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Richard Arlin Walker
Special to ICT
Casey Sixkiller and Chris Stearns will in January become the two highest-ranking Native Americans in Washington state government.
Governor-elect Rob Ferguson nominated Sixkiller – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional director since May 2022 – to lead the state Department of Ecology, a regulatory and permitting agency responsible for protecting Washington’s land, air and water.
The ecology director is a cabinet-level position; Sixkiller, Cherokee, will be the second Native American to serve as ecology director and in the governor’s cabinet. Maia Bellon, Mescalero Apache, served in the governor’s cabinet as ecology director from 2013-2020.
Stearns, Navajo, who’s represented the 47th District in the state House of Representatives since December 2022, was nominated by House Democrats to be speaker pro tem, pending a confirmation vote by the House. He will be the second Native American to serve as speaker pro tem; Jeff Morris, Tsimshian, served as speaker pro tem from 2008-11.
Their appointments are significant on several levels.
One, there are 29 federally recognized tribal nations in Washington state, and Sixkiller and Stearns will be in positions where they can help state and tribal governments find middle ground on issues in which they have common interests.
Two, as the second Native Americans to serve in their respective positions, they are helping to draw Washington nearer to the day when, as Bellon put it, “it’s not a novel thing for a Native American to have a leadership role in Washington state.” Native Americans – dual citizens of their tribal nations and of the United States – serve in the Washington state legislature, on the state Supreme Court, and as mayors, city council members, port commissioners and school board members.
Native Americans comprise 4.5 percent of the state’s population, but the Native population doubles when including Native Hawaiians and Mexican Americans who identify as Indigenous.
And tribal nations in Washington are a political, economic and social force. They have treaty rights that extend beyond their reservations and into their historical territories. They employ more than 37,000 people, spend billions of dollars annually on the purchase of goods and services from private companies, and generate millions of dollars in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Washington Indian Gaming Association. They invest in critical services that benefit all Washingtonians, including environmental and natural resource programs, health care, housing, public safety and transportation.
“I feel like it will continue to be more common,” Stearns said of Native Americans in public office outside of tribal government. “I don’t think people run for these positions, at least at this level, to get ahead. It’s not about ego, right? It’s work. This is essentially a service position and I think that’s where Native American culture is really important. We are about service. We’ve been helping others through tens of thousands of years of survival. You don’t survive on your own and we’re used to helping each other out, lifting each other up, and that’s what we do. So I think these kinds of positions are a natural fit.”
Sixkiller has served since May 2022 as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 10 administrator, overseeing the agency’s work in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and 271 tribal nations. He previously served as deputy mayor of Seattle and chief operating officer of King County and was a candidate for Seattle mayor in 2021.
Sixkiller is leading the EPA’s efforts in the Northwest to implement the Bipartisan Infrastructural Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which are investing in water infrastructure and green energy and helping communities adapt to climate change.
ICT was unable to reach Sixkiller for comment. But Bellon, who is now a lawyer for Cascadia Law Group with a focus on climate and energy policy, air quality, water resources, and toxics cleanup, said Sixkiller will bring to the Department of Ecology experience in leading complex organizations, defending tribal sovereignty and treaty rights, and securing funding to meet local needs.
“What I would tell him is use your base of knowledge of working in federal government for EPA at Region 10, and all the work on the cleanup and the water quality side of things, and integrate that with your deep understanding of the workings of Washington, D.C., because we’re going to need it now more than ever to ensure we have ongoing protections of our air and our land and our water,” Bellon said.
“Apply that knowledge and don’t be afraid to reach across the aisle and shake hands with potential opponents to come up with collaborative solutions, because that’s where we find the biggest benefit.”
Bellon derived the greatest satisfaction from solutions that resulted from collaboration between disparate groups.
“A great example of that was the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, where the Yakama Nation stepped up and sat at the table with major irrigators in the Yakima watershed, with Yakima County, with the City of Yakima, and with [river protection nonprofit] American Rivers, to discuss our collective interests and how we could meet them,” Bellon said.
“There was a breakthrough when some forward-thinking irrigators said, ‘If I can find a way to support my neighboring tribe when it comes to their concerns about the river and their treaty right to take fish, if I can support that I become a better community member.’ And in turn, the Yakama Nation supported trying to ensure that our farmers have a sustainable water supply for the incredibly valuable and important farming and agricultural industry in the watershed. When you have those kinds of collaborations, anything is possible.”
Ditto for the state’s fish consumption rule, which set clean-water standards to ensure fish are healthy enough to meet Indigenous consumption needs. “How clean do you keep water to protect those that eat fish – that was very complex with heavy engagement by tribes in Washington trying to explain why six grams of fish a day doesn’t cut it from a water quality perspective,” Bellon said.
Water quality standards were revised. The fish consumption rule was improved to one daily serving about the size and thickness of the consumer’s hand – roughly 8 ounces for a person weighing 160 pounds, according to the state Department of Health.
“Honoring the frequent eating of fish by tribal communities and non-tribal subsistence fishing communities in our state lifts everybody up because it protects everybody’s water quality,” Bellon said. “That was a big, huge lift during my tenure, getting that rule updated and defending the ultimate outcome for the betterment of health of Washingtonians and tribal people.”
Before his election to the House, Stearns was a member of the city council in the Seattle suburb of Auburn – the first Native American elected to that council. He previously served as director of Indian affairs for the U.S. Department of Energy, chairman of the Washington State Gambling Commission, and member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission.
His ability to manage a tense situation was put to the test on Dec. 11 when he walked out of his house and found a stranger opening his car door. Not knowing the man’s temperament or whether he was armed, Stearns talked him into standing down. He warned the man that entering someone’s car elsewhere could get him shot. The man told him he was hungry.
“It was just sort of an arresting reminder of human needs in our community,” Stearns said. “I looked at my car thermometer and it was 38 degrees. It’s hard living out there on the street or on the river.”
The man left Stearns’s driveway headed toward a nearby food bank or a day shelter.
“I’m really not a huge fan of calling 911,” Stearns said, adding, “Nothing was lost. No one was hurt. It worked out the way it was supposed to work out.”
(Stearns pointed to improvements in the community resulting from the Muckleshoot Tribe’s Opioid Treatment Center, which is open to Native and non-Native clients. “There are a lot of homeless people who live on the river and our neighbors were always complaining about property theft or break ins, but it’s gone down,” Stearns said. “I attribute that to the Muckleshoot Tribe’s treatment center. I think a lot of the people are getting some form of help from them. And, you know, in getting help, you feel a little bit better about yourself. You’re not necessarily in the same amount of pain and you may get some hope. And so those things have a direct link with a reduction in low-level crime. The consensus in our area is that the treatment center is great.”)
Stearns’s sensitivity to human needs – and his people management skills – will come in handy as speaker pro tem.
“There’s a little bit of being a good referee,” he said of the job. “You make the rules apply to both sides and keep the business moving, keep the temperature down, keep floor debate focused on bills and not on individuals, and also keep members from feeling like, you know, it’s them versus the world.”
Democrats will have a 59-39 majority in the House (and a 29-20 majority in the Senate) when the 2025 session begins on Jan. 13. Still, most bills are passed with bipartisan support.
“Ninety-five percent of all bills [last session] had at least one GOP vote but 80 percent passed with multiple, lots of, GOP votes,” Stearns said.
“I think that is really important. I mean, it’s not really that attractive compared to a heated debate – those things tend to be the big ticket items – but most of the work we do is very bipartisan.”
Former House Republican leader J.T. Wilcox spoke about bipartisanship in his retirement announcement on Feb. 28. He warned of “single-party thinking [that] has solidified into concrete,” but said there are many Republicans and Democrats in the legislature “who don’t get featured in the media, don’t hunger for attention, and came to Olympia only to make Washington a better state.” He added, “There are Democrats with whom I disagree sometimes, but trust to be honest and deeply committed.”
Morris, the former legislator, served for 24 years in the state House of Representatives, four of them as speaker pro tem. He said the position is bipartisan because – regardless of the pro tem’s political affiliation, he or she represents the entire House.
“It’s a real honor to get elected, because it’s one of three positions elected by the entire floor of the House, not by the caucuses,” Morris said. “The speaker pro tem is the speaker when the speaker is out of state. And you represent the entire House of Representatives. You’re part of the core leadership group.”
Morris’s advice for Stearns: “The real job when you’re presiding is to constantly be monitoring the temperature of the room to make sure everyone is speaking to the ideals before the House and not to personalities, not impugning motives, that it’s a debate of different ideas. And it really is a bipartisan position in that respect. You have to have a good relationship with both parties in order to make sure that you’re just not constantly having to have a time out.”
Morris added, “I used to try to use humor to lower the temperature in the room. There’s lots of tools you develop to encourage honest differences of opinion on solutions and make sure everybody has a fair and even chance to express their thoughts.”
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