Editor's note: This is the sixth, and final, story in a Sunday series highlighting key issues in Montana's race for U.S. Senate.

With a decision just 15 days away, Montana's U.S. Senate candidates are wooing the Native vote in one of the country's most-watched Senate races.

"We were on every reservation in the last two weeks," said incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont. "It's been very good, outstanding. We like to visit, not only with the chairmen but the councils, and find out their wants and needs and we're going to try to deal with those."

Democratic challenger Jon Tester said he's visited all but the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and plans to begin a second round of visits to each of the state's seven reservations.

Tribal leaders are making appeals to the candidates for strong federal leadership in the areas of economic development, tribal colleges, housing and settling the Elouise Cobell trust fund lawsuit. Health-care concerns top the list. And tribes are stressing the political importance of having a solid government-to-government relationship between federal and tribal officials.

"These are sovereign issues and we need to respect that," said Tester, a Big Sandy farmer. "The key is to respect that sovereignty. I don't think it's wise to try to impede or erode that."

Said Burns: "I like the relationship government-to-government. It's very important to the tribes and their cultures, so I'm very supportive of that."

Track records scrutinized

With 25,000 eligible Native voters ready to go to the polls Nov. 7, Burns' and Tester's political track records on tribal issues are under review.

Burns has had 18 years to represent Montana's tribes.

Yet his most notable distinction involving tribes arrives on the heels of a national lobbying scandal involving felon Jack Abramoff, who was convicted of bilking tribes of roughly $66 million. The money was used to curry favor with influential politicians.

Tester's work with tribes involves eight years in the Montana Senate and most notably as Senate president in 2005. That year, he supported legislation to secure $13 million for Indian education as dictated by the Montana Constitution.

It was the first time in the state's history the constitution had been honored. Legislative members of the state's Indian caucus recently signed a letter in support of Tester's campaign.

Here's what the Senate candidates had to say on some of the more pressing tribal issues:

"We've always had a great challenge in Indian health," said Burns, who sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. "We've still got that challenge. We just can't get enough for their Indian health services."

Federal lawmakers have a historical responsibility to provide health care for tribes. The legal and historical implications are rooted in more than 800 treaties, presidential executive orders, statutes and case law.

The deal: federal health care in exchange for Indian land.

The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, which helps determine the annual Indian Health Service budget, estimates $9 billion to $10 billion is needed to meet Indian Country's health needs. Yet, Congress continues to fund less than 50 percent of the costs. The 2007 budget request for tribal health care is less than $4.1 billion.

That means American Indian people receive less funding per patient than any other group in the country, including federal prisoners.

"We haven't had an administration yet, Republican or Democrat, that hasn't picked on the Indian Health Service," said Burns. "We work hard every year to plus it up. We just can't get enough."

He blamed bureaucrats within the Department of Interior. "They've lacked a little leadership, someone who can go into (Office of Management and Budget) and plead their case. I've always thought that."

Tester, unlike Burns, includes American Indian health care among a list of platform issues on his campaign Web site. "At a minimum, there should be as good of health care on the reservations as off the reservations," Tester said. "It needs to be accessible. It needs to be affordable."

He argued that good health translates into healthy economies. A recent visit to the Fort Belknap Reservation shocked him. "I about flipped over in my chair when they told me they were at 84 percent unemployment."

Good Indian health care could set a new course for tribes. "You have to have a healthy base if you're going to have a good business climate No. 1," Tester said.

Tribes have tried to alleviate staggering health care needs through use of the government-to-government consultation, a process that dates back to the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, reads "Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states and with Indian tribes."

Face-to-face discussions

Again, the track records of Burns and Tester differ on face-to-face discussions.

Burns was reminded of his record during a recent visit to the Flathead Reservation, where he met with citizens of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Burns delivered more federal money by his accounting -- $79.5 million -- to the CSKT than to any other Montana tribe since 1996.

The Northern Cheyenne benefited the least, with $875,000.

Yet, no one on the Flathhead Reservation rushed to greet the senator when he visited the CSKT tribal chambers. When he opened the door for questions, there weren't any. At a reception hosted later by Salish Kootenai College, several voters had one-on-one questions for Burns.

Troy Arlee, an SKC student, asked the senator about his position on the Cobell lawsuit.

"I would hope in the next six months, we'll have that settled," said Burns.

The lawsuit represents a half-million American Indian landowners who are seeking restitution for money missing from their government-managed trust fund accounts. The suit was filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a citizen of Montana's Blackfeet Nation.

Tester said 10 years of trust fund litigation is not the answer. "From my perspective, longer is not better. If someone came and took lumber and oil off my land and didn't pay me, I'd be mad. You can't just sit back.

"On issues like this, it's hard to argue," he said. "What are you going to say? It's not right to pay for natural resources?"

While questions during Burns' college visit were few, Jon Green, an 18-year-old from Two Eagle River School, asked one that cuts to the core of the Native vote.

"Are you anti-Indian?" said Green.

Burns said he wasn't and asked the young man why he would say such a thing.

Green and others remember December 1997. That's when Burns proposed federal legislation to eliminate tribal jurisdiction on all civil matters within Montana's reservation borders. Other tribes around the country were excluded. Burns first presented his idea at a meeting of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.

Only then did tribal leaders catch wind of it.

Riled by a lack of government-to-government consultation, tribal leaders responded by holding rallies across the state before Burns finally withdrew his idea, which would have diminished tribal sovereignty.

Today, Burns calls the proposal "an experiment that needed to happen." He said the state was experiencing "some real challenges with jurisdictional issues with people who lived on the reservations. It was hard to get everyone to the table."

His proposal "was a method to bring those folks together," so they could talk about how the tribal court system needed more money, he said. "We did that. We really improved that system."

Burns said he hasn't changed since then, but his process of consulting with tribes has improved. "They're all included now," he said. "That's the main thing."

Tester said he believes in government-to-government consultations.

"Ultimately, the best decisions are made when you get all the parties to the table and everybody's represented and everybody's being heard," he said.

"Native Americans in Indian Country are critically important if we are going to move the state forward," he said. He pointed to what was accomplished in the last legislative session.

The multimillion-dollar windfall for Indian education was the result of "opening the door and developing good communications and government-to-government relations," Tester said.

Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net.