enhancing existing federal loan guarantee programs that enable tribes to leverage limited capital; and focusing on telecommunications infrastructure to effectively increase opportunities for small Native businesses, streamline tribal government operations, and improve access to tele-healthcare and education. Reforms to federal tax programs should address the lack of tribal access to or benefit from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and New Markets Tax Credit programs; limitations imposed on tribes by the tax-exempt bond provisions of the Tribal Government Tax Status Act; ensuring that the Build America Bonds program provides direct funding to Indian Country; and including Indian tribes in any new tax incentives added as part of an infrastructure package during this Covid pandemic. Direct access to these programs will spur tribal government-private sector partnerships to help rebuild Indian Country infrastructure, develop small business, and improve tribal government systems. PROTECTING NATIVE AMERICAN VOTING RIGHTS Background. The Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to ensure that state and local governments uphold the Fifteenth Amendment and to further guarantee the right of every American citizen the equal right to vote and to participate in our democracy. The first Americans were the last to be granted voting rights in the United States. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 recognized all Native Americans as U.S. citizens with the right to vote. However, Indians struggled to exercise their right to vote for decades after enactment of the law. States continued to deny Native Americans the right to vote, because they lived on Indian lands, were enrolled members of an Indian tribe, and/or were not subject to state laws. Native Americans in Arizona and New Mexico were finally granted voting rights in 1948, Maine in 1955, and Utah in 1962. Even today, tribes continue the fight to fully exercise the voting rights of their Nations. States continue to put up barriers to the exercise of Indian voting rights. Some states refuse to locate polling locations on Indian lands, which are often located hundreds of miles from reservation communities. Ballots and voter information guides are not offered in Native languages. States also require state-issued ID cards and a physical address to vote, however, many Native Americans have only tribal government ID cards and P.O. Boxes. These American citizens are turned away at the ballot box. Enact the Native American Voting Rights Protect Act . Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Congressman Ben Ray Luján (NM-03) have introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act, S. 739 and H.R. 1694, to remove many of the barriers listed above. The Native American Voting Rights Act establishes a number of voting reforms. The bill designates federally funded facilities on Indian lands as voter registration sites, which will expand in-person registration; mandates at least one polling place on tribal lands for each voting precinct; prevents states from eliminating or moving in-person registration and voting locations in Indian Country where motivated by a discriminatory purpose or where state action would have limit voting opportunities for Native Americans; permits Native voters to pick up
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