Stewart Huntington
ICT
Vice President Kamala Harris, the freshly minted Democratic nominee for president, is making a clear pitch for the Native vote.
“I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination,” she declared during a rally last week at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Arizona, home to 22 federally recognized tribes, is a hotly contested battleground in the November election. President Joe Biden won the state four years ago by fewer than 11,000 votes.
Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, has previously staked claim to a similar position. In October 2020, while he was running for a second term in office, he released a memo stating, “The Trump administration is committed to respecting tribal sovereignty and will continue to empower Native American communities with the resources they need to promote self-determination.”
His time in office, however, was not seen as a high-water mark in tribal relations for the executive branch. Trump oversaw significant rollbacks to environmental protections, the cancellation of the Obama era’s annual White House Tribal Nations Conference and an unsuccessful effort to terminate the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal reservation in Massachusetts.
Harris’ position was greeted favorably in Indian Country.
“Her statement reflects continuity with the Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations, which have been the best presidential administrations for Indian Country in history,” said Kevin Washburn, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and former assistant secretary of Indian affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Longtime political observer Dick Trudell, whose work strengthening tribal judicial systems landed him in the National Native American Hall of Fame, was more measured.
“Most Democratic candidates have promised during their campaigns to recognize and support tribal sovereignty,” said Trudell, a citizen of the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska. “The real test, however, is when challenging issues arise, such as water rights and jurisdictional authority within reservation boundaries.”
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But Trudell still welcomed the declaration.
“I think that she will do right by tribes if elected,” he said.
Other leaders agreed.
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis gave a full-throated endorsement of Harris at the Glendale rally.
“She will be a tireless advocate supporting tribal sovereignty, including the treaty and trust responsibility,” he said. “She is the right person at the right time to be our country’s 47th President! Skoden.”
Pechanga Band of Indians Chairman Mark Macarro echoed the thoughts.
“Vice President Harris has been a critical voice behind the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented accomplishments for tribal nations,” he said in a YouTube endorsement posted Aug. 4. “As president, Kamala Harris will continue this progress. She respects our ideals of self-governance and self-determination.”
Support for Harris in Indian Country is by no means monolithic, however. Republican U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Cherokee Nation citizen, is an active Trump surrogate on the campaign trail. Republican U.S. House Rep. Tom Cole, Chickasaw from Oklahoma, also supports the former president.
But more than 60 percent of Native people vote Democratic, according to the National Congress of American Indians.
Harris has support in Indian Country, including support for her pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Twice-elected to his state’s top job, Walz has worked to build and improve tribal relations there.
“The governor and I have been really intentional to strengthen our relationships with the 11 Native nations [in the state],” Minnesoata Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, told ICT. “When we first came into this work, the governor said, ‘I want Minnesota to have a reputation of being the best place for state-tribal relations in the country.’”
Flanagan said she thought that they “have done a pretty good job in that,” while also offering a qualifying comment.
“Frankly, we shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back too hard because this is simply the work that should have been happening for the last 165-plus years,” she said. “And you shouldn’t have to have an Ojibwe woman as your lieutenant governor to do this work.”
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