Indigenous vote in Wisconsin sways national politics and policy
Sheku ("hello" in Oneida) and yaw^ko ("thank you") for reading the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter.
With election season underway in these increasingly important midterms, I want take a look at the importance of the Indigenous vote in national politics and policy by highlighting some of our recent coverage.
In swing states, such as Wisconsin and Arizona, some analysts say the Indigenous vote in these places helped Joe Biden win the presidential election in 2020, and the numbers certainly point to that being the case.
Both Trump and Biden had campaigned in Indian Country, promising to take on key issues, such as the epidemic of violence against Indigenous people and strengthening tribal sovereignty, but some tribal officials in Wisconsin believed Biden’s plan for working with Indigenous nations seemed to make more sense.
The importance of the Indigenous vote also appears to be having an effect on national policy and the officials who make it.
Tribal officials across the country applauded Biden’s pick for secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, who’s the first Native American to hold the position.
And tribal officials in Wisconsin are hopeful she can do something to protect the wolf from being hunted, as well as influence environmental policy.
Tribal officials in Wisconsin are also having a direct impact on national policy, such as with Daniel Guzman, an Oneida Nation council member who was recently appointed to an EPA advisory board. He said hopes to help create environmental policies based on practices that have been proven successful on the tribe’s reservation just west of Green Bay.
And my colleague, Debra Krol of the Arizona Republic, covered Biden’s recent White House Tribal Nations Summit, which included his order for federal agencies to focus attention on murdered and missing Indigenous people.
If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. As an incentive for readers to turn toward our publications for coverage on Indigenous Wisconsin, I’d like to point out a subscription sale — $1 buys a six-month digital subscription.
And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at fvaisvilas@gannett.com.
About me
I'm Frank Vaisvilas, a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. You can reach me at 920-228-0437 or fvaisvilas@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Native American voters in Wisconsin sway national politics and policy
