Government Resources on Native American Heritage : Native Americans in Government

Deb Haaland served as the United States Secretary of the Interior during the Biden Administration from 2021 to 2025. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th generation New Mexican. 

Haaland grew up in a military family; her father was a 30-year combat Marine and her mother is a Navy veteran who served as a federal employee for 25 years at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.Secretary

Haaland became the first Native American woman to be elected to lead a State Party; she was chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017. She is also one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress where she served as the U.S. representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021.In Congress, she focused on environmental justice, climate change, missing and murdered indigenous women, and family-friendly policies.

Deb Haaland is currently running for governor of New Mexico for the 2026 election. 

Former House Representative Mary Sattler Peltola was born in Alaska and raised on the Kuskokwim River in Kwethluk, Tuntutuliak, Platinum, and Bethel. She was just six years old when she began fishing commercially with her father.

At age 24 years old she won her first state election and represented the Bethel region in the Alaska State Legislature.

During her ten years in office she built consensus around budgets that  improved lives in rural Alaska. Since then she has worked as Manager of Community Development and Sustainability for the Donlin gold mine project. More recently, she was Executive Director of the  Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She  helped mobilize 118 Tribes and rural Alaskans to advocate for the protection of salmon runs in Western Alaska.

Rep. Peltola also served on the Orutsararmiut Native Council Tribal Court and the Bethel City Council, and on the boards of the Nature Conservancy, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Alaska Children’s Trust, and the Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska.

Why We Serve honors the generations of Native Americans who have served in the armed forces of the United States—often in extraordinary numbers—since the American Revolution.

For some, the Indigenous commitment to the U.S. military doesn’t make sense. Why would Indians serve a country that overran their homelands, suppressed their cultures, and confined them to reservations?

Native people have served for the same reasons as anyone else: to demonstrate patriotism or pursue employment, education, or adventure. Many were drafted. Yet tribal warrior traditions, treaty commitments with the United States, and responsibility for defending Native homelands have also inspired the enduring legacy of Indigenous military service.

Why We Serve commemorates the National Native American Veterans Memorial, dedicated at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

Sharice Davids is one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress (alongside Deb Haaland).  She is also the first openly LGBT Native American elected to Congress. She has been the U.S. representative from Kansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019.  She is a member of the Ho-Chunk people, and an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.

Davids began her higher education at Johnson County Community College, and graduated with a BA in business administration from the University of Missouri–Kansas City.  She earned her law degree from Cornell Law School.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Joy Harjo as the 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress on June 19, 2019. Harjo was reappointed to a second term on April 30, 2020, and a third term on Nov. 19, 2020.

Joy Harjo is the first Native American poet to serve in the position—she is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 9, 1951, and is the author of nine books of poetry—including “An American Sunrise” (2019); “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” (2015); “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky” (1994), which received the Oklahoma Book Arts Award; and “In Mad Love and War” (1990), which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. Harjo has also written two memoirs, “Crazy Brave” (2012) and “Poet Warrior” (2021), as well as a children’s book, “The Good Luck Cat” (2000), and a young adult book, “For a Girl Becoming” (2009).

Tom Cole is a fifth-generation Oklahoman and an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation. He is one of only five Native Americans currently serving in Congress. Since 2009, he has served as the Republican Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus. The National Congress of American Indians has recognized Cole's distinguished service with the Congressional Leadership award on three different occasions (2007, 2011 and 2017), more than any other Member of Congress in the history of the organization. He was inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame in 2004. He is considered the foremost expert in the House on issues related to Native Americans and tribal governments.

Cole holds a B.A. from Grinnell College, an M.A. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining Congress, Cole taught history and politics at the college level. 

Cole has served in the House of Representatives since 2002 and is recognized as a tireless advocate for taxpayers and small businesses, a supporter of a strong national defense, and a leader in promoting biomedical research. In 2016, he was recognized by Newsmax as the "hardest working member in Congress." 

When astronaut John Herrington made his voyage to space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-113 mission, he became the first Native American in space. 

Nicole Aunapu Mann was selected by NASA in June 2013. She launched to the International Space Station as commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on October 5, 2022. She is the first indigenous woman from NASA to go to space. She is registered with the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. 

Markwayne Mullin, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was born and is currently living on the original allotment land that his family received in Westville, Oklahoma. Mullin was the U.S. Representative from the 2nd district of Oklahoma from 2013 to 2023 and is currently the junior senator from Oklahoma.

Danna Jackson has spent her entire legal career in the area of Natural Resources and Indian Law. Most recently, Danna has been chief legal counsel to the State of Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation – the agency that manages Montana’s trust lands, waters, state forests, and conservation initiatives. She has spent the majority of her career in the public sector including as a federal prosecutor and a Hill staffer. She is also a Tribal Attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Danna grew up on a cattle ranch on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in beautiful Western Montana.

Jackson, attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, was nominated by President Joe Biden to the U.S. District Court in Montana.  She would have been the first Native American judge in the state’s history. However, Republican Sen. Steve Daines blocked the nomination.