Native Americans overwhelmingly turned out to vote for Joe Biden. One leader getting Natives to the polls is Democratic New Mexico Representative from the First District, Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo. That's her in the above photo.
One Trump administration action with a high possibility of being reversed is of particular local interest — relocation of the Bureau of Land Management national headquarters from the nation’s capitol to Horizon Drive. It’s worth noting that both the nominee to be Interior Secretary, N.M. Rep. Deb Haaland, and the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, questioned the moves. As did numerous organizations, including former BLM staffers and conservation groups that provide a powerful chunk of the constituency that drove the red-to-blue election results. And a General Accounting Office review of the reorganization raised questions about administration claims regarding efficiency, retaining expertise and geography. [Grand Junction (Colorado) Daily Sentinel]
In a letter dated April 24 US Representatives Haaland and Grijalva asked for a grant of clemency and the release of Peltier, a 75-year old tribal citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. In May Peltier applied for a compassionate release because of the coronavirus outbreak but it was denied by the Trump Organization.
Over the course of the last 16 months, Peter Clark, the former director at International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, who resides in Albuquerque, N.M., which is part of Haaland's congressional district met with the congresswoman and her staff, and provided information to the New Mexico congressional delegation regarding the various avenues of relief for Peltier. Leonard Peltier's eldest son Chauncey Peltier is a co-founder of the Indigenous Rights Center located in Albuquerque. Leonard's daughter, Kathy Peltier, is an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation, and had recently written to Rep Haaland seeking support for her dad. [Native News Online]It’s been 40 years since attorney Mario Gonzalez filed the federal court case stopping payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Gonzalez contends that the commission charged to make peace with tribes inserted language into the Fort Laramie Treaty signed in 1868 that Red Cloud had neither seen nor agreed to in negotiations.
The Editorial Board of Native Sun News Today and its Publisher Tim Giago sent the Bill Bradley Bill and the history of the illegal taking of the Black Hills to Deb Haaland, (D-NM) Congresswoman from New Mexico, a Native American woman, and we are encouraging her to study them and perhaps meet with some of the leaders of the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation, in order to discuss the idea of putting together another Bill in the fashion of the Bradley Bill, in an effort to get some of the stolen lands of the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people. [Native Sun News Today]In 2019 Rep. Haaland called for greater protections for BLM employees after threats of violence from white welfare ranchers like Cliven Bundy.
Rep. Deb Haaland (@RepDebHaaland) would wield extensive authority as Interior secretary. She’d also have a lot on her plate having to do with Indian Country. https://t.co/ruHIqhKlfx
— Indian Country Today (@IndianCountry) December 21, 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment