Jordan Thompson, acting tribal executive officer for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, told Missoula County Commissioners that the CSKT government is a 10-member elected council that appoints officers and an executive to run day-to-day operations. Thompson said the tribe has about 5,000 members living on the reservation and that the council elects a chair, vice chair, treasurer and secretary from among its members.

Thompson described their own path into tribal leadership, including a law degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Gonzaga University, and said those legal, political and business perspectives shape how they approach the role. ‘‘We have a really good lens to look through legally, politically, and economically,’’ Thompson said.

Explaining the legal framework that governs tribal–federal relations, Thompson cited the Hellgate Treaty (1855) and the so-called Marshall trilogy of Supreme Court precedents as the foundation for trust responsibilities, congressional plenary power and tribal sovereignty. He described federal Indian law as a pendulum that has swung between recognition of tribal sovereignty and policies of assimilation.

Thompson traced major policy eras that shaped CSKT governance: the allotment era (Dawes/General Allotment Act and local allotment implementation in the early 20th century), which divided communal land into individual allotments; the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), which enabled tribes to adopt constitutions and formal government structures; and the Indian Self-Determination era of the 1970s, which permits tribes to contract and operate federal programs such as forestry and Indian health. ‘‘For federal programs… the federal government has a trust and treaty obligation to provide those services to us,’’ Thompson said.

Thompson said allotment and the opening of excess lands to homesteading produced a checkerboard of ownership on the Flathead Reservation and led to dramatic demographic and land-ownership shifts. He said that by 1930 the tribes owned about 30 percent of the reservation land base and that, through decades of purchases and trust applications, that share has grown to just under 70 percent.

Throughout the interview Thompson emphasized the limits of tribal taxing authority (tribes raise under 1 percent of their monetary needs through taxation, he said) and explained that tribes commonly establish corporate enterprises to generate revenue and support services. He pointed to Energy Keepers Incorporated, a tribal energy company that took over Kerr Dam (purchased in 2015) and now operates a hydropower enterprise under a corporate board separate from tribal government.

Thompson concluded by urging listeners to read the Hellgate Treaty and by noting that long-standing legal questions about jurisdiction and authority often are resolved by cross-government agreements rather than litigation. The hosts thanked Thompson and closed the episode.