James Abourezk

His legislative successes in the Senate included the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, as well as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.[9][1]

His signature legislation was the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA, 1978), designed to protect Native American children and families from being torn apart. Native American children have been removed by state social agencies from their families and placed in foster care or adoption at a disproportionately high rate, and usually placed with non Native American families. This both deprived the children of their culture and threatened the very survival of the tribes. This legislation was intended to provide a federal standard that emphasized the needs of Native American children to be raised in their own cultures, and gave precedence to tribal courts for decisions about children domiciled on the reservation, as well as concurrent but presumptive jurisdiction with state courts for Native American children off the reservation.[10] He also authored and passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which provided Indian tribes with greater autonomy. The BIA made grants to the tribes but they could manage contracts and funds to control their own destiny. That legislation also reduced the direct influence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the tribes.[1]

As a senator, Abourezk condemned the Office of Public Safety (OPS), a Cold War-era program within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provided training to foreign police forces and was prone to human rights abuses.[11] Abourezk introduced legislation that resulted in the banning of overseas police assistance in 1974, and the closure of the OPS in 1975.[11]

After taking office, Abourezk was approached almost daily by representatives of various sides of the conflict in the Middle East.[3] In 1973, Abourezk was invited by the Lebanese embassy to visit Beirut.[3] Later that year, he met with Arab leaders to discuss a possible peace settlement, and attempted to negotiate a truce contingent on Israel's return of the Old City of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, which was rejected by Israel.[3] In 1976, Abourezk voted against the rest of the Senate on a measure to stop foreign aid to countries harboring international terrorists, arguing that there was no provision for terrorist acts committed by the Israeli military.[1]

In 1973, Senators Abourezk and George McGovern attempted to end the occupation of Wounded Knee by negotiating with American Indian Movement leaders,[2] who were in a standoff with federal law enforcement after demanding that the federal government honor its historical treaties with the Oglala Sioux nation.[12][13] The summer after the occupation, Abourezk introduced the American Indian Policy Review Commission Act,[14] which created the eleven-member commission, and served as its chairman until its landmark report was published in 1977.[15][16] He took the gavel as chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs from its creation in 1977 to 1979, when he left the Senate.[17]

In 1976, Abourezk ordered the General Accounting Office carry out an investigation after doctor and lawyer Connie Redbird Pinkerman-Uri published a report suggesting that up to a quarter of Native American women had been involuntarily sterilised.[18]

Abourezk was an early champion of more direct democracy through a national initiative process, similar to the state initiative process adopted by South Dakota in 1898.[19] In July 1977, he co-sponsored a proposal for a constitutional amendment that would allow federal laws to be enacted through popular vote, together with fellow Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR).[20][21] Under the Abourezk resolution, voters could put legislation on the national election ballot if they secured signatures from three percent of voters in the previous presidential election.[19] His efforts received national media coverage, and Abourezk chaired hearings and testified that the proposal was based on "belief in the wisdom of the American people".[19] Although the national initiative movement gained additional cosponsors in both the House and Senate in 1978, no further action was taken during the 95th Congress, after which interest waned.[19]

In 1977, Senators Abourezk and McGovern went to Cuba with a group of basketball players from University of South Dakota and South Dakota State who played against the Cuban national men's basketball team.[9][1]

In 1978, Abourezk chose not to run for re-election. He was succeeded in office by Republican Larry Pressler, with whom he had a long-running political feud.[22]

External video
Booknotes interview with Abourezk on Advise and Dissent, March 25, 1990, C-SPAN

After leaving the Senate, Abourezk served as legal counsel for the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington, D.C., leading The New York Times to call him "Iran's Man in Washington".[23] He defended the Islamic Republic in lawsuits seeking payment for contracts entered into by the former Shah's government, and sought to recoup Iranian assets that were allegedly taken by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife.[1]

Senator Abourezk was outraged by the 1967 USS Liberty incident and openly inquired about the circumstances of the attack:[24] "The shame of the U.S.S. Liberty incident is that our sailors were treated as though they were enemies, rather than the patriots and heroes that they were. There is no other incident--beyond Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty--that shows the power of the Israeli Lobby by being able to silence successive American governments. Allowing the lies told by the Israelis and their minions in the U.S. is disheartening to all of us who are proud of our servicemen."[25]

In 1980, Abourezk founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a grassroots civil rights organization.[3] In 1989, he published his Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate (ISBN 1-55652-066-2). He was the co-author, along with Hyman Bookbinder, of Through Different Eyes: Two Leading Americans — a Jew and an Arab — Debate U. S. Policy in the Middle East (1987), (ISBN 0917561392).

In 2003, Abourezk sued website ProBush.com for defamation.[26][27] He was later joined by Jane Fonda and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz as plaintiffs, and settled the lawsuit with the Internet site in 2005.[28]

In 2007, Abourezk gave an interview to the Hezbollah funded news channel Al-Manar TV. In this interview Abourezk said that he believed that Zionists used the terrorists that perpetrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way to sow Islamophobia, that Zionists control the United States Congress, and that Hezbollah and Hamas are resistance fighters.[29]

After his retirement from the Senate, Abourezk worked as a lawyer and writer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He continued to be active in supporting tribal sovereignty and culture. In July 2015 he spoke out against a suit filed against the ICWA by the Goldwater Institute; it was one of three suits seeking to overturn the act. Some states and adoption groups, who make money off adoptions, have opposed any prohibitions on their placements of Native American children. Abourezk considered this his signature legislation and the new rules instrumental in protecting Native American children and preserving tribal families. He noted that the late Senator Barry Goldwater, his friend and colleague, had voted for the legislation in 1977 and had often consulted with him in tribal matters.[10]

Huffington Post writer James Zogby in 2014 praised Abourezk as a "bold and courageous former Senator" for protesting to the FBI after the ABSCAM operation.[30]

He died at home in Sioux Falls on February 24, 2023, his 92nd birthday. His funeral was held on Sunday, May 28th, 2023 at the Washington Pavilion in downtown Sioux Falls.[1][31][32]