While Montana Sen. Conrad Burns finds himself linked to a Native-related lobbying scandal in Washington, D.C., some tribal leaders question the senator's support for Native people in his own backyard.

The Republican Burns received nearly $150,000 in campaign donations from clients of confessed crook Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist who admittedly swindled tens of millions of dollars from a half dozen wealthy tribes around the country. The Justice Department continues to investigate Abramoff, who pleaded guilty Jan. 3 to three felony charges, including conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion.

"He didn't really give anything back to the tribes or represent them very good," Burns said on Monday.

Now, some of Montana's prominent tribal leaders are using the same language to describe Burns' role in representing their tribes and thousands of individual Native landowners.

"The senator is from Montana, but has never taken an interest in it," said Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in a case where a half million Native landowners have sued the Interior Department for mismanaging money owed them for natural resource development.

The lawsuit is now nearing 10 years of litigation.

The three-term senator, who sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, has refused to talk with Cobell on several occasions.

"I've not seen a request from her," Burns said, adding that he generally avoids discussing ongoing litigation.

Even though he once sat next to her on a flight between Minneapolis and Great Falls, the senator told Cobell he didn't want to talk about her case in which the Interior Department has acknowledged more than a century's worth of account mismanagement.

Burns spent the rest of the flight working on a crossword puzzle, Cobell said.

"If she'd call me and say, 'I want an appointment,' she'd get it," Burns said Monday.

But when Cobell scheduled an appointment in 2003, he sent a staff person in his place. She had hoped to inform Burns about the significance of appropriations legislation that included several anti-Native riders related to the lawsuit. She was disappointed when she was forced to meet with an aide to the senator.

"This young person was so ignorant to us, it was so bad," said Cobell. "He told me, 'We ought to be charging you for the handling of this money.' I almost jumped across the table."

Burns' committee ended up passing the spending bill, which included provisions for the Interior Department to delay by one year a historical trust fund accounting mandated by a federal judge. Another provision continues to pay legal fees for government officials who haven't complied with court orders in the suit. Two years ago, upwards of $7 million had already been paid to defend them.

In a meeting with reporters and editors at the Missoulian Monday, Burns continued trying to distance himself from Abramoff. He's among several politicians who have given away the lobbyist's money in recent weeks.

But the senator remains under scrutiny for directing a $3 million school construction grant to the casino-rich Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan, a former Abramoff client.

The Michigan tribe received more K-12 education money in one year than Montana tribes did in the past eight years. Burns has helped direct $2.65 million to two reservation-based elementary and high schools since 1998. The Blackfeet Nation made similar requests for federal funding, but remain empty handed.

"We've always got promises from Sen. Burns, but no actual support to build a school here in our community," said Carol Juneau, an educator from Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation who's also a Democratic representative in the Montana Legislature.

"I would have hoped that if he was going to support a $3 million appropriation for Indian education that it would have come to Montana and not a Michigan tribe," said Juneau. "They're a wealthy casino tribe. We are not."

Burns said the wealthy tribe's school "buildings were in such bad shape that you wouldn't keep livestock in them." Given the chance, he said, "I'd do it again."