BAY CENTER, WA — Today, the Chinook Indian Nation Chairman Tony A. (naschio) Johnson updated Chinook Justice supporters about the Nation’s efforts to restore their federal recognition through legislation and released the following statement:
“In a gravely disappointing development, the Chinook Indian Nation has reached an impasse in our discussions with Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez, and we are actively seeking a new legislative champion. Chinook Justice enjoys immense support regionally with over thirty thousand petition signatures and the support of our closest neighboring tribes, local elected leaders, and nonprofit organizations. We are heading into the next phase of the restoration fight with the confidence and backing of our local community. A recognized Chinook Indian Nation will benefit all Washingtonians and Oregonians – we are the original people of our place and we aren’t going anywhere.”
The Nation was federally recognized in 2001 under the Clinton Administration. However, 18 months later in 2002, that recognition was rescinded. In the intervening years, the Chinook committed to pursuing every pathway to restore their status, including through Congressional legislation.
During the 2022 midterm election, both candidates for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District publicly supported restoring the Chinook Indian Nation’s status as a federally recognized tribe, underscoring the Chinook Indian Nation’s broad, bipartisan backing. Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez committed to championing federal recognition and acknowledged that, “federal recognition of the Chinook Indian Nation will have a positive impact on the local economy, health care, housing availability, and public safety of rural Southwest Washington” and that “federal recognition of the Chinook Indian Nation is also a simple matter of right and wrong.”
The Chinook Indian Nation Tribal Council worked alongside the Congresswoman during her first term to develop the Chinook Indian Nation Restoration Act of 2024 that was socialized with, and supported by, the Chinook’s closest neighboring tribes, including the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Throughout the collaborative process, the Chinook Indian Nation agreed to several changes in the draft legislation to accommodate the concerns of others, including updating their Constitution and meeting with Tribes from across the Pacific Northwest.
The draft legislation that was worked on for two years with Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez would have restored the Chinook Indian Nation’s status as a federally recognized tribe, been neutral on resource access rights, and ensured that the entire region prospered. A recognized Chinook Indian Nation would have provided a much-needed economic boost not just to the Chinook but also to their surrounding neighbors through an influx of federal funding for educational, cultural, environmental, healthcare, and housing programs, amongst others. The bill’s language would have followed the standard process for reservation identification: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior, and the Chinook Indian Nation would work with state and local governments, organizations, and businesses to identify a suitable parcel of land for a tribal reservation following the Nation’s restoration.
In June of 2024, on the eve of introduction of the Chinook Indian Nation Restoration Act of 2024, the Congresswoman informed the Chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation, Tony A. (naschio) Johnson that she wanted to amend the agreed-upon bill language to strip all resource access rights from the Nation, including hunting, fishing, shellfish aquaculture, trapping, gathering, and water rights. Chairman Johnson took her proposed amendments to the Nation’s General Assembly for discussion and consideration. The Nation’s citizens voted unanimously to reject her proposed changes.
“Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez gave the Chinook Indian Nation an impossible choice: give up our rights to live as we have done for tens of thousands of years or maintain our status as an ‘unrecognized’ tribe,” said Chinook Indian Nation Chairman Tony A. (naschio) Johnson. “All of our lands, villages, sacred sites, fishing, and burial grounds were taken away from us by the United States. The Chinook Indian Nation cannot be asked to give up even more. There is no world where we can accept a law being passed by the United States that takes away more from our people. We have accessed and subsisted on our lands’ resources for as long as we have been here and have a sacred connection with our plants, animals, and water that we cannot be asked to give up,” continued Johnson.
Since the Congresswoman’s decision to insert language to take away any possibility of water and resource rights and the Nation’s subsequent General Assembly vote, the Chinook Nation’s leadership has worked tirelessly with the Congresswoman and her staff to ask that she instead use standard language used in nearly all recent Congressional tribal recognition bills. That language states: “Nothing in this Act expands, reduces, or affects in any manner any hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering, or water rights of the Tribe and members of the Tribe.”
The Chinook Indian Nation is now seeking a new legislative champion to introduce legislation that restores the Nation’s federal recognition without asking them to cede additional rights.
Updates to the #ChinookJustice campaign for a new legislative champion can be found online at chinookjustice.org and on Instagram @everydaychinook.
About the Chinook Indian Nation
The Chinook Indian Nation is made up of the five western-most Chinookan-speaking tribes at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Chinook Indian Nation’s nearly 75-year-old constitution identifies their five constituent tribes – the Clatsop and Cathlamet (Kathlamet) of present-day Oregon and the Lower Chinook, Wahkiakum (Waukikum), and Willapa (Weelappa) of what is now Washington State.
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