September 12, 2016

Margaret Stock, Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, will attend the Standing Rock Rally tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) campus. The UAF Native Student Union is hosting the rally in collaboration with the UAF Climate Action Coalition. The rally will take place at Constitution Park on the UAF Campus.

Stock said, “I applaud the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for their amazing grassroots efforts and for standing strong together. The Standing Rock Sioux have invited more than 90 tribes from all over the United States to join their advocacy efforts, including the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska (CCHITA) in Juneau.” Many Native groups have added their voices and their support to the national dialogue and to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

She added, “This situation in North Dakota has started an important national conversation about tribal sovereignty. The process that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used did not address the concerns of all stakeholders. The Corps apparently gave approval to a Dallas-based oil company without ensuring that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had an opportunity to share community concerns.”

“We’ve had similar issues here in Alaska. In the future, I hope that Alaskan tribes can galvanize other tribes all over the United States to bring attention to tribal concerns and find the same national level of media attention and support,” Stock said. “It is especially important to focus the spotlight in this campaign on rural Alaska and Native issues because many of these issues still have not been adequately settled at the federal level — including subsistence issues and Native lands issues like the landless situation in Southeast Alaska.”

Stock has lived in Alaska for more than 30 years, and was admitted to the Alaska Bar Association in 1993; she has worked on Alaska Native issues during her legal career. She spent 28 years in the US Army Reserve, Military Police Corps. Stock graduated from the Army War College and taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She also holds degrees from both the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Law School. Stock is recognized nationally as an expert on immigration law and national security.