Conference on Democracy in Indian Country: Voting Rights and Freedom of the Press

Randall Akee (Native Hawaiian) is the Julie Johnson Kidd Professor of Indigenous Governance and Development at Harvard Kennedy School. His research focuses on income inequality and immobility by race and ethnicity in the US. Dr. Akee has worked on several American Indian reservations, Canadian First Nations, and Pacific Island nations in addition to working in various Native Hawaiian communities. Previously, Akee was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Public Policy and American Indian Studies and served as the chair of the American Indian Studies Department. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a master's degree in international and development economics from Yale University. He also spent several years working for the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs Economic Development Division. 

Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance. He focuses upon public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School. He is the co-founder of Participedia, a crowdsourced platform for participatory governance around the world. 

Thomas E. Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press. In the past, he has authored three books, Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism; How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That's Crippling Our Democracy, and Is the Republican Party Destroying Itself?. An earlier book, The Vanishing Voter, examined electoral participation, and his book on the media’s political role, Out of Order, received the American Political Science Association’s Graber Award as the best book of the decade in political communication. 

Regis Pecos (Cochiti Pueblo) is the former Governor of Cochiti Pueblo and served on the Traditional Council for 35 years. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his graduate degree from UC Berkeley, and he is also a graduate of the Senior Government Executive Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Regis was the longest serving Chief Executive of the New Mexico Office of Indian Affairs, a position he held for 16 years.  He is the Chair of the prestigious Board of Governors for the Honoring Nations Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. He is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Leadership Institute, an Indigenous Think Tank based in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the campus of the Santa Fe Indian School. 

Tex Hall (MHA Nation) is a former Tribal Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation and former President of the National Congress of American Indians. He is also the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance, a national nonprofit promoting economic development in rural American Indian reservations.  

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear (Mandan, Hidatsa and Mniconjou Lakota) was the first Native American to have a national news beat devoted to Indigenous issues in the mainstream press and the first American Indian woman awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. As founder of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, she is leading a large-scale change to elevate the people’s voice and to promote accountability of tribal government. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and Chair of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. 

Tova Wang is the Director of Research Projects in Democratic Practice at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Tova has focused on issues related to greater political inclusion in the United States, including major studies on increasing voter participation rates among low-income people, communities of color, naturalized immigrants, youth, women, and Native Americans. Her critically acclaimed book, The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote, was published in 2012 by Cornell University Press. She has also provided consulting to international organizations on voting rights, election reform, and constitutional reform in countries around the world for many years. 

Jacqueline De León (Isleta Pueblo) is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). She co-led field hearings across Indian Country on Native American voting rights and co-authored the subsequent report, "Obstacles at Every Turn: Barriers to Political Participation Faced by Native American Voters." She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions detailing voting rights issues in Indian Country and serves as the Chair of the Advisory Committee of American Bar Association’s bipartisan Standing Committee on Election Law. At NARF, Jacqueline leads the voting rights practice group, which engages in nationwide litigation, advocates for Native American voting rights legislation, conducts research, crafts policy, encourages and protects civic engagement, and assists tribes advocating for greater voter access for their communities. 

Melissa Rogers is co-director of the Inequality and Policy Research Center, and a professor of political science in the Division of Politics & Economics at Claremont Graduate University. Rogers earned her PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and her BA from Brown University. Rogers studies the political economy of inequality and voting rights for Native Americans. Her research focuses on the territorial incidence of inequality and its effects on national policymaking, national state-building, and the development of the fiscal state, and much of her recent work demonstrates inequalities in voting access for Native Americans. 

Joseph Dietrich works closely on political engagement in the Native American and other minority communities, on voter disenfranchisement, and on voting by mail. Currently, he is conducting several studies on voting efficacy among minority populations including one where he is co-developing a voting efficacy score and another on the efficacy of voting by mail in increasing minority voter turnout. 

Jean Schroedel is Professor Emerita of Political Science, and the former Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy. Schroedel taught classes on American political development, voting rights, women and the law, women and policy, Congress and policymaking. Schroedel has spent much of the past decade researching the impact of the Voting Rights Act on the ability of Native Americans to have meaningful access to the ballot box. This research has generated numerous articles, as well as her recently published book Voting in Indian Country: The View From the Trenches. Schroedel also was an expert witness in the Wandering Medicine v. McCulloch and Yazzie v. Hobbs cases, and did research with students that was used in the Poor Bear v. Jackson County and Sanchez v. Cegavske cases. 

Jaynie Parrish (Navajo Nation) grew up in Window Rock and Kayenta, AZ, and has been dedicated to increasing Indigenous representation all across sectors of our society and governmental structures. Jaynie currently leads Arizona Native Vote, a newly founded non-profit organization dedicated to building political power in rural and tribal communities. Jaynie was named a 2011 White House Fellow Finalist, 2023 Munzon-Instituto Fellow, and most recently selected for the 2024-2025 Project Overzero. Jaynie is an alum of Arizona State University and the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Casey Douma (Laguna Pueblo/Hopi-Tewa) is an attorney and owner of Douma Law, P.C., and works on behalf of tribal nations, tribal entities, and other organizations that impact that lives of Indigenous people. Casey started out his legal career giving back to his own tribe as a Prosecutor and then as In-House Legal Counsel for Laguna Pueblo, while serving as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico Law School teaching Indian Law courses. Casey is also Senior Faculty with the Leadership Institute, teaching and mentoring youth in the Summer Policy Academy at Princeton University, Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. Currently, Casey sits as a Board of Director for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and is an Associate Justice with the Chippewa Cree Tribe Court of Appeals. 

Lisa Finley-DeVille (MHA Nation) earned a bachelor's degree in environmental science from Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College and master's degrees in business administration and management from the University of Mary. Finley-DeVille's career experience includes working as an advocate. She co-founded Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights and has served on the boards of the Dakota Resource Council, the West Segment Development Authority, and the Western Organization Resource Council. She is a member of the North Dakota House of Representatives, representing District 4A. 

Michelle (Macuar) Sparck (Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevak) is the Director of Get Out the Native Vote (GOTNV), a statewide voter education organization based out of Anchorage under the Alaska Federation of Natives. As director of GOTNV when it was housed under the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Michelle was able to illustrate how our communities once very effectively harnessed the power of the Native Vote – that which reached its zenith in 1998 in 175 precincts at an astounding 67 percent, with many village precincts topping out with a 97.5 percent turnout rate. 

Chris Mercier (Grand Ronde) earned a journalism degree from the University of Oregon in 1998 and became a key advocate for tribal press freedom when he was elected to The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) Tribal Council in September 2004. He previously worked as a reporter for the tribal publication Smoke Signals. He was re-elected in 2007, 2010 and 2014, serving as Tribal chairperson during the 2006-07 Tribal Council sessions. 

Norma Gourneau (Northern Cheyenne Tribe) has been involved in the restoration and recognition of the Sand Creek Massacre site as a direct descendant of Chief Black Kettle, a survivor of the massacre. She served as Vice President of the Tribe when significant congressional action was taken to enact the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Study Act of 1998 and the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Establishment Act of 2000. Norma retired from federal service in 2000 where she served in various positions that culminated in returning to her homeland as the BIA Superintendent for the Northern Cheyenne Agency. She was then elected to a four-year term on the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council, representing the Busby District.