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<div><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:serif;color:#121212;">New York Times</span>
<div class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829WordSection1"><h1 style="background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-family:serif;color:#121212;">A Push Emerges for the First Native American Interior Secretary</span></i></h1>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 245); background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;color:#333333;"> </span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;color:#333333;"><img style="width: 600px; max-width: 600px;" id="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829Picture_x0020_7" src="cid:588e51fa-8e65-6d94-444a-67dc2c94aabd@yahoo.com" alt="Representative Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico, at the Capitol in January 2019."></span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-16f3y1r"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Representative Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico,
at the Capitol in January 2019.</span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-1ly73wi"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: serif; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); letter-spacing: 0.1pt; border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Credit...</span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-cnj6d5"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: serif; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); letter-spacing: 0.1pt; border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Tom
Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty Images</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;color:#333333;"></span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color:black;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/coral-davenport" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: New serif; color: black; border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor;"><img style="width: 150px; max-width: 150px;" id="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829Picture_x0020_6" src="cid:7fe9cdac-469c-6ea3-9295-3a028c565f66@yahoo.com" alt="Coral Davenport" data-inlineimagemanipulating="true" data-id="1605973286911" border="0"></span></a></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;color:#333333;"></span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-1nuro5j" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; display: inline-block;">
<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;color:#333333;letter-spacing:.25pt;">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/coral-davenport" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-1baulvz"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor;">Coral
Davenport</span></span></a></span></b></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-ccw2r3" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-color: white; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#333333;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: New; font-size-adjust: none;">
</span></span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-1sbuyqj"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: New serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Published Nov. 20, 2020</span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-233int"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: New serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Updated Nov.
21, 2020, </span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-epvm6"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: New serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">4:49 a.m. ET</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;color:#333333;"></span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">WASHINGTON — A coalition of Democrats, Native Americans and liberal activists is urging President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to nominate one of Congress’s first
Native American women to head the Interior Department, putting an American Indian in control of vast swaths of the continent and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">The nomination of Representative Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico, as Interior secretary would have undeniable symbolic power. If confirmed, a Native American for the first time would oversee 500 million acres of
public lands, including national parks, oil and gas drilling sites, and endangered species habitat, and control the federal agencies most responsible for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million Indigenous people.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/elections/native-americans-congress-haaland-davids.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Ms Haaland and Sharice Davids of Kansas made
history</span></a> in 2018 as the first two Native American women elected to Congress, and Ms. Haaland would do so again as the first Native American cabinet secretary. But her lack of policy experience worries some Biden advisers, who have suggested another
Native American candidate: Michael L. Connor, a deputy Interior secretary in the Obama administration, whose experience is unquestioned, even if he lacks the star power of Ms. Haaland.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">Ms. Haaland is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, and Mr. Connor is from the Taos Pueblo, sovereign nations near Albuquerque and Taos that are among the country’s 574 federally recognized tribes.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">For either candidate, a nomination would hold enormous power for Native Americans. The Interior Department has for much of the nation’s history
governed federal lands and often dislodged and abused Native Americans. In 1972, about 500 Native American activists took over the department’s headquarters in Washington, protesting living standards and broken treaties.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">The next Interior Secretary also will be entrusted to restore environmental protections to the millions of acres of public lands that the Trump administration has opened up to drilling, mining, logging and construction.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">Historians and Native American leaders said that appointing a Native American to head the Interior Department would be a profound moment in American history.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">“The Department of Interior was the driving force of modern day genocide against the Native American peoples,” said Elizabeth Kronk Warner, dean and professor of law at the University of Utah, and a citizen of the Sault
Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians. “We would be moving from the shadows of perpetuated genocide to a chair at the table, from being classified as a group of people that the federal government was trying to destroy to having a president say, ‘I see you and
value you to the point that I will raise you to the highest level of decision-making in the country.’”<span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-8l6xbc"><span style="border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">
</span></span></span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">A spokesman for the Biden transition team, Sean Savett, said that no personnel decisions regarding the Interior Department have been made. But Mr. Biden’s campaign promises included <a href="https://joebiden.com/tribalnations/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">detailed
proposals to improve equality for Native Americans</span></a>, including a promise that “Biden will ensure tribes have a seat at the table at the highest levels of the federal government.”</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">Tribal and environmental activists are pushing him to follow through.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">The Lakota People’s Law Action Center has launched a <a href="https://action.lakotalaw.org/action/native-interior-petition?ms=tw_share&snw=2&ref=7c569efc-4372-444b-a09a-6ad8a0841131" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">petition</span></a>,
supported by more than 120 tribal leaders, in support of Ms. Haaland.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">“Like no year prior, 2020 has shown us what happens when we fail to see the importance of putting proper leaders in position to safeguard society,” the petition reads.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;vertical-align:baseline;">
<span style="font-family:serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><img style="width: 600px; max-width: 600px;" id="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:66cd26da-aafa-aa33-4f2f-1ab4f716a5b9@yahoo.com" alt="Michal L. Connor, a former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, during an appearance before the Senate in 2012." border="0"></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829MsoNormal" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-16f3y1r"><span style="font-family: serif; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Michal L. Connor, a former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, during an
appearance before the Senate in 2012.</span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-1ly73wi"><span style="font-family: serif; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); letter-spacing: 0.1pt; border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Credit...</span></span><span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-cnj6d5"><span style="font-family: serif; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); letter-spacing: 0.1pt; border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Jay
Mallin/ZUMA Press, via Alamy</span></span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">A separate <a href="https://www.change.org/p/select-a-native-american-to-run-the-department-of-interior" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">petition launched by liberal
activists</span></a> and signed by at least 25,000 people also calls on Mr. Biden to name a Native American Interior secretary.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">Actor and environmental advocate Mark Ruffalo posted a<a href="https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/1329613226708004868?s=20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;"> video</span></a> on
Twitter with tribal leaders speaking in support of Ms. Haaland.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">“It’s time for the first ever Native American to serve in the president’s cabinet to uphold tribal sovereignty and to protect our public lands as secretary of Interior,” said Brandon Yellowbird-Stevens, vice chairman
of the Oneida nation, in the video.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;vertical-align:baseline;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">Representative Raúl Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who chairs the committee that oversees the Interior Department, sent a letter to Mr. Biden signed by at least 50 colleagues urging the nomination of Ms. Haaland, who
has served on Mr. Grijalva’s Natural Resources Committee since her arrival in Congress last year.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">“The Department of Interior was essentially set up not to take care of Indigenous people — it was set up to tear them down and disenfranchise
them,” Mr. Grijalva said in an interview. “To come full circle, historically, and to put an Indigenous person in front of Interior who can do the job — you don’t often get that kind of opportunity to make history.”</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">Mr. Grijalva pushed back at the suggestion that Ms. Haaland was unqualified for the job.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">“She’s not window dressing,” he said. “She’s competent. She’s a pro, both politically and in terms of policy, and as a member of the Resources Committee and chair of the <a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/subcommittees/national-parks-forests-and-public-lands" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Public
Lands subcommittee </span></a>she has had to endure the Trump administration’s abuse of the Interior Department.”</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">Ms. Haaland has made clear that she wants the job.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">“It would be an honor to move the Biden-Harris climate agenda forward, help repair the government to government relationship with Tribes that the Trump Administration has ruined, and serve as the first Native American
cabinet secretary in our nation’s history,” she said in a statement.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/elections/native-americans-congress-haaland-davids.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">Ms. Haaland </span></a>campaigned in 2018
against the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies and promoted Indigenous sovereignty as a “35th-generation New Mexican.” She argues that many of the issues affecting native communities — such as low-wage jobs and violence against women — afflict
other groups as well.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">In 2015, she became the head of the state Democratic Party and helped to flip the New Mexico state house to Democratic control.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">A child of military veterans, she attended 13 public schools before graduating from high school, then started a salsa company and worked as a cake decorator before putting herself through college and law school using
both food stamps and student loans.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align:baseline;"><span style="font-family:serif;">But some people advising Mr. Biden are concerned about management at <a href="https://www.doi.gov/bureaus" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">one
of the federal government’s most sprawling agencies</span></a>, which oversees conservation and oil and gas drilling on public lands and off the nation’s coastline; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/us/california-drought-sends-us-water-agency-back-to-drawing-board.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145); border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">a
vast network of dams and reservoirs across the West</span></a>; the Fish and Wildlife Service, a major federal science agency; the U.S. Geological Survey; and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education and the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration,
which manages the financial assets of American Indians held in trust.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">They also worry that the confirmation of Ms. Haaland to a cabinet post would temporarily diminish Democrats’ already narrow majority in the House — until a special election could be held in her<span class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-8l6xbc"><span style="border-color: windowtext; border-style: none; border-width: 1pt; padding: 0in;">
</span></span>Democratic district.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">Those people back the appointment of Mr. Connor.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">In an emailed statement, Mr. Connor wrote, “It would be an honor to serve in the Biden-Harris Administration and carry out the important work necessary to address the country’s most pressing challenges.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:serif;">Mr. Connor worked in the agency throughout the Clinton administration, including four years as director of the Secretary’s Indian Water Rights Office, managing negotiations between tribes and the federal government
on water issues. He later worked for former Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, on land, water, energy and Native American issues before returning to Interior during the Obama administration, where he became the first Native American to hold the
No. 2 post.</span></p>
<p class="ydp4609a50yiv3089737829css-158dogj" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family:serif;">“It’s more about who has the qualifications than who is the public face,” said Sianna Lieb, a progressive activist who co-launched the petition urging Mr. Biden to name a Native American as Interior secretary. “Having
been in the Interior Department is a good start — the qualifications are knowing how to run the department.”</span></p>
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