In early March, five hours into a markup hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee, a conversation about an energy bill evolved into an existential half-hour debate on “meaningful tribal consultation.” It began when Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, introduced an amendment to add consultation language to the bill, though she assured the Republican-controlled committee that she had no “delusions that the amendment is going to pass.”
Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, the chair of the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs and Wyoming’s sole House member, argued against it, prompting a question from Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai’i: “As the chair of our subcommittee of jurisdiction, I ask whether you generally are supportive of some obligation of including Indigenous peoples in our country in decisions affecting them?”
“It depends on the context,” Hageman responded, adding that the National Environmental Protection Act already includes consultation.
Hageman, who defeated Liz Cheney in the 2022 primaries to claim her first term in Congress, was tapped to chair the subcommittee in February by Bruce Westerman, R-Ark, chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Hageman, who will help determine the House agenda for tribal interests for the next two years, exemplifies how political divisions can become blurry and allegiances nuanced when they concern Indian Country. While Hageman’s record in Indian Country is sparse, she says she supports tribal sovereignty, and both Hageman and Westerman agree that tribes would be better at managing lands than federal agencies. But her vision is distinctly conservative, with a preference for small government.
“The resources and the authority ought to be with the (government) closest to the people. And that applies, whether it is to tribal lands or tribal governments or the state of Wyoming,” Hageman told High Country News in April. Her political agenda, she said, has “always been to take power out of Washington, D.C., and return it to the people who actually make the decisions.”
SINCE HER APPOINTMENT, Hageman has prioritized hearings on tribal economic development and health care. In February, she introduced a bill with bipartisan support that would allow tribes to lease their trust land for 99 years instead of the current 25 years, a limitation that can hinder long-term investment and development. Speaking with HCN, Hageman lamented what she described as “a Third World situation” in tribal communities, adding that too much funding goes to bureaucrats in D.C.
While Hageman is a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, there are similarities between her views on tribal autonomy and those of the Biden administration. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) has actively advocated for tribal nations to assume more authority in managing ancestral lands.
“Politics makes for odd bedfellows, as the saying goes,” said Torivio Fodder (Taos Pueblo), who manages the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute. “You’ve got someone who’s rather conservative who’s very interested in returning local control over some of these lands, away from D.C., back to the people who live there. And that policy is actually eminently consistent with what the Biden administration is advocating in terms of tribes and co-stewardship.”
“Politics makes for odd bedfellows, as the saying goes.”
But Hageman and the administration have major differences on land-management authority. Together with her party, she opposes Obama and Biden’s establishment of national monuments, even though some have included tribal co-management. Previously, as a litigator in private practice, she led Wyoming’s legal opposition to the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, which protects some national forest from development, logging and other activities.
Prior to her subcommittee appointment, Hageman’s main professional experience with tribal issues seems to have occurred when she represented a Wyoming irrigation district after its manager flooded parts of the Wind River Reservation by illegally inserting four dikes in the Wind River, according to a report by Accountable US, a progressive watchdog organization. A judge ruled that the district, represented by Hageman, had to restore the land and river. Then-Northern Arapaho Chairman Dean Goggles applauded the decision, calling the flooding a “violation of tribal sovereignty.”
The Accountable report also noted that the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which Hageman joined in 2019 as a senior litigation counsel, has filed multiple briefs in opposition to the Indian Child Welfare Act over the past few years. At a natural resource conference in 2017, Hageman presented just before anti-tribal sovereignty activist Elaine Willman as one of just a handful of speakers. In response to follow-up questions about the report’s findings, a spokesperson for Hageman said in a written statement that “her goals and the issues of today do not include discussing a previous election cycle, a speaker who just happened to appear at the same seminar in 2017, or legal cases from her time in private practice.”
Hageman, whose father, Jim, was a longtime state legislator, did not make it a priority to schedule any meetings on the Wind River Reservation during her campaign for Congress. Last fall, Hageman ran against Democratic Party candidate Lynnette Grey Bull, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe who is believed to be the first Indigenous person in the state’s history to run for its House seat. Grey Bull invited Hageman to debate but never heard from her campaign. “Even through email, or phone calls — there’s been absolutely nothing,” Grey Bull told HCN in March.
During the 2020 race, Wyoming’s then-congresswoman, Liz Cheney, debated Grey Bull in person. Grey Bull said she respected that Cheney took the time, even though she voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, whose altered version included funds to address the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons. During her three terms, Cheney worked regularly with the Northern Arapaho to secure better funding for tribal programs, and in the 2022 primaries, during her run against Hageman, Cheney campaigned on the Wind River Reservation and earned the endorsement of the Northern Arapaho Tribe.
Though Hageman had not previously worked with tribal nations, she was appointed as the subcommittee chair because of her “sharp mind,” familiarity with Western issues and leadership abilities, Westerman told HCN. “It was somewhat taking a chance, to put a freshman in that position. But I’m very happy that I did that, because she is just really knocking it out of the park with the work that she’s doing.” Jim King, a recently retired professor of political science at the University of Wyoming, said that the fact that Hageman was from Wyoming, where the Wind River Reservation is located, made her an easy candidate. “It’s not always a situation where someone has a history of direct relationships with the topics that come before the committees,” he said. “As long as it’s a part of the representative’s constituency, that’s going to be a close enough link.”
In mid-April, Hageman met with the Eastern Shoshone Business Council to discuss policy priorities for the Wind River Reservation. The same day, for the first time since announcing her campaign, Hageman sat down with the Northern Arapaho Business Council, led by Chairman Lloyd Goggles, to discuss water infrastructure and public safety. Goggles said he felt positive about the meeting and looks forward to working with Hagemen in the future. “When I go into these meetings, I think the best way is just go into it with an open mind,” he said.
ULTIMATELY, PELTOLA WAS RIGHT: Her amendment on tribal consultation did not pass; Hageman and her fellow Republicans voted against it. During Case and Hageman’s back-and-forth, Case pressed her on tribal consultation.
“I’m trying to get myself to a level of comfort as to whether the subcommittee chair does, generally, believe that Indigenous peoples are owed some general inclusion in the decisions that affect them,” Case said.
“And I’m saying they already are,” Hageman said. “Everyone in the United States is allowed to participate.”
Anna V. Smith is an associate editor for High Country News. She has placed in the Native American Journalists Association’s Native Media Awards in the category of Best Coverage of Native America three times. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
Taylar Dawn Stagner is a writer and audio journalist who was formerly an editorial intern for the Indigenous Affairs desk at HCN. She’s Arapaho and Shoshone and writes about racism, rurality, and gender. Submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Is Harriet Hageman an ally of Indian Country?.
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