Yes She Did

November 7, 2008

By Adam Sings In The Timber

HELENA, Mont.—Meet Denise Juneau, the first Native American woman to win a statewide executive office in an election in which a candidate’s American Indian heritage was known to the voters and, in Juneau’s case, became an issue.

Juneau was elected Montana’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction. During the campaign, Juneau faced what INDN’s List called “anti-Indian scorn.” On at least two occasions, Juneau’s opponents sought to dismiss her as “a young Indian” and a “professional Indian,” according to press reports .

Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sandy Garrett, is an enrolled Cherokee, said Courtney Ruark, political director of INDN'S List. Ruark added that INDN'S List only recently became aware of Garrett’s tribal affiliation. Elected to the office for the fifth time in 2006, Garrett does not mention being a Cherokee on her campaign Web site .

INDN’s List , a nonprofit that recruits and trains Democratic Native American political candidates, added to Juneau’s accolades: She’s also the first Native American to be elected to a statewide office in Montana and only the third Native to be elected to a statewide office in the country. The other two are Garrett and Larry EchoHawk, who served as the Idaho attorney general in the 1990s.

According to unofficial results from Montana’s Secretary of State Web site , Juneau won 50.95 percent of the vote. She beat Republican Elaine Sollie Herman by 32,678 votes and Donald Eisenmenger, a Libertarian, by 208,882 votes.

“It’s a historic day for our state,” Juneau said of her election Tuesday. “I’m glad Montanans all around were able to look past the issue and not pigeonhole me simply as an American Indian person.”

Juneau, 41, is an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation , also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. According to her campaign Web site bio , she grew up in Browning, Mont., on the Blackfeet Reservation, where she graduated from high school. Juneau has a bachelor’s degree in English from Montana State University in Bozeman. She went to Harvard University to get a master’s in education, then earned a law degree at the University of Montana in Missoula.

After a tough campaign, Juneau said, she will return to work next week in her current job as director of Indian education at the Office of Public Instruction before taking office in January.