BostonGlobe | She added: “When someone is pouring gasoline on a fire it’s always
better to put the fire out. But, in this case, the Warren campaign
thought it would burn itself out.”’
Marsh said that Brown’s
campaign erred in overreaching on the issue. And Warren won that race by
7 percentage points, even as Obama carried the Bay State over Romney by
more than 23 percentage points.
Warren says she believes these issues are in her past.
“These
issues were extensively litigated in 2012 and I think the people of
Massachusetts made their decision,” Warren said in her brief interview
with the Globe this month. “I think what the people of Massachusetts and
what voters are concerned about is the direction that Donald Trump is
pulling this country.”
And Warren appears to be taking tentative steps to build ties to Native American advocates in Washington.
“I’d
put her on a list of someone who is open and willing to listen and
engage,” said Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National
Congress of American Indians, a Washington-based group supporting Native
Americans.
But when asked if Warren has led any major legislative
efforts for tribes, Pata demurred. “Not that I know of,” she said. “Nor
do I believe we’ve asked that either.”
In December, Warren
attended a rally in Washington led by the Gwich’in Nation and Inupiaq
Tribe in December opposing a provision in the Republican tax bill that
opens a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
In
the Globe interview, Warren pointed to her broader agenda of working to
reduce opioid addiction and substance abuse. “Its an extraordinarily
seriously problem for Native Americans,” Warren said.
Warren said
she has also pushed for a provision in an education bill that would
require reporting on student performance by ethnicity, with an eye
toward ensuring that Native American students are being monitored —
though the provision also tracks other minorities and isn’t specific to
American Indians.
She helped a tribe in Northern California
protect water rights by helping in negotiations in a larger defense
authorization bill, according to several with knowledge of the bill.
And
she has sat down with the Cherokee Nation’s principal chief, Bill John
Baker. In a statement, he described Warren as “very welcoming.”
He
credited her for supporting a provision in the 2013 reauthorization of
the Violence Against Women Act that lets tribal law enforcement
prosecute non-natives accused of abusing American Indian women on
reservations.
But perhaps ironically, it is Trump who may be doing
the most to push Native Americans into Warren’s camp. Every time the
president labels Warren as “Pocahontas,” she reacts swiftly, calling out
the president for using what she terms a racial slur.
“She stands
up to the racial slap,” said Smith, the former Cherokee Nation chief.
“Anyone who stands up for Indian Country,” he said, “it endears her to
me.”
