Indigenous representation in Wyoming statehouse now rests on Posey’s candidacy

Following a prayer by his brother, Myron Littlebird, Ivan Posey cut to the chase: He is running for House District 33. As to why he wants to go to the state Legislature after so many years in tribal politics, he said, “I think we really need representation at that level.”

By we, Posey means Native Americans and the people of the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Wyoming Legislature currently includes a single Indigenous lawmaker, Republican Sen. Affie Ellis, a Navajo woman and lawyer from Cheyenne. In March, Ellis announced her retirement, opening the possibility of no Native American representation in the statehouse starting in 2025.

Posey’s campaign could change that. District 33’s constituency is majority Indigenous, and the district encompasses Fort Washakie, Ethete and Arapahoe — three major Wind River Indian Reservation communities.

Posey, a Democrat, educator and former Eastern Shoshone Business Council member, said he would bring both a respectful approach to governance and a tribal perspective that reflects the district’s populace.

Along with being members of tribes, he said, reservation denizens are citizens of Wyoming and the United States. “And I think in this day and age that we do need a voice in state politics.”

Majority white, male, GOP

Wyoming’s legislative body is majority Republican, male and white. Republicans enjoy a 92% supermajority in the statehouse. Just seven of the state’s 31 senators and 13 of the 62 representatives are women. Ellis is the sole Indigenous lawmaker.

Indigenous people make up about 3% of Wyoming’s population, with the majority concentrated on the Wind River Reservation in Fremont County. The 2.3-million-acre reservation, which encompasses mountains, sandhills and sage flats, is home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes. It’s among the 10 largest reservations by land mass in the U.S.

Several Senate and House districts touch or overlay the Wind River Reservation, including Senate District 25, which Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) represents, and House District 33, which Sarah Penn (R-Lander) represents.

Indigenous representation has been spotty in the state governing body. Ratliff became Wyoming’s first Native state lawmaker in 1980; he represented Fremont County for 12 years. A long gap followed. That’s when Patrick Goggles, a Northern Arapaho tribal member, was elected to serve House District 33, which he did from 2005-2014.

When Ellis was elected to the Cheyenne-area Senate District 8 in 2016, she became the first Native woman to serve in Wyoming’s state house. Andi LeBeau (née Clifford) a Democrat and Northern Arapaho woman, followed closely behind when she was elected to House District 33 in 2018. LeBeau lost her 2022 reelection bid to Penn.

Penn, a nurse practitioner and hard-right Republican, has yet to declare her intention to seek reelection. She did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment about the 2024 election.

Meaningful work

Before Ellis was elected, the Cheyenne attorney worked in tribal law. A stint on the federal Indian Law and Order Commission introduced her both to issues of public safety in Indian country and the needs for inter-agency cooperation.

“Once I got elected, I had a much better opportunity to take a deeper dive into some of those issues,” she said, “and I’m really proud of the work that we’ve been able to accomplish.”

She worked with Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribal leaders as a member, and co-chairman, of the Select Committee on Tribal Affairs. Ellis pushed legislation to begin addressing the missing and murdered Indigenous people crisis, to protect Native American graves located on state and private lands and to codify the Indian Child Welfare Act into state law.

The tribal relations committee didn’t get the ability to introduce legislation until 2020, Ellis noted. “Since that time, we have introduced 10 bills, and nine of those have become law.”

“She worked hard to represent the Wind River Reservation,” Sen. Case, who also sits on the tribal affairs committee, said of Ellis. “She worked hard on the tribal relations committee. She definitely was a leader.”

The interest and intent of lawmakers to focus on tribal issues are key to serving tribal communities, Ellis said.

“I think that representation is important,” she said. “But it’s not just tribal membership. It’s a step beyond that. It’s trying to figure out ‘what are problems that need to be tackled? What are issues we need to be working on?’”

Still, Ellis has found that being a Native woman in the body has had meaningful impacts. When she ran, she wasn’t fully aware how few women served the Senate, she said. Once she began working, she realized she carried an additional responsibility as one of the few.

“And when I had attended some events as a Native woman in that role, to have little kids come up and want to hug me and shake my hand … It took on something that I didn’t quite realize I was getting into when I first ran for the position,” she said. “And so it’s been a beautiful additional responsibility for me to know that it is important for young Native kids to see people who have different skin colors” in these roles.

Karen Returnstowar, who sits on the Northern Arapaho Business Council, witnessed those effects firsthand.

“In addition to her work in the Legislature, we could see the inspiration she was and example she set for our young girls on the Wind River Reservation,” Returnstowar said. “As a Native American woman in a male-dominated space, she had quite an impact.”

Posey throws his hat in the ring

Posey was born in Lander, the youngest of 13 siblings and son of parents with Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne lineage. He grew up in Fort Washakie and attended high school at the Chilocco Indian Boarding School in Oklahoma. The Eastern Shoshone tribal member served in the U.S. Army and worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and U.S. Forest Service. He is currently the tribal education coordinator for Central Wyoming College.

His experience in government includes roughly 20 years on the Eastern Shoshone Business Council. He served as chairman for the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council and was Wyoming’s first state tribal liaison — a role Gov. Dave Freudenthal appointed him to.

Even when Ellis was in the Senate, it was disappointing that an Indigenous person did not represent House District 33, said Chesie Lee, who co-founded the Riverton Peace Mission, which aims to create more harmony between Native and non-native populations.

It makes sense for District 33 to more accurately reflect its makeup, Lee said. “Being able to have somebody who speaks out from the tribal perspective is just really important.”

Wyoming issues like jurisdictional cooperation, missing persons, voting rights, addiction treatment programs, hunting and Native sovereignty all benefit from a tribal perspective, Lee said.

Sergio Maldonado, a Northern Arapaho educator and Democrat who has himself run for office, said three days before Posey’s announcement that in light of the potential absence of a Native lawmaker, he hoped to see the tribes put forth a quality candidate that could represent the entire reservation.

“We as a tribal community of two separate sovereign entities need to vote a candidate into office,” Maldonado said. “There is no other means … We as a community had better prepare and elect this individual.”

Posey, who views himself as a “very conservative Democrat,” hopes to bring civility and respect to a body he sees as deeply fractured and wants to get the focus back to issues relevant to the state, such as education.

“I want to see how I can contribute positively,” he said. “[Wyoming] is my home. I care about it.”

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

This story was posted on April 8, 2024.