Tlingit and Haida allocates more tribal assembly seats to smaller communities

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s 90th annual tribal assembly voted on April 18 to give Southeast Alaska communities more representation by reducing the number allocated for larger cities such as Anchorage and Seattle.

The change in representation on the tribal assembly was approved after an emotional five-hour debate at the gathering in Juneau.

The change, part of Tlingit and Haida’s first constitutional convention at its assembly since 2018, makes significant shifts to a tribal delegation where Juneau and Seattle had the most members at 25 each, based on communities getting one delegate per 200 tribal citizens up to a maximum of 25 seats.

The amendment that takes effect immediately specifies one delegate per 275 citizens — with a minimum of two delegates per community.

The amendment was approved 63-52.

Speaking in favor of giving smaller communities a larger share of representation was Gerald Hope, a delegate from Sitka — which had seven members under the former rule but will now see a reduction. He said his community council discussed the matter extensively before supporting the change.

“When our brothers and sisters in the smaller communities are hurting so badly, we need to stand with them is what our community council spoke about,” he said. “We will decrease our voice, our votes in support of increasing those villages’ voices. That’s what we came to the table for. That’s what we came to the constitutional convention for.”

Opposition came from delegates in cities outside Southeast. Voshte Demmert-Gustafson, a Seattle delegate, said she is sympathetic to the argument of giving smaller communities more representation, but the drastic downsizing of her city’s delegation is excessive and harmful to that area’s more than 9,000 tribal citizens.

“We have each other and we’re volunteers, and we come together and we put on amazing picnics where 1,000-plus people come,” she said. “If we only have three delegates that run that and if they are elders that are elected, that would be a challenge for them to continue to put on. That’s all we’re trying to understand.”