Franken campaigns in Red Lake, White Earth

Zach Kayser, Bemidji Pioneer | Oct 20, 20140

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U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., speaks to a gathering of Red Lake Nation citizens at a conference/campaign event Sunday as Tribal Council member Robert Reynolds looks on. Franken is running for re-election against challenger Mike McFadden. (Zach Kayser | Bemidji Pioneer)

RED LAKE -- U.S. Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., along with Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., visited two northern Minnesota American Indian reservations on Sunday.

In Red Lake on Sunday, Franken and Tester met with the Tribal Council, followed by a brief campaign meet-and-greet for Franken, who is being challenged by businessman Mike McFadden. Tester is chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

Franken alternated between telling amusing anecdotes about his pow-wow dancing abilities and addressing the serious business of drug abuse, domestic violence and health care access on the reservation.

Franken had a substantial list of federal Indian affairs programs he'd like to see receive more federal funding. Issues on the reservation are interconnected, he said -- for example, a lack of housing forces families to live in domestic violence situations, which can imprint on the children who witness the violence.

"We're underfunding things like BIE (the Bureau of Indian Education) and health care and law enforcement," he said. "Everything's tied into everything else. When you don't have housing, and you have two or three families living together, and there's one family that's having some pathologies, then all the kids have to witness that."

Franken admitted the federal government wasn't doing enough to help reservations.

"It's really about priorities, and we really don't prioritize this enough," he said. "I have frustrations with all of it."

Red Lake and White Earth are seen as a key Democratic strongholds. As Franken was leaving the event, demonstrators from a local women's shelter held up signs outside the building that spelled out "No More Domestic Violence." Franken acknowledged the demonstrators but did not stop to talk to them at length, as he and Tester were also scheduled to appear at the White Earth reservation for another campaign event shortly after the stop in Red Lake.

Minnesota Rep. Roger Erickson, DFL-Baudette, and Beltrami County Commissioner Tim Sumner also attended the Red Lake event.