Native Voice One

Native American Radio Network

Making history on election night … by making news

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It’s already a record year for the number of Native Americans running for elective office in the United States. Now another kind of history, a broadcast first.

This is Trahant Reports.

I have always wondered what it would be like if the “news” had a Native focus? We would hear about candidates who come from Native communities. We’d hear about how policy shapes our world, whether in an urban neighborhood, on a reservation, or in an Alaskan village. The news would be ours.

Well, on election night three national media organizations, FNX | First Nations Experience, Indian Country Today, and Native Voice One, are joining together to broadcast the first ever live national coverage of election night focusing on the 103 Native Americans who are running for Congress, governor, lieutenant governor, as well as state legislatures. There will be reports from Indian Country Today contributors from the candidates’ campaigns across the country.

FNX | First Nations Experience will broadcast Native Election Night Live from its studios in San Bernardino, California, starting` at 6 p.m. Pacific. It will be a five hour, coast to coast broadcast, with on the ground reports from correspondents across the country.

The newscast will be anchored by Antonia Gonzales of National Native News — and yours truly.

This election has already been amazing. There has never been a Native American woman elected to the Congress — and now there are three viable candidates. So the idea is to open the window and let Indian Country Today readers, the viewers of FNX, and the listeners from Native Voice One, get the information about this extraordinary moment in real time. This is history that we don’t want anyone to miss.

“A record number of Native American candidates are on ballots across America this year,” said Micah Wright, Content Manager for FNX.  “As America’s only Native-themed broadcast television network, it’s our responsibility to inform the public about the political advances of all our tribal peoples. It’s especially gratifying that we get to do it in coordination with our fellow Native news organizations.”  Wright is a member of the Muscogee Nation.

Native Voice One is excited to join in broadcasting the live results of election night, in partnership with FNX and Indian Country Today,” said Bob Petersen, Yu’pik Eskimo, network manager for NV1. “Listeners will have the opportunity to hear the Native voice represented on this historic date in American history through the live multi-hour, multi-platform broadcast across the country.”

The five hour program will be broadcast over the FNX network (so check with your local PBS affiliate about its availability.) It will also be carried on the radio by Native Voice One, and streamed on the Indian Country Today website.

Election night is a month away — plenty of time to organize your own watch party.

 

I am Mark Trahant.

Native Women

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This is Trahant Reports.

Two years ago Denise Juneau was making history. She was running for Montana’s only seat in Congress. It was a hundred years since Jeannette Rankin had won that same seat, the first woman ever elected to the Congress. So a century later Juneau, Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara, would be the ideal first Native woman to serve. She was following her plan perfectly, raising $3 million, crisscrossing that huge state, and mobilizing voters.

Still, she lost.

Juneau is now Superintendent of Schools for the city of Seattle. She said she didn’t feel bad about losing because “we did everything we were supposed to. We just lost.”

Then she turned philosophical.

She said every time another Native woman steps up to run for any office, whether that be the state legislature, the city council, the. Congress, it paves the way. There’s sort of a pipeline, which is really awesome right now, that there’s never been a path for Native women to just really step up. “I believe right now, we’re in a time and space where we see that happening,” Juneau said. “There will be a first at some point.”

That “first at some point” is coming fast. There are now more Native women running for office than men, 51 candidates out of 99 running for offices across the nation. More Native women than men are running for every office from state legislature to governor.

The only exception: Congress. There are three Native women running and five Native men for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

How does that compare to the rest of the country? Well, nationally it’s a record year for women seeking office: There are currently 251 women seeking one of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 26 more women seeking one of 35 Senate seats.

 

 

Last week I even added a new name to my tally, Yvette Herrell, who running for the second congressional district in New Mexico as a Republican. The Cherokee Nation let me know that Herrell is a citizen. So New Mexico could send two, not one, Native American women to the Congress.

Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, is the Democratic nominee in the state’s first congressional district. Sharice Davids, Ho Chunk, is a candidate in Kansas.

Beyond Congress, there are two Native women running for governors, Paulette Jordan, Coeur d’Alene, In Idaho and Andria Tupola, Native Hawaiian, in Hawaii. And there are four Native women running for lieutenant governor, Debra Call, De’nina, in Alaska; Anastasia Pittman, Seminole, in Oklahoma, and in Minnesota, two candidates, Peggy Flanagan, White Earth, on the Democratic side, and Donna Bergstrom, Red Lake, as the Republican nominee.

 

Yes … Native American women are making history this election. Next week we will dig into some numbers.

 

I am Mark Trahant.

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