BISMARCK -- Two bills aimed at protecting Native American children and sponsored by members of North Dakota's congressional delegation made major strides Monday.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to create a Commission on Native Children. It would conduct a comprehensive study on poverty, child abuse, drug abuse and other issues facing Native American children and recommend ways to improve services to them.
"What we want to do is really take a look at how we can improve conditions for Native American kids," Heitkamp said in a phone interview, adding, "This is not just another study."
Both the House and Senate on Monday approved the Native American Children's Safety Act, authored in the Senate by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and sponsored in the House by Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.
The bill requires background checks on all adults living in a potential foster home before a tribal court may place a child there. Adults who join the foster care household also will be subject to background checks under the bill.
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"Native American children living on reservations should have all of the same protections when placed in foster care that children living off the reservation have," Hoeven said in a statement.
Certified foster homes will undergo periodic checks, and tribes could require additional checks if they so choose. The Department of the Interior will work with tribes to establish procedures.
"Native American tribes have a complex and uneven series of procedures and guidelines for foster care, and this bill addresses this problem with the creation of a national standard," Cramer said in a statement.
If the House adopts the Senate version of the bill, which was passed first, it will go to President Barack Obama, who visited North Dakota's Standing Rock Indian Reservation last June.
Heitkamp's bill was originally introduced in October 2013, the first bill she introduced after taking office that January. She and Murkowski re-introduced it in the current Congress in January.
The 11-member commission would conduct a three-year study and issue a report recommending ways to streamline and coordinate programs benefiting Native American children, identify best practices already in use and recommend ways to measure well-being for the purpose of setting national policy goals. Heitkamp said they're seeking a roughly $2 million budget for the commission, which she called a "minor investment."
She said she's confident the bill will find favor in the House, where its lead sponsor is Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation.
"We've been building out support for it all along," she said.
