to receive federal funds. Indians, however, are fair game. The net effect, a culmination of Gorton's career, would be economic devastation for the poorest enclaves in the U.S. And, of course, open season for some of the world's largest corporations. Slade Gorton works for them.

The idea of native sovereignty has always been sticky and (among whites) unpopular, with gains almost always won in the courts and losses in the legislatures. England, and then the U.S., cut treaties for centuries with different Indian nations. Those treaties are still on the books and, despite Gorton's wishes, supersede Congressional or state law. They are token payments for "buying" portions of the continent, stealing the rest, and slaughtering most of its people. Sovereignty is a lot cheaper than reparations; we live on stolen land.

Gorton is obsessed with the "special privileges" Native Americans get because their ancestors got here first. He first made headlines litigating against the movement--eventually a Hollywood cause celebre--to reclaim treaty fishing rights. It took 15 years of "fish-ins" and lawsuits to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Boldt decision marked a sweeping tribal rights victory.

Slade's been taking it out on Indians ever since, using every chance to bash, harass, or deny funding. As state Attorney General, he filed amicus briefs against tribes in cases the state was not even party to. In 1987, Gorton registered in Olympia as a lobbyist for the Non-Indian Negotiating Group, to "provide technical and legal research to non-Indians on Indian land claim matters."

Since rejoining Congress in 1988, Gorton has introduced a host of bills (most of them unsuccessful) targeting native rights and funding. Federal spending levels for Indian education, health care, housing, economic development, employment, and job training programs have all declined steadily for 20 years, while money for similar non-Indian programs increased. Gorton, now head of the Senate Committee On Indian Affairs, has led the assault. This year, he's trying again to cut funds, ban tribal tax-exempt status, and end sovereignty. He works with overtly racist property rights groups (demagogues whenever native issues are in the news--for example, launching an investigation after the Seattle Times' overhyped and misleading Tulalip "housing scandal" series), and--as the most powerful U.S. legislator on Indian issues--refuses to meet with tribal leaders.

Back in the real world, on the reservations, Native America's "special privileges"--a term also used by anti-affirmative action and other white-privilege crusaders--include widespread poverty, extreme unemployment, Third World-level rates of infant mortality, and, of course, a federal Bureau of Indian Affairs that wields hostile bureaucratic power over every part of rez life.

Repeatedly, whenever tribes try to gain a bit of self-determination and economic development, Uncle Sam--led by racist, demagogic assholes like Gorton--crush it. The recent success of a few gaming facilities is the latest fuel. Some 80% of these casinos nationally don't make money. But the success stories are perfect fodder for Gorton's race-baiting.

Of course, race is only part of the Gorton story. The other part is--surprise--big business. Gorton is the Congressional point man for the Citizens for Equal Rights Alliance (CERA), a national umbrella of 470 smaller groups fighting Native America's right to control what little is left of its land. Over 50% of CERA's member groups have interests in the timber, mining, or oil industries. The prospect of tribes exercising environmental restrictions, after the feds have gutted or waived U.S. government restrictions, enrages these folks.

So does the prospect that tribes may no longer sign leases for pennies on the dollar. Much native/white history in the last century has been the struggle over control of resources. At first, whites simply kicked the Indians off their land (or killed them all), creating reservations on land thought to be worthless. When, in the 1930s, some of this worthless land turned out to be valuable, Congress--at coal and oil companies' behest--created and imposed a Tribal Council system so there would be somebody the big companies could bribe into signing cheap leases and profitable (for the companies) extraction agreements. Now that a few tribes want fair money for those resources, the answer is to dismantle their sovereignty rights, leaving things in the friendlier hands of state and federal agencies. (E.g., Bruce "Indict Me!" Babbitt.)

For 25 years, our state has elected and re-elected a man whose major policy initiative has been to harass, impoverish, and deny basic rights to a racial minority. Gorton is our Jesse Helms. Many in North Carolina are embarrassed and enraged by Jesse. How 'bout us?