The Navajo Nation’s economy is a major campaign issue due to the precarious future of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station, which is a major source of revenue and jobs for the tribe. The primary ballot for president includes the current incumbent, his vice president and three women among many others. It’s the first election since a purge of 52,000 people from the voter rolls. The top two vote-getters go on to the general election in November.
Native Vote 2018
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The Native vote could play a role in key elections across the country. Tribal leaders and Native rights advocates see the Native vote as an important influence in election results, which could further impact policy issues for tribes. In addition, a number of Native American are seeing victories in their run for office in state and congressional seats. National Native News is following a number of these stories in our Native Vote 2018 coverage.
Navajo voters choose among 18 presidential primary hopefuls
by Antonia Gonzales
The Navajo Nation’s economy is a major campaign issue due to the precarious future of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station, which is a major source of revenue and jobs for the tribe. The primary ballot for president includes the current incumbent, his vice president and three women among many others. It’s the first election since a purge of 52,000 people from the voter rolls. The top two vote-getters go on to the general election in November.
This story is a collaboration between National Native News and High Country News. Read more here.
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State Representative Peggy Flanagan is running for lt. governor of Minnesota with Congressman Tim Walz for governor. (Screenshot)
Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Nation, is the Democratic candidate for lt. governor of Minnesota. Listen to an interview with Peggy after winning the nomination.
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Lt. Colonel Donna Bergstrom is running for lt. governor of Minnesota with Jeff Johnson for governor. (Photo-Jeff Johnson for Governor, Facebook)
Donna Bergstrom, Red Lake Nation, is the Republican nominee for lt. governor of Minnesota. Listen to an interview with Donna after securing the nomination.
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Sample ballots for the Navajo Nation primary election line the wall at the tribe’s election administration office. (Photo-Antonia Gonzales)
A Navajo chapter coordinator is concerned the Navajo Nation voter purge discourages young voters. Under Navajo law, citizens who did not vote in 2014 or 2016 were purged and had until late July to reregister.
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Supporters gather for a watch party on primary night in Kansas for Democrat Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, running for Congress. (Photo-Rhonda LeValdo)
Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, secures the Democratic nomination for a congressional seat in Kansas.
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Kris Beecher held a voter registration drive for Navajo people living in the Phoenix area. (Photo-Kris Beecher, Facebook)
Kris Beecher holds a voter registration drive for urban Navajo people in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
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The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the Senate Rules Committee held a roundtable on voting rights, access, and barriers in Indian County. (Photo-Navajo Nation Washington Office)
Tribal leaders and U.S. lawmakers address barriers to voting in Indian Country.
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Debra Haaland from Laguna Pueblo is a step closer to becoming the first Native American woman in Congress. (Photo-Andi Murphy)
Debra Haaland is a step closer to being first Native American woman in Congress.
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Paulette Jordan, Coeur d’Alene, is the first Native American to win the Democratic primary in Idaho’s gubernatorial race. (Photo: Lee David Zahir, Representative Paulette Jordan Facebook page)
Paulette Jordan is optimistic about Idaho’s gubernatorial race after she wins the Democratic nomination.
Minnesota primaries pick two Native women for executive races
by Antonia Gonzales
Whichever party wins the governor seat in Minnesota in November, a Native American woman will be the lieutenant governor. The top vote-getters in each party have Native American female running mates.
Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan secured the Democratic nomination. Flanagan is a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. In a speech thanking supporters after Tuesday’s primary, Flanagan took a moment to acknowledge history in the making.
“I do want to also just note this historic moment. There will be two Native women running for lieutenant governor of Minnesota,” Flanagan said to rousing applause. “So, Donna Bergstrom, here we go sister.”
Bergstrom is candidate Jeff Johnson’s running mate. They won the Republican primary for governor. She is a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe.
Native women in the 2018 political season are seeing primary election victories across the country. Paulette Jordan is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Idaho. Two Native women also won Democratic nominations for congressional seats: Deb Haaland in New Mexico and Sharice Davids in Kansas. In Wisconsin, Ho-chunk Nation member Arvina Martin lost the primary in the secretary of state’s race to incumbent Democrat Doug La Follette.
After primary win, Haaland on track to become first Native American woman in Congress
by Antonia Gonzales
Debra Haaland won Tuesday’s democratic primary election for New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. If elected in November, Haaland, from Laguna Pueblo, would become the first Native American woman in Congress. In an interview following her primary win, she recognized the efforts of other Native women running for office including Paulette Jordan, a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Democratic nominee in the Idaho governor’s race.
“Maybe it’s the year for Native women because there are a lot of us running across the country,” Haaland said. Jordan made a personal appearance on behalf of Haaland’s campaign in the day leading up to the election.
Haaland’s campaign priorities include health care, education, and the environment.
“Moving to 100 percent renewable energy and having that economy create thousands of jobs, health care for every single New Mexican, and getting big money out of politics. I think all of (those) things would benefit Indian Country as well,” she said.
Haaland also says there are specific issues for Native Americans she has capacity to address, including treaties and the U.S. Government’s trust responsibility. Tribal leaders across the country are raising concerns about Trump Administration plans such as Medicaid work requirements and the reorganization of the Interior Department.
“I’m going to make sure I do everything thing I can to make sure that those voices are at the table and their perspectives are considered when any policy that effect Indian tribes are put forth,” Haaland said.
Haaland is a former state democratic party chairwoman. She will face Republican Janice Arnold Jones and Libertarian Lloyd Princeton in November. They are vying for the seat being vacated by Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham who won the Democratic nomination in the New Mexico governor’s race.
(Photo: New Mexico 1st Congressional District democratic primary winner Deb Haaland and Idaho Gubernatorial democratic winner Paulette Jordan by Andi Murphy)
New Spirits program offers support, not blame, for pregnant women suffering addiction
By Jackie Yamanaka
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe and St. Vincent Healthcare are partners in a new program that changes the way pregnant women, suffering from addiction, are treated. Instead of being greeted with blame and punishment these women are being met with support services.
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The Northern Cheyenne Tribe and St. Vincent Healthcare are partners in a new program that changes the way pregnant women, suffering from addiction, are treated. (Photo-Jackie Yamanaka)
Licensed social worker Maria Russel works with these women. She said they’re highly motivated to be the best moms for her children, but sometimes addiction gets in the way.
“Addiction is about pain,” Russel said. “And we’re talking about a lot of pain, a lot of trauma.”
So instead of immediately blaming and arresting the woman and removing the child or children from the home, Russel said she’s met where she is at.
Russel was hired under the Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s new program known as “Blessing New Spirits” program.
“The thought behind it is a Cheyenne tradition of this is a new spirit coming and how are we going to greet that and bring this new spirit into the world,” she said.
Russel said they’re working to create a cultural shift between the medical community and addicted moms.
“If we can support mothers with their children, that’s our first love relationship,” she said. “No one will ever replace a mom, no matter what. And if we can support them and build them up then we have lifelong healing in the family.”
Dr. Alison Rentz specializes in pediatric neonatal-perinatal medicine at St.Vincent Healthcare. She said the baby can’t be treated in isolation, rather it’s also about the immediate and extended family.
“It’s a complete paradigm shift in the medical community from how we used to care for it which was a lot of judgement, criminal proceedings, things are really not effective. That are not going to get to the root of the problem, have a lifelong good outcome for the baby, for the mother, for the extended family” said Dr. Rentz.
She said now the medical community is viewing the pending birth of a child as a potential catalyst for change.
“I have seen personally over the last 3 or 4 years many instances where we’ve had honest conversations with the mother, nothing to do with Child Protective Services,” She said. “Just, ‘We want to help you. We want you to talk to us and tell us how we can help you move forward so you can be the mother you want to be.’”
Dr. Rentz said she didn’t know of a mother who was purposely trying to harm her baby. Rather she said they didn’t have the support they need. She said this paradigm shift has positively improved outcomes for their newborns.
Montana Governor Steve Bullock was briefed on the new perinatal substance abuse treatment project during a visit to St. Vincent Healthcare. He said he recently traveled to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and heard about this project.
Bullock hoped others across Montana could learn lessons from this program. He cited statistics that of the 3,000 children in Montana’s foster care system over 60% were removed from their families because of parental substance abuse.
“We can get numb by statistics,” Bullock said. “Yet something must be done and something is being done and it gives me great hope.”
State of Change: tribal digital divide
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By Leah Todd
COCHITI PUEBLO, NM – For decades in these sparsely populated valleys and peaks in northern New Mexico, the internet has been slow, unreliable and expensive. This region is not remote, exactly. Several small tribal communities are nestled a half hour’s drive from the state seat in Santa Fe and the same distance from Albuquerque, the state’s largest city. But most cell phone service drops conspicuously between the two urban centers, and internet connections are elusive.
“We’re so close to the capital,” Cochiti Pueblo education director Kevin Lewis said. “And yet so divided digitally.”
Nationally, tribal lands have some of the lowest internet access rates of any demographic. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 41 percent of people living on tribal lands in the U.S. lack access to high-speed internet. In rural areas on tribal lands, 68 percent don’t have access. Lewis’s community, however, is an outlier. Today, Cochiti Pueblo and three others are just feet away from completing a $4.2 million, 32-mile line of fiber-optic cables. The project will connect tribal libraries across the four communities at a fraction of the price internet service has cost until now. The Middle Rio Grande Pueblo Tribal Consortium, the group leading the project, is one of a growing number of tribally led broadband internet initiatives in the U.S., and one of few collaborative projects that allow rural tribes to aggregate demand and negotiate lower prices.
Though this community’s sojourn into modern day technology is far from perfect — this network connects libraries, but leaves hospitals and homes lacking, for instance — internet researchers say few other tribal nations have achieved the same level of cooperation across multiple sovereign governments. Their story of navigating federal funding streams and building consensus to launch their own internet network could chart a path for other rural communities seeking the same.
Libraries as backbone
In more ways than one, libraries are a backbone for New Mexico’s rural communities. On the four pueblos involved in the Middle Rio Grande consortium – Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Ana and San Felipe – it’s not uncommon to see a troupe of cars parked in library parking lots after dark, screens aglow, drivers downloading files for homework or streaming movies. Nearly half of all tribal libraries are their community’s only source of free public internet access, according to the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums.
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The Cochiti library is one of four tribal libraries connected to a tribally owned fiber optic network. (Photo-Antonia Gonzales)
“Nighttime parking lot WiFi is an infrastructure in our state,” said Kimball Sekaquaptewa, the New Mexico-based manager of tribal critical infrastructure at a tribally owned insurance provider, AMERIND Risk.
Such after-hours access was an imperfect solution, though, and the connections the libraries offered were glacial. For Lewis and the Cochiti Pueblo, internet bills crept upwards of $1,500 a month for a connection that didn’t even meet the federal definition of “high speed.” When one person uses the internet connection to livestream a distance learning class online at Cochiti Pueblo’s library, no one else can use the internet, Lewis said.
But traditional internet service providers weren’t doing these sparse communities any favors.
“Our patron base was too small,” Lewis said. “Who wants to spend $4 million on a network to pick up 75 customers at Cochiti?”
It’s a problem many rural communities – whether tribal or not – face.
“The market is simply failing a lot of communities, and a lot of those communities are Indigenous, whether it be Alaska or Canada, or South Dakota, or very small, rural communities where the return on investment for companies to go in and build infrastructure is just not there,” said Mark Buell, the North American bureau director for the Internet Society, an international organization that studies and advocates for internet-related issues. “There, the network solution is driven by community. Often not for profit, but not necessarily.”
While the Middle Rio Grande consortium chased funding for a fiber-optic connection, widely considered the fastest available, other tribes have used wireless technology, including this network launched by the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association. Still other rural places have turned to municipally owned networks and rural electric cooperatives to build high-speed networks, sometimes with massive federal grants, other times with loans the co-op will pay back over time as the internet service expands.
When the Albuquerque-area tribes teamed up, they aggregated demand across the four tribal communities to apply together for federal funding available to pay for infrastructure for rural communities seeking to connect schools and libraries. The program, called E-rate, has been around since the late 1990s, and while it has helped more than six out of 10 public libraries in the U.S. get discounted internet service and technology, only 15 percent of tribal libraries have used the program. Roughly $3.9 million of the $4.2 million price tag on fiber construction to the four New Mexico pueblos comes from the E-rate program, the largest E-rate award in the state in 2016. The rest will come from local matches.
Sekaquaptewa and Lewis, both members of Cochiti Pueblo, visited tribal councils, talking with tribal leaders and building consensus among elders. The going was slow at first, and weekly project meetings slated for one hour started lasting two or three.
For Everett Chavez, administrator of tribal programs and a three-time former governor of Santo Domingo Pueblo, the internet project wasn’t a tough sell. Chavez doesn’t have a home internet connection, but he knows its importance; his son drives to the top of a nearby hill to download documents for school using a cellphone hot spot.
“It’s an equity issue for us,” Chavez said. “Education is something the pueblo has promoted, and we’re proud of that.” Teachers regularly assign homework that involves an internet connection, and Lewis says more students would sign up for online higher education or high school equivalency classes if the libraries could accommodate them.
The path to laying fiber in the ground wasn’t perfect for this group. Navigating federal regulations on how subsidies can and can’t be used and keeping track of deadlines was tough. “Hard deadlines are hard deadlines, we learned that really quick,” Lewis said. The group has spent more time than they anticipated shepherding the infrastructure work, cutting into valuable time that could be spent devising a plan for service delivery, he said.
And the federal E-rate program itself isn’t perfect. Confusing paperwork can lead to denials. Applications can linger in red tape. More than two dozen projects waited nearly a year for a decision, according to research compiled by EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit that advocates for better internet access in schools. According to their analysis, three New Mexico school districts’ applications have been unfairly denied.
Locally, too, bureaucracy proved challenging.
“Bureaucracy is our biggest problem,” Gar Clarke, broadband program manager for the New Mexico Department of Information Technology, said at a recent gathering of the New Mexico chapter of the Internet Society. “If you’re a school and you apply, you can’t light up the health care clinic next door.” The state has hired an E-rate specialist to help any public school on tribal lands — but that doesn’t include all Bureau of Indian Education schools. Chavez said a Bureau of Indian Affairs school on San Felipe Pueblo won’t be connected to this fiber-optic system, for instance, because it doesn’t qualify as “public” under federal standards.
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The library at Santo Domingo Pueblo provides computer training to the public. Library staff hope the broadband project will benefit community members. (Photo-Antonia Gonzales)
What’s next?
For now, the group of library directors and others running the project meets once a week, going over construction updates and redesigning construction paths and budgets when necessary ahead of a planned June launch. The Internet Society is studying how the group’s efforts could be replicated elsewhere, and consortium members like Lewis and Sekaquaptewa are regular speakers at rural internet gatherings, wanting to export what they’ve learned to other rural and Indigenous communities.
Buell, the Internet Society researcher, says three factors contribute to the success or failure of a community network like the tribes’: technology, governance and a business model that will last. No one model is right for every network. Many governance models will work, Buell said. It’s about finding the one that’s right for each community and regulatory environment. Some tribal networks are more market-oriented and capitalistic; others prioritize more traditional decision-making models.
“They need to reflect communities’ priorities from governance structures all the way down to who’s deploying the technology,” Buell said. “It’s the same no matter where you go. If it’s driven by the community, it’s much more likely to succeed in the long term.”
Challenges remain for the tribal internet consortium, mostly when it comes to sustaining and expanding the internet service. Chavez met recently with New Mexico’s U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D) to push a bill that would expand the federal E-rate program to include other anchor institutions in the community, like hospitals and tribal governments, not just schools and libraries. “Right now the focus is too narrow,” Chavez said. Extending broadband internet infrastructure to homes would have economic benefits, too, by connecting local artists to a larger market, he said.
And besides having the expertise needed to navigate complicated right-of-way and inter-governmental issues, for Chavez, there was a bigger reason why it was crucial the tribes lead the effort.
“It was important the first players were the tribes, in selling this to our councils,” Chavez said. “When we talk about sovereignty…we can’t just talk sovereign, we’ve got to act sovereign.”
This story was co-reported by Leah Todd with the Solutions Journalism Network and Sarah Gustavus with New Mexico In Focus and is part of the State of Change project. State of Change is a project in collaboration with High Country News and the Solutions Journalism Network. A group of New Mexico news organizations are examining the challenge of building resilient rural communities, and are looking at what some communities are doing to address a number of issues they face including access to the internet.
Documenting Hate against Native Americans
There’s growing concern among Native advocates that rhetoric from our nation’s top leaders is fueling an increase in racially-biased crimes against Native Americans and other people of color. But there’s little evidence other than individual reports to document that. National Native News is joining ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project to collect, analyze and report on hate crimes.
Gas pipeline, ice-breaking ferry, new roads are all part of proposed Pebble Mine permit application
by Daysha Eaton
The proposed Pebble Mine in southwest Alaska will require a number of major infrastructure projects to support the operation. The projects are among the details revealed when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made the company’s permit application public.
“The size difference compared to our early estimates of 12.7 square miles is now at about 10.7 square miles, so we’ve been able to make the facilities in and around the proposed mine site more compact,” said Pebble Limited Partnership spokesperson Mike Heatwole. “We are proposing a natural gas pipeline from the Kenai Peninsula across Cook Inlet and then under Iliamna Lake in order to get natural gas to our mine site in order to run our electrical generation.”
In addition, the application shows the company wants to build roads, an ice-breaking ferry and a port on Cook Inlet, to transport minerals out.
The Army Corps will select a third-party contractor to administer the environmental impact statement process, then they will move into the scoping process, which is where the public can weigh in.
Alannah Hurley with United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a group opposing the mine, says the permit application confirms their concerns.
“There is no way that the current application will not impact salmon,” Hurley said. “We are still talking about tons of toxic waste that would have to be stored forever at the headwaters of our watershed. Miles and miles of road and pipeline, a mega-port. It is still a mega-mine.”
She says even as the project moves into the permitting stage the resistance to the proposed Pebble Mine isn’t going anywhere.
“You know this is really a national issue, it is a global issue and we need people from across the nation to weigh in and help us protect this global resource for future generations,” she said.
The permitting process should begin to unfold over 2018.
‘Unacceptable risk’ of Alaska’s Pebble Mine prompts EPA to keep proposed Obama-era mining restrictions
by Daysha Eaton
In a surprise announcement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is suspending its effort to reverse environmental protections for the Bristol Bay Watershed. That is a blow to the Pebble Mine proposed for southwest Alaska. Mine opponents praised the EPA’s actions.
“The fact that the Trump Administration is choosing to keep them in place and keep them on the shelf is a recognition Pebble Mine is too toxic–too toxic even for the Trump Administration,” said Alannah Hurley with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a group formed to fight the Pebble Mine.
The mine would be located about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage and roughly 100 miles upstream from one of the world’s most important sockeye salmon fisheries.
In a press release, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the Bristol Bay fisheries deserve protection and that the proposed Pebble mine may pose an unacceptable risk. The announcement is a retreat from the Trump Administration’s pattern of doing away with stricter Obama-era environmental guidelines.
A spokesperson for Pebble Limited Partnership declined to comment and instead directed queries to a prepared press release. In the written statement, Pebble CEO Tom Collier said the EPA announcement does not change the company’s approach.
“We believe we can demonstrate that we can responsibly construct and operate a mine at the Pebble Deposit that meets Alaska’s high environmental standards,” Collier said in the press release. “We will also demonstrate that we can successfully operate a mine without compromising the fish and water resources around the project. We look forward to having all of our detailed technical information fairly reviewed by the Corps of Engineers and other participating regulatory agencies through the longstanding, lawful permitting process.”
Navajo Nation takes stance against human trafficking
by Jenni Monet
At the start of the Navajo Nation’s new winter legislative session, President Russell Begaye made it clear which issue sits high on the leadership’s agenda. Begaye signed a proclamation aimed at raising awareness of human trafficking in and around the border-towns of the sprawling reservation.
“We just want to announce and proclaim the month of January as Human Trafficking Awareness Month,” Begaye said as he assembled with other Navajo leaders outside council chambers.
In August, Begaye enacted a tribal council resolution to criminalize the sex slave trade within the reservation borders — what the International Labour Organization estimates is a $150 billion industry worldwide.
“(There’s a perception that) trafficking only happens in places like Asia, or Russia or Eastern Europe — places like that…but it does happen in the United States, and it does happen on Navajo Nation,” Begaye said.
While there are many advocates who pushed for the human trafficking resolution, it was Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown who first formally introduced the measure in April.
On this morning, Brown was among several who turned out to raise awareness about an issue that — for the Navajo Nation — is lacking in any real discernible data and is also difficult to detect.
“The next thing we need to do… we would like to have all our Navjao departments to be educated on what is human trafficking, where to call once they identify it, so we can begin to start saving our children,” Brown said.
The Navajo Nation represents the only federally recognized tribal government to amend its criminal codes to prosecute the international human trafficking trade in the tribal courts.
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