Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) might leave her post as chairwoman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee if she's offered the gavel on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, according to The Washington Post.
Democrats are shuffling committee chair posts due to the pending exit of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), who leads the Senate Finance Committee. He's been nominated to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to China by President Barack Obama.
The shakeup could mean the Senate Indian Affairs Committee will lose its first female chairwoman. Cantwell's office declined to speculate on any potential moves, the Post said.
Cantwell took over the committee in January 2013. She has held fewer hearings and has advanced fewer pieces of legislation than most of her predecessors although her staff has held a significant number of listening sessions with tribal leaders and Indian organizations.
Cantwell stymied Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro in a recent hearing on the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians attempt to steal water rights for allottees of the 120 year old reservation.
2 comments:
That is sad, it appears that she was a person who looked at the whole picture. When she seen that the rights of the allotte's was in jeopardy she did the right thing. I would hope that she would have taken further steps to insure that the civil rights of the disenrolled and moratorium affected Indians was realized.
Maybe she past fewer legislation because she actually read them. If the legislation that was not past was anything like Pechanga water bill then then she was doing her job.
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