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Phil Lyman: San Juan County didn’t invent discrimination against Native Americans

Robert Gehrke’s starts his July 22 article about gerrymandering in San Juan County with a thinly veiled attempt to disparage and misrepresent the good people of San Juan County.

He writes, “For decades, Navajo voters were the victims of institutionalized discrimination and disenfranchisement in San Juan County, and the barrier that relegated them to second-class citizens seemed insurmountable.”

San Juan County didn’t create institutionalized discrimination of Native Americans. San Juan County didn’t write Article I section 2 of the Constitution, which says that Indians who don’t pay taxes are not counted in the voting population of states.