NEW MEXICO

Desert procession marks death of Navajo code talker

SANTA FE – The state Capitol echoed with tributes to the life and times of Navajo Code Talker and state legislator John Pinto after his casket traveled in a memorial procession across the high desert of northern New Mexico.

Hundreds of politicians, relatives and friends gathered in the statehouse rotunda on May 29 to mourn the death of the World War II Marine who served 42 years as a state senator – a record for political longevity in that chamber.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth said colleagues were awed by Pinto’s political stamina and delighted by his good humor.

In a memorial speech, Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham praised Pinto for rallying lawmakers this year to authorize state spending on a museum about code talkers – the corps of military radiomen who helped safeguard allied secrets in World War II by encrypting radio communications using the Navajo language.

Lujan Grisham noted that Pinto’s political career spanned across legislative landmarks that shored up health care for Native Americans with the creation of the Indian Area Agency on Aging and established tribal consultation standards for government decisions.

Pinto was born in Lupton, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation to a family of sheep herders. He started formal schooling at age 12 and trained as a Marine and Code Talker as the war with Japan raged in the Pacific.

Pinto later earned a degree to become a teacher and won election in 1976 to the state Senate.

NORTH DAKOTA

Tribe defends its rights to minerals from state

FARGO – For nearly two centuries, the federal government has repeatedly assured a Native American tribe in North Dakota that it has rights to a reservation river – and the issue stayed relatively quiet until oil companies figured out a way to drill under the waterway, which is now an artificial lake.

With an estimated $100 million in oil royalties waiting in escrow to be claimed, and future payments certain to come, the state has become more involved in seeking ownership rights.

It successfully lobbied the U.S. Interior Department to suspend a last-minute Obama-era memo stating that mineral rights under the original Missouri River bed should belong to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, which is also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.

The Interior Department put the minerals issue on hold last summer and ordered a review of the “underlying historical record.” The state maintains that it assumed ownership of the riverbed when North Dakota became a state in 1889, citing a constitutional principle known as the equal footing doctrine.

The state’s immersion in the issue isn’t sitting well with tribal members, who say it’s between them and the Trump administration.

Tribal officials have recently taken to social media and penned op-eds asking state leaders to come out in support of the tribes’ ownership rights, much like they did during the last legislative session regarding an oil and tax agreement with the tribes.

Although Trump held a meeting in 2017 to pledge his support to Native American leaders in oil country, state government officials in Republican-dominated North Dakota have found receptive ears at the Interior Department.

Tribal chairman Mark Fox said tribal elders have told him to “fight and fight hard for what our people died for over hundreds of years.” He said he believes it’s his responsibility to right some of the wrongs, including “one of the greatest devastating blows to our people,” the construction of Garrison Dam.

Fox said the tribes have spent their oil money wisely. He cited a new courthouse, $130 million worth of road repairs, construction of more than 400 homes, a new drug treatment facility, health insurance for 7,000 enrolled members, improvements in law enforcement, a $20 million education fund for students, and $200 million in infrastructure upgrades, among other things.

MONTANA

Gianforte plans run for governor, opening up at-large House seat

U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, Montana’s lone House member, is planning to announce a run for governor in 2020, according to the state’s MTN News network.

Gianforte was elected to the House in the first special election of Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017. He would be the fourth Republican to announce a run for governor in the state, which has trended increasingly red in recent local elections, although Democrats have notched some marquee wins in statewide office races.

No Democrats have announced campaigns for Montana governor so far.

Publicly, Gianforte is keeping any plans for a run for the governor’s mansion close to the vest.

Term-limited Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, who is running for president in 2020, defeated Gianforte by 4 percentage points in his 2016 re-election bid. Democratic Sen. Jon Tester successfully defended his seat from state auditor Matt Rosendale by a 3-point margin in the 2018 midterms.

If Gianforte emerges from the crowded Republican primary field next year, that would also open up Montana’s at-large House seat for the 2020 election.

Despite electing Democrats statewide at the Senate and gubernatorial level, Montana hasn’t elected a Democrat to its at-large House seat since 1994.

Trump received 21% more Montana votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, though his net approval rating dropped by 21 points from the beginning of his presidency to April 2019, when it stood at 50% approval to 47% disapproval, according to Morning Consult’s Trump tracking system.

UTAH

Endangered condor may have hatched in Zion Park

SALT LAKE CITY – There’s likely a new baby condor at Zion National Park in southwest Utah.

Park rangers said in late May that they suspect a pair of endangered California condors has hatched their first egg because of behavior changes between the birds.

They estimate the chick to be about 3 weeks old.

If the chick survives, it would be Utah’s first successful hatchling. Zion spokeswoman Aly Baltrus says three chicks have been born at the park but have died before they were old enough to fly.

National Park Service records show the condors were the only breeding pair in Zion as of last year. Park rangers estimate they’ve been together for two years.

California condors are making a comeback in the wild three decades after nearing the brink of extinction.

NEW MEXICO

Governor: Trump tariffs could be ‘catastrophic’

SANTA FE – New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham says President Donald Trump’s proposed tariff on imports from Mexico has the “potential to be economically catastrophic” for the state.

The Democratic governor said the 5% tariff could threaten jobs for tens of thousands of people in the state and called on the president to retract his proposal.

Lujan Grisham said the state sends around $1.5 billion in exports to Mexico each year and a trade war would devastate businesses all across New Mexico.

She says Trump should work with Congress on comprehensive immigration reform instead of using tariffs that do nothing but serve his “empty anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

Trump says he is placing a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports to pressure Mexico to halt Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border.