Dur­ing one of the after­noon ses­sions at Day One of Net­roots Nation 2021, a pan­el of Native Amer­i­can orga­niz­ers and lead­ers gath­ered via Socio and Zoom to dis­cuss the issues fac­ing Indige­nous vot­ers, and how they are prepar­ing for the upcom­ing 2022 midterm elec­tions going forward.

The pan­el fea­tured Judith LeBlanc, mem­ber of the Cad­do Nation of Okla­homa and Direc­tor of Native Orga­niz­ers Alliance; Chrissie Cas­tro, Diné and Chi­cana, and Chair­per­son of the Los Ange­les City and Coun­ty Native Amer­i­can Indi­an Com­mis­sion; Jade Begay, Diné and Tesuque Pueblo of New Mex­i­co and Cre­ative Direc­tor of NDN Col­lec­tive; and Michael John­son, cit­i­zen of The Three Affil­i­at­ed Tribes of North Dako­ta, and Direc­tor of Advance­ment with NDN. 

The dis­cus­sion was mod­er­at­ed by Lycia Mad­docks, Cit­i­zen of the Quechan Indi­an Nation and com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gist with NDN Collective.

The pan­el start­ed off with pan­elists dis­cussing the chal­lenges fac­ing Native vot­ers and orga­niz­ers, and some of the lessons learned from the 2020 election.

One of the frus­tra­tions for Indige­nous orga­niz­ers is that Native Amer­i­cans have his­tor­i­cal­ly been dis­missed as a key elec­toral con­stituen­cy. LaBlanc said that an ongo­ing nar­ra­tive around Native Amer­i­can vot­ers is that they are “sta­tis­ti­cal­ly insignif­i­cant,” and there­fore not wor­thy of cam­paign attention.

“But,” she said. “They are polit­i­cal­ly significant.”

She not­ed that the Nava­jo Nation already has one of the high­est vot­ing rates, a num­ber which only increased dur­ing the 2020 election.

Begay con­curred with this sentiment. 

“There are demo­graph­ics who don’t believe our vote mat­ters,” she said–an issue that demands atten­tion from Democ­rats. One way to address this, she con­tin­ued, was to get Native-cen­tered nar­ra­tives in the mass media.

Mad­docks then turned to LeBlanc to elab­o­rate on her obser­va­tions on the con­di­tions in both rur­al and urban Native communities.

LeBlanc said that the key to mobi­liz­ing the vote was to not only bring aware­ness to the grow­ing polit­i­cal pow­er of Native vot­ers, but to instill that aware­ness as a call to action.

She cit­ed her suc­cess in orga­niz­ing across sev­en dif­fer­ent states against the grow­ing tide of extrem­ist right wing can­di­dates run­ning for state leg­isla­tive seats.

“We said look,” she said. “Elec­tion results are snap­shots of our polit­i­cal pow­er at the moment. They’re snap­shots of their polit­i­cal pow­er as well.”

Anoth­er moti­vat­ing fac­tor will be the pres­ence of Deb Haa­land, an enrolled mem­ber of Lagu­na Pueblo of New Mex­i­co, Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or, and the first Native Amer­i­can to serve as a Cab­i­net secretary.

The pan­elists over­whelm­ing­ly agreed that the impor­tance of Sec­re­tary Haa­land’s pres­ence in the cab­i­net can­not be underestimated.

The pan­elists men­tioned that are “per­sis­tent bar­ri­ers” for com­mu­ni­ties, bar­ri­ers which are sys­temic and thus in need of leg­isla­tive action.

Exam­ples of solu­tions include the Native Amer­i­can Vot­ing Rights Act.

There is also the mat­ter of vis­i­bil­i­ty. One pan­elist men­tioned that 80% of Native vot­ers base their vot­ing deci­sions on the track record of a can­di­date’s sup­port of Indige­nous issues. If pro­gres­sives are to earn the Native vote, they must con­tin­ue to engage Native vot­ers and speak to issues that engage Native vot­ers, such as envi­ron­ment, edu­ca­tion, sov­er­eign­ty, and the right to self-determination.

LeBlanc not­ed that tribes have a unique rela­tion­ship with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment because they are sov­er­eign nations with treaty rights.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Bureau of Indi­an Affairs shares the same bud­get appor­tion­ing funds towards oth­er envi­ron­men­tal issues, such as endan­gered ani­mals, lead­ing to an under­fund­ing towards issues such as education.

And though there has been an expec­ta­tion since the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion that tribes be con­sult­ed in pol­i­cy­mak­ing, she said that his­tor­i­cal­ly their requests and con­cerns have been ignored or mere­ly giv­en lip service.

“Orga­niz­ing is being at the table,” she said. “There is an exec­u­tive order requir­ing con­sul­ta­tion.” But until it’s man­dat­ed, noth­ing will fun­da­men­tal­ly change.

Begay also not­ed that, in addi­tion to issues such as food sov­er­eign­ty and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, there need­ed to be a greater invest­ment in cul­ti­vat­ing Indige­nous leaders.

Mad­docks then asked the pan­elists how they were prepar­ing Native can­di­dates for the 2022 midterm elections.

Cas­tro said her orga­ni­za­tion was “invest­ing in work­ing on rep­re­sen­ta­tion” through focus groups, cam­paign man­age­ment teams, and build­ing polit­i­cal infrastructure.

Talk­ing to vot­ers about issues they care about and acti­vat­ing in every elec­tion and polit­i­cal avenue — “school dis­tricts and coun­cil meet­ings” — helps “[build] a mus­cle of Native vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion for 2022.”

Cre­ative strate­gies employed to work with the restric­tions imposed by the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, such as robust phone bank­ing and dig­i­tal orga­niz­ing, only strength­ened those connections.

Mad­docks end­ed the pan­el by agree­ing with this state­ment. For Native orga­niz­ers and com­mu­ni­ties, in her words: “Vot­ing is sov­er­eign muscle.”