American Indian Report (December 06, 2006)

Sophisticated campaigns yield victories to at least 16
American Indian candidates
By Michelle Tirado

Voters went to the polls and cast their ballots. All the watch parties are over. And Indian Country is celebrating its victories.
Kalyn Free, founder and president of INDN’s List (Indigenous Democratic Network), a Tulsa, Okla.-based firm devoted to recruiting and electing American Indian candidates, was still counting the winners from the 22 candidates that her organization supported this election season.

Five days following Election Day, she was up to 16. Among them: Carol Juneau, who became the first Indian woman to take a seat in Montana’s Senate; Claudia Kauffman, who became the first Indian woman to be elected to Washington’s Senate; Chuck Hoskin, who won a seat in Oklahoma;s House; Albert Hale, who took a seat in Arizona’s Senate; and Theresa Two Bulls, who won her bid for a seat in the South Dakota Senate. Free was still waiting for the official results on two races, one in Pennsylvania and the other in Washington.

Free doesn’t know if this year is a record-breaker for Indian Country, but she did say that prior to those wins there were 56 Indians in state legislatures across the country, 37 Democrats and 19 Republicans.   For INDN’s List – its first election season – it was a 76 percent win record. Of the 16 winners, seven candidates are taking office for the first time.

  Free said that most of the winners will in some way credit the support that INDN’s List provided –– the strategic and technical expertise and the monetary support, ranging from $130 to $5,000. Several attended its four-day campaign camp in October 2005, where they and their key staff members received boot camp-style campaign management training.
 
“Our candidates ran sophisticated, professional campaigns. They spent their money wisely. They worked hard. They did their targeting of voters. They did direct mail pieces. They did radio. Some of them did television,” Free said.

Juneau (Hidatsa Mandan) was up on Election Day at 4 a.m. to do some vigorous get-out-the-vote work in her communities and stayed up until 3 a.m. on election night waiting for the returns from five counties. When we spoke to her, she had already taken down her signs (those she didn’t get probably blew away in a wind storm that moved through the region) and was helping to plan the Montana Indian Vote Victory Celebration. Montana’s legislature now has 10 Native Americans serving, up from the eight in office in 2005.
 
Chuck Hoskin won a seat in Oklahoma’s House.
(she served four terms in Montana’s House); and her strong advocacy for issues impacting the Blackfeet and Confederate Salish and Kootenai reservations.

She said “INDN’s List provided support for my race in helping with fundraising, which is always a major part of a campaign, as well as their endorsement in the General Election.”

One issue that she will be working on in her new office is Indian education, ensuring continued adequate funding for Montana’s the kind of person who could have moved on up and could have been in Congress in four or eight years.”

The 2006 election cycle barely behind her, Free is already gearing up for upcoming campaigns.  She said she has two candidates that want to run in 2008.  INDN's List is planning its Prez on the Rez, a series of forums that will bring Presidential candidates and Tribal Leadership together -- in Indian Country locales -- in August 2007 to discuss tribal issues.

December 2006 -- American Indian Report