How Deb Haaland Became the First Native American Cabinet Secretary

For countless generations my people, the Secwépemc and St’at’imc, narrated the creation of the world and the way things are through tales of our trickster ancestor, Coyote. Coyote was sent to Earth by Creator to set things in order. While he did much good — filling the rivers with salmon, populating the lands with descendants — he was a trickster and up to no good as well. Hence why things are the way they are and why we are the way we are: tricksters in a trickster land. The Coyote Stories were nearly wiped off the face of the Earth by colonization. And yet, they still get at the truth about our people, this land, and the world more broadly. (Just look at our trickster president.) In this excerpt from “We Survived the Night,” a story of contemporary Indigenous life told through the epic misadventures of my trickster ancestor, Coyote, I write about how Deb Haaland rose to become the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary. Or, in other words, how Natives like us have started to reclaim our power on this stolen land — a trick I had a small paw in making happen.

***

On a February evening in 2018, Deb Haaland, then one of a handful of Democratic candidates for Congress in New Mexico’s First District, addressed a crowd of supporters packed shoulder to shoulder in a Capitol Hill brownstone owned by the Indian Gaming Association. The Laguna Pueblo tribal member rested her forearm on the stairway banister and leaned into her stump speech. “I am the only candidate who went to Standing Rock to stand with the Water Protectors,” Haaland said to cheers from the crowd. “There have been more than ten thousand members of Congress — but never a Native American woman.”

The 2018 midterms were shaping up to be a historic election for Indigenous women. Across the United States, there were five Native women running for Congress, four for governor’s offices, and forty-four for state legislature. Many of these campaigns, including Haaland’s, emerged in part out of the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the largest Indigenous protest in United States history. As Haaland spoke, the leaders of this rising, predominantly femme political class stood all around and below. Their eyes set on a leader many hoped would chart a new course for Indigenous peoples in American politics.

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Eleven months later, atop that same hill in what was once the domain of the Piscataway people, the United States Capitol looked, to me, like it was crumbling. Scaffolding encircled the legislative building. Broken bricks, cracked cornices, and withering sculptures cried out for restoration as water and weather slowly turned marble to dust. Partially completed preservation work made refurbished portions of the edifice gleam white so that, from afar, it looked like this pantheon of American politics was being fitted with veneers. An empire increasingly self-aware of its decline.

It was the first day of the 116th Congress and the thirteenth of a government shutdown. President Donald Trump wanted $5.7 billion to build a wall along the Mexican border. His party vowed not to pass an appropriations bill until they got the money. As a result, some 800,000 public employees were either working without pay or furloughed, and much of the government’s work had ground to a halt. The shutdown would last thirty-five days, becoming the longest in United States history and costing the country some $11 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Inside the Capitol, in halls lined with frescoes of Hellenic gods, landscape paintings of European discoveries, and bronze busts of deceased statesmen — a good number of them slave owners and Indian killers — Congress sputtered on. But it would not do so in the same way that it had for some 229 years. Because on that day, on the floor of the House of Representatives, there were, for the first time, two Native American women legislators: Sharice Davids of the HoChunk Nation and Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo.

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From my spot in the press gallery, I could see Haaland wearing a black Pueblo dress with turquoise sleeves and a red woven sash with a silver squash-blossom necklace and earrings — the kind of outfit one might wear for a Laguna Pueblo feast day. She was trailed by three littles: her grandnephew and two kiva sons (ceremonially adopted children), also wearing their pueblo best. Haaland milled about, shook hands, and hugged her new colleagues. Like almost everyone else on the Democratic side of the aisle, she sought out Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive House Speaker, before returning to her seat, grandnephew in lap.

Then I spotted Davids, wearing a maroon blazer and black skirt with dangling beaded earrings — the same kind my auntie makes. Her arrow-straight hair hung to her waist. She conversed with a group of women gathered around Barbara Lee, the representative from Oakland, California, who wore a gold shawl cut from kente cloth. Joe Kennedy III, the redheaded representative from Massachusetts and grandnephew of President Kennedy, stood behind the group waving at Davids. But he couldn’t get the congresswoman-elect’s attention. A gavel sounded twice and the members wound down their socializing and filed back to their seats. Congress officially opened business with a vote to determine the next Speaker. “Let me be clear: House Democrats are down with NDP,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic Caucus chair. “Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi,” Jeffries continued, “the once and future Speaker of the United States House of Representatives! I proudly place her name in nomination.”

On the opposite side of the chamber, the mostly white, old, male, and red-tie-wearing Republican representatives murmured disapprovingly. Representative Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and one of just thirteen Republican women in the House (the Democrats were now eighty-nine), stood and delivered her party’s response. The Wyoming Republican bashed the “devastating practice of sanctuary cities” and the “fraud of socialism,” stumping for “the wall” and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whose party lost the gavel in the midterms. Her oration punctuated with hurrahs from the men behind. With the press corps tweeting and snapping away, voting began, though the result was all but assured. Pelosi, after eight years in the minority, would once again be Speaker.

Unlike many of her colleagues, Davids cast her vote without embellishment. The Kansas Democrat represents a swing district in a Republican state where Pelosi was a polarizing figure. She didn’t come out in support of the California Democrat until after the election. Haaland was in a different position. Lifting her grandnephew from her lap, the New Mexico representative-elect rose. “As one of the first two Native American women to stand on this floor, I vote for Nancy Pelosi.” 

With 220 votes, two more than needed, Pelosi prevailed. She invited all the children on the House floor to stand with her while she took the oath. “I now call the House to order on behalf of all of America’s children,” she said, Haaland’s grandnephew and kiva sons among the pint-sized crowd gathered around.

Before it was the rank and file’s turn to swear allegiance to the Constitution, Haaland and Davids turned to each other and shared a long embrace. The representative from New Mexico could be seen wiping her tears with Davids’s scarf.

To understand how Haaland rose from one-term member of Congress to first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, it’s necessary to grasp the asinine controversy that set the stage for her ascent. The week after Thanksgiving in 2017, President Trump held a White House ceremony to honor the Code Talkers — Navajo veterans whose language formed the basis for a code that could not be cracked by the Japanese in World War II. Flanked by three of the thirteen surviving Code Talkers, Trump stood below a portrait of President Andrew Jackson, the Indian fighter who signed the act in 1830 that sent many tribes on the Trail of Tears. “You are very, very special people,” Trump told the Code Talkers. “You were here long before any of us were here. 

“Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago,” the president ad-libbed, cocking his head toward the cameras with a sly grin as he let his zinger fly. “They call her Pocahontas.” Trump was referring to Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful who claimed to be part Cherokee. As he was wont to do with many of his rivals, Trump had given Warren a nickname: Pocahontas. And he claimed he would donate $1 million to charity if Warren could prove she was Native American.

The president placed a hand just above the bright turquoise necklace on Code Talker Peter MacDonald’s chest. “But you know what? I like you because you are special.”

“Thank you,” responded the dignified MacDonald.

“You are special people,” Trump continued, starting to ramble. “You are really incredible people. And, from the heart — from the absolute heart — we appreciate what you’ve done”

And for some reason, Elizabeth Warren — a former Harvard professor — took the dare. “Warren reveals test confirming ancestry” read the above-the-fold headline in The Boston Globe on October 15, 2018. The Massachusetts senator had taken a DNA test. The lab results showed “with a high degree of confidence” that the senator had some Native American ancestry. The finding seemed to confirm an old story of a Cherokee or Delaware great-grandmother long told by Warren’s family in Oklahoma, a state that was once Indian territory because it was where the Trail of Tears ended for many tribes. Trump was probably wrong. Elizabeth Warren probably did have a Native ancestor. A not insignificant fraction of Americans do. (This is our land, after all.) But that’s not how the story played out. The Boston Globe exclusive was the centerpiece of a Warren campaign media blitz that included a viral Twitter thread and five-minute video, all released just weeks ahead of the 2018 midterms. In a strategy session Warren’s team had somehow concluded that this DNA test media stunt was the best way to soft launch her presidential bid. It was not.

“A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship,” read a fuming statement released by Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskins in response to Warren’s claims. “Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America. Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its [sic] legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”

Adding insult to injury, a follow-up story in The Washington Post found Warren had claimed to be American Indian as far back as 1986 when she registered for the State Bar of Texas. During her tenure as a law professor, Warren was listed among the Native American faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. Warren was soon branded a “pretendian,” someone who falsely claims Native identity for personal gain, thereby funneling resources and opportunities away from real Native people. An investigation by The Boston Globe found that Warren had been considered a white woman when she was hired by the University of Pennsylvania and then Harvard. But it also found that soon after Warren was on the faculty at Harvard, administrators used her self-identification as Native American to internally justify that they did not need to prioritize hiring more minorities. Publicly, meanwhile, Harvard Law School proclaimed to support diversity.

The controversy remained mostly unknown for twenty-five years. And then suddenly, in 2018, the DNA test became arguably the greatest liability in Warren’s campaign for the presidency — not necessarily because it turned away Native voters, but because it suggested Trump could get the better of the senator in a head-to-head contest. Warren apologized to the Cherokee Nation and to Indian Country. But concerns endured for some of the senator’s most vocal Native critics, who saw the gaffe as proof that Warren wasn’t just painfully ignorant of tribal citizenship and the intricacies of Native issues. She was part of a long history of pretenders whose false claims have done real harm — especially when powerful institutions, like the top-ranked university in the world, take them seriously. But in the fullness of time, that view gives Warren and Harvard too much credit.

Enter Deb Haaland, who in August 2019 took center stage at the first-ever Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, to stump for none other than Elizabeth Warren. “I decided to be bold and to put all of my experience and heart behind a candidate who I feel has the intelligence, the experience, the energy, the enthusiasm, and the heart to win this election,” exclaimed Haaland, her voice rising in that rally-the-partisans way politicians do at the lectern. “Some media folks have asked whether the president’s criticisms of her regarding her ancestral background will hamper her ability to convey a clear campaign message,” Haaland continued, addressing Warren’s critics, including some right there in the audience at the Orpheum Theatre. “I say that every time they ask about Elizabeth’s family instead of the issues of vital importance to Indian Country, they feed the president’s racism. Elizabeth knows she will be attacked but she’s here to be an unwavering partner in our struggle, because that is what a leader does!”

Warren was escorted to the stage by two Lakota women, one on each arm. On her right: twenty-five-year-old get-out-the-vote organizer Donna Brandis. On her left: ninety-nine-year-old politician and veteran Marcella LeBeau. Haaland hugged LeBeau. Then she removed her glasses and hugged Warren. “Thank you so much,” said the Massachusetts senator. Warren shook hands with the half-dozen dignitaries onstage, offered a short preamble, then addressed the elephant in the room. “Like anyone who’s been honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes,” she said. “I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot. And I am grateful for the many conversations that we’ve had together.”

Two months after the Native American Presidential Forum, Haaland was named one of three co-chairs of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. But the senator’s ill-advised DNA test and the doubts it raised continued to haunt the Massachusetts presidential hopeful. And on Super Tuesday 2020, she lost across the board, failing to carry even her home state. Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee for president.

Though Deb had backed a losing campaign, the Warren wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a sort of liberal brain trust that could help staff a Biden presidency. By supporting Warren — an interesting decision given the senator’s pretendian controversy — Haaland was now positioned to take what would be another historic step up the political ladder. Because once every long while, white absurdities become Indian opportunities. It’s an old trick.

This is where I enter the plot. Because in July 2020, five months before Biden defeated Trump, I added Haaland’s name to a list of potential progressive cabinet secretary picks curated by Data for Progress, the think tank where I worked. I didn’t give much weight to it. Data for Progress’ list was more fantasy football than realpolitik. We suggested Representative Barbara Lee for secretary of defense because she was the only legislator to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force after 9/11. We named Minnesota attorney general and Bernie Sanders ally Keith Ellison for United States attorney general — because wouldn’t that piss off all the right people? And we might as well have penciled in the Lorax for Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Because he “speaks for the trees.” Of all these far-fetched potential cabinet nominees, Deb Haaland for interior secretary was the only one people took seriously.

That September, Haaland’s chief of staff, Jennifer Van der Heide, rang my cell. My idea to nominate Deb for Interior had made the rounds. And I wasn’t sure that was a good thing, since I hadn’t run the idea by Haaland or Van der Heide first. So, to Van der Heide, I hemmed and hawed, repeating a lot of the arguments an elder Native journalist had shared with me about Haaland staying in the House of Representatives and angling for a leadership position there. Haaland’s mentor, New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, was retiring. He had his sights on Interior. Naming a one-term member of Congress for a cabinet position upset the Democratic pecking order in both D.C. and New Mexico. In a nearly fifteen-minute monologue, I recited these points to Van der Heide and apologized more than once for putting her and her boss in a potentially awkward position. When I was done, Van der Heide took a breath. “Well,” she said, “when people ask, we’re not saying we’re not interested.”

On a chilly mid-November Saturday in 2020 — after I had played phone tag with Van der Heide for half a week, and after Haaland had met several members-elect to promote her Democratic Caucus vice chair bid, I sat down with Haaland for dinner at a Thai restaurant in downtown D.C. Over the years, Deb and I have become friends. (She thinks I know good restaurants. All I actually know is Yelp.) But it was becoming harder to get on her schedule because she was proving herself to be one of the leading political talents of her congressional class.

In the 116th Congress, according to her GovTrack report card, Haaland’s legislation won more Senate companions than any other representative’s. The congresswoman also led, co-sponsored, and whipped influential and bipartisan votes for more bills than any other freshman representative. In an era of partisan gridlock, she saw three of her acts signed into law: one strengthening tribal self-government, another incubating Native American small businesses, and a third coordinating cross-agency actions to address the grisly phenomenon of Indigenous women turning up missing and murdered. To achieve all this, Haaland says she employed a time-tested political practice. “I really try to follow my aunt’s advice — my auntie Ann, may God rest her soul. One piece of advice that she always gave me was, ‘Be nice to everyone.’”

In addition to legislating, the representative from New Mexico had spent much of the past two years campaigning, first for Elizabeth Warren and then for Joe Biden. She had been a team player by all accounts, and now she was pivoting to campaign for her own party leadership position in the House. She would soon drop that effort as her name continued to be pushed by everyone from far-left activists to Republican colleagues for an even bigger role heading up the Interior Department. On the record, Haaland downplayed the momentum that could carry her from her first term in Congress to the cabinet. “I can’t say I’ve been angling for anything,” she said as we took our seats. “It’s nice to be thought of. That’s what my mom always said, ‘They’re thinking of you, even when they’re not being nice.’”

And not all the thoughts about Haaland were nice. That week, The New York Times published an article citing unnamed sources in the Biden camp who were concerned Haaland was too liberal, too light on policy know-how, and too inexperienced. Tom Udall, a friend and colleague of Biden’s in the Senate, was seen as a safer bet. And if the interior secretary needed to be Native American, the Times’ anonymous sources had another candidate in mind: Obama administration deputy interior secretary Michael Connor, a tribal citizen of Taos Pueblo. Never mind that leaders across Indian Country, including the governor of Taos Pueblo, had written and signed letters in support of Haaland’s nomination, not Connor’s. To some Democratic Party elites, Indians were apparently interchangeable. And then there was the concern that House Democrats, who held a slim majority of just a few votes, couldn’t afford to lose any seats. Judging by the article, Haaland faced an uphill battle for the role. According to The New York Times, her detractors had the ears of the president and his inner circle. And though the article did not say this, its very existence implied they could influence the paper of record.

But Haaland’s supporters were more numerous, vocal, and diverse than her critics. Though the New Mexico congresswoman was a progressive, her allies spanned the political spectrum. A letter to the Biden transition team signed by fifty-one Democrats in the House and led by Representative Raul Grijalva, the Arizonan chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, described Haaland as “eminently qualified to be Interior Secretary.” Senator Warren took on Haaland’s anonymous naysayers directly, describing her former campaign co-chair as having “not only invaluable lived experiences, but also a top-notch command of policy.” Representative Don Young, a Republican from Alaska, praised Haaland as a “consensus builder” in a quote from his press secretary and said that at Interior she “would pour her passion into the job every single day.” Representative Jared Huffman, a progressive from California who has “worked with — and against — multiple Secretaries of the Interior,” said in an email that Haaland “would hit the ground running on day one.” Congressman Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, gave me an interview over the phone while he gave his kids a bath, touting Haaland’s “understanding of water laws, mining laws, and forest management.” He described the prospect of her appointment as “awesome.” Congressman Tom Cole, a Chickasaw tribal citizen and Republican from Oklahoma who denied that Biden won the 2020 election, praised his Native American Caucus co-chair. “We have accomplished a great deal together,” he said in a written comment, pointing to legislation addressing murdered and missing Indigenous women as well as coronavirus relief aid for tribes. “We understand that Native American issues are not a matter of conservative versus liberal.”

Beyond Capitol Hill, a small army of tribal chairmen, elected officials, political operatives, erstwhile bureaucrats, rambunctious environmentalists, and outspoken activists were joining the chorus of support for Haaland’s appointment. “It is long past time that a Native American person serve as Secretary of the Interior,” said more than 130 tribal leaders in a letter to Biden. “Indigenous people have been caring for the land since time immemorial,” said Minnesota’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, who also wrote a letter to the Biden transition team supporting Haaland. The youth climate group Sunrise Movement and leftist PAC Justice Democrats promoted Haaland as their top pick for Interior. The National Congress of American Indians, a nationwide intertribal body representing American Indian and Alaska Native tribes, passed a resolution “to Appoint the First Native American as Secretary of Interior.” A poll written and fielded by my think tank, Data for Progress, suggested that 78 percent of voters would be supportive of the idea. “Just to say, [Rep. Haaland] as Interior Secretary would be a great idea, and a great turn in American history,” tweeted environmental author and organizer Bill McKibben. “She’s amazing.”

“Mark Ruffalo tweeted about it yesterday,” said the congresswoman, who was making quick work of her Thai omelet soup. “But you know Mark Ruffalo. He’s a cool guy and an ally on Native issues.” 

“Some people call him Mark Buffalo,” I joked — passing off a line that my friend Jade Begay, a Navajo and Tesuque Pueblo activist also working to make Deb interior secretary, had used on me that same week. Haaland and Van der Heide laughed. Ruffalo’s one of the most vocal Native allies on the internet. We don’t have many, and among more political Indians, Mark “the White Buffalo” is the subject of teasing gratitude. In our way, this is a gesture of acceptance. “Mark Buffalo,” Haaland repeated under her breath with a chuckle like she was trying to remember the wisecrack for later. As we pondered dessert, the congresswoman shared an idea she has for a screenplay about her grandfather’s all-Indian baseball team — formed because white players in the railroad town of Winslow, Arizona, wouldn’t play with Natives. She pulled out pictures to illustrate. One was of her grandfather, Tony Toya, from the Jemez Pueblo, and his ball club. Another was of her grandmother, Helen Steele, who was taken away to a boarding school when she was eight. Helen kept score for her husband’s team. In Haaland’s retelling of their story, the Indians from the far side of the tracks build a winning record so strong the whites want to play for them. As she outlined the concept, it was hard not to see the Laguna Pueblo politician’s own narrative — of an Indian who, despite our long history of defeats, was running the table and beating the odds — in this reimagining of family lore.

In the United States, there is an often-overlooked bipartisan consensus on Native issues enabled in part by a dearth of media coverage — by, in other words, the invisibility of Native people. This bipartisan consensus has allowed Indian affairs to remain one of the least polarized areas in American politics. Generally, tribes appeal to Democrats when they want more spending or reforms to underfunded and mismanaged social programs, and to Republicans when they want more freedom from Uncle Sam. Partially as a result, Native people have found representation in both parties. When Haaland and Sharice Davids were elected to Congress in 2018, they joined two other American Indians already on Capitol Hill — Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee, and Tom Cole, a Chickasaw, both Republicans from Oklahoma. Before Cole’s and Mullin’s time, there was the Northern Cheyenne politician Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado congressman from 1987 to 1993, and then a senator from 1993 to 2005. In the upper chamber, Campbell switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.

While Native voters tend to be drawn to the Democrats’ commitment to racial diversity and social justice (polls suggest Native voters preferred Biden over Trump by 25 points in 2020), the GOP’s libertarian streak can, at times, find common ground with a people for whom the government is a colonizer. In fact, it was President Richard Nixon who transformed the United States’ Indian policy from one of “termination” to the current paradigm of self-determination. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Navajo Nation president Jonathan Nez, the leader of the largest tribe in the country, addressed the Democratic National Convention. His vice president, Myron Lizer, spoke at the Republican one.

That summer, as calls for racial justice reached a fever pitch in America’s streets, it was Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch who, in McGirt v. Oklahoma, wrote what is widely considered the most favorable majority decision for tribal treaty rights in at least a generation. The ruling, 5-4 in favor of the Muscogee Creek Nation, acknowledged that Congress never extinguished reservation lands set aside for the tribe in 1866. This meant that 19 million acres constituting 47 percent of the state of Oklahoma, home to 1.8 million people, was still Indian territory. “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise,” Gorsuch wrote in an opening line sure to reverberate through American Indian legal history. “Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.”

Attorneys representing the deep-red state of Oklahoma claimed a ruling in favor of the Muscogee Creek would fundamentally disrupt business as usual. Murderers, rapists, and other criminals would be let loose, they suggested, because the state that had convicted them would no longer have had the authority to do so. Taxes would go unpaid. Regulations would lose their teeth. Countless laws, they reasoned, had been written and enforced with the assumption that the treaty lands and governing authority of tribes were history. The United States is largely built on that haughty colonial presumption, after all. But Gorsuch, a Westerner with experience in Indian law, rejected these arguments. True to conservative doctrine, the Trump appointee applied a textualist approach to his interpretation of treaty law and statutes. And intriguingly, that reading — the same kind of reading marshaled to attack gay marriage and abortion rights — delivered the most significant and favorable Supreme Court decision for tribes in the twenty-first century.

The Elizabeth Warren campaign put Haaland on the radar. But it was the bipartisan consensus on Indian affairs that positioned her as not only a pathbreaker, but also a unifier. Because in 2020, Haaland was likely the only politician in the United States who could count both an election denier like Tom Cole and a climate activist group like the Sunrise Movement among her backers. She was liberal. And she was popular with lots of people, including quite a few conservatives. And in these cross-partisan friendships, Haaland saw a model for the rest of the country. “An example for how people can get along,” she said of her relationship to Cole.

Biden was nearing a decision. On December 9, The Hill, a political gossip rag once described to me as a publication read by congressional staffers on bathroom breaks, tweeted out an article claiming the president-elect had selected Udall as his nominee. The post remained up for less than thirty minutes — an eternity in the Twitter era. In that time, I received frenzied texts from Van der Heide and others wondering if the news was real. Then the post went down. Apparently, it was a prewrite — an article written in anticipation of a news event that had not yet happened and would not necessarily happen — accidentally published.

The small movement to make Deb Haaland interior secretary took the news as a shot across the bow. That night, I ghost-wrote a letter to Udall on behalf of a coalition of left-wing organizations that included the Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, NDN Collective, and Data for Progress. “You have long been a champion for Indian Country,” I wrote on behalf of the groups. “At the same time, there has already been a Udall who has served as Secretary of the Interior — your father Stewart. It would not be right for two Udalls to lead the Department of the Interior, the agency tasked with managing the nation’s public lands, natural resources and trust responsibilities to tribes, before a single Native American. That’s not what the Democratic Party stands for, nor what you or your father have stood for in your tireless advocacy for strong Native representation at all levels of government.”

The next day that line about how two Udalls might serve as interior secretary before a single Native American was quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Hill. Haaland’s push to make history was still alive.

“I’m in crisis mode on low-income broadband,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s senior policy advisor, Kenneth DeGraff, DM’d me on Twitter. It was Tuesday, December 15. When DeGraff first messaged, I was catching up on The Bachelorette and said I would call him later that week. 

“But I want to talk to you about Haaland,” DeGraff added. I dialed immediately. That morning, Reuters had published an article claiming Haaland had “emerge[d] as Biden’s top choice to lead U.S. Interior.” But one major concern remained. The Democrats held an eleven-vote majority in the lower chamber. With two members of Congress already named to Biden’s cabinet, the speaker was concerned her party couldn’t afford to lose a third, Haaland, to the administration. “It breaks my heart, Julian,” DeGraff said when he answered the phone. With the president bringing such an ambitious legislative agenda to Congress, reliable Democratic votes like Haaland’s were hard for Pelosi to let go. Maybe, DeGraff suggested, a “steward” could be appointed interior secretary until it was safe for Haaland to depart the House. 

I listened with sweaty palms. Was this really happening? When DeGraff finished, I laid out the case for Deb’s appointment as I saw it. According to New Mexico law, a special election would be decided within, at most, 101 days of Haaland vacating her seat. Democrats had won her district by an average of 21 points over the last five elections and would surely win again. Moreover, I said, holding Haaland back would not strengthen the Democratic majority. It would only make it look weaker. What might other aspiring Democrats think if their leader was perceived as standing between loyal members and historic, career-making opportunities?

That night, the speaker and her staff fielded calls from tribal leaders, activists, and donors. The next day, Pelosi released a statement in support of Haaland’s nomination. When the news crossed my feed, I collapsed on my apartment floor, crying with joy.

That weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, a state named after the twelfth baron De La Warr, who rebuilt Jamestown in 1610 after a period of starvation and cannibalism, Biden introduced his climate team of White House officials and cabinet secretaries. Standing among the nominees was Deb Haaland. In a speech describing global warming as “the existential threat of our time,” Biden was quick to look over his shoulder at the New Mexico congresswoman and acknowledge the “long-overdue appointment of the first Native American cabinet secretary.” 

“I’m proud to stand here on the ancestral homelands of the Lenape tribal nation,” Haaland began her remarks, recognizing a people whom colonists once also called the Delaware and who are now mostly exiled to far-off reservations in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Ontario, Canada. “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed his goal to ‘civilize or exterminate’ us,” she said, referring to a quote from Alexander Stuart, who held the office from 1850 to 1853. “I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology. I also stand on the shoulders of my ancestors and all the people who have sacrificed so that I can be here.

“This historic moment will not go by without the acknowledgment of the many people who have believed in me over the years and had the confidence in me for this position,” Deb continued, her eyes welling up and her voice quivering. “I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land. I’m honored and ready to serve.”

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Adapted from We Survived the Night, by Julian Brave NoiseCat. Copyright © 2025 by Julian Brave NoiseCat. Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

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