For Utah's Indian Country, federal cuts decimate core tribal programs

Good morning. It's Tuesday March 11, 2025 and in this morning's edition we're covering the effects of federal cuts to tribal programs among Utah's Native American population, how New York's conviction integrity units have been failing Empire State residents, multiple Vermont Town Meetings call on the state to guard against government overreach and more.

Media outlets and others featured in this edition: Utah Daily Dispatch, New York Focus, VTDigger, Louisiana Illuminator.

To continue reading the rest of each article, please click the link at the end of the excerpt.

A new resource from the State Democracy Research Initiative makes the current text of all 50 state constitutions available and searchable on one site. This was from State Court Report.

If you're a North Carolina resident and voted in the N.C. Supreme Court race that is still not certified, please check the list of over 60,000 votes that Jefferson Griffin is trying to discard after narrowly losing to Allison Riggs.

Stephen Whitlow from Triangle Blog Blog has more information. Readers can also visit the Orange County, N.C. group's website The Griffin List to search names and more.

Tribal services aren’t national altruism. They’re written into centuries-old treaties.

By: Alex Brown - March 8, 2025

President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce and government spending have reverberated across Indian Country, leaving tribes with deep uncertainty about their health clinics, schools, police agencies and wildfire crews.

Native officials say the cuts could hit a vast array of core public services in tribal communities — even though the federal government is legally required to provide those services.

“These are real jobs that our society depends on. These are cops, nurses in clinics, people who manage our forests and fisheries,” said W. Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Washington state and a longtime leader on Native sovereignty issues.