of South Dakota School of Law in Vermillion in 1966. Political career Abourezk began a legal practice in Rapid City, South Dakota, and joined the Democratic Party. He ran in 1968 for Attorney General of South Dakota but was defeated by Gordon Mydland. In 1970, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1971 to 1973, in the state's second Congressional district which was eliminated in 1983. In 1972, Abourezk was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1973 to 1979, after which he chose not to seek a second term. He was the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. In 1974, TIME magazine named Senator Abourezk as one of the "200 Faces for the Future". Legislation His legislative successes in the Senate included the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, as well as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. His signature legislation was the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA, 1978), designed to protect Native American children and families from being torn apart. Native American children have been removed by state social agencies from their families and placed in foster care or adoption at a disproportionately high rate, and usually placed with non Native American families. This both deprived the children of their culture and threatened the very survival of the tribes. This legislation was intended to provide a federal standard that emphasized the needs of Native American children to be raised in their own cultures, and gave precedence to tribal courts for decisions about children domiciled on the reservation, as well as concurrent but presumptive jurisdiction with state courts for Native American children off the reservation. He also authored and passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which provided Indian tribes with greater autonomy. The BIA made grants to the tribes but they could manage contracts and funds to control their own destiny. That legislation also reduced the direct influence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the tribes. Other initiatives Abourezk was an early supporter of a National initiative. With fellow Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR), he introduced an amendment to support more direct democracy. However, this initiative failed. As a senator, Abourezk criticized the Office of Public Safety (OPS), a U.S. agency linked to the USAID and the CIA, which provided training to foreign police forces. Officers they trained were used to suppress civilians in several