Radio host Dawnafe Whitesinger has taken the most important step to electing Democratic U.S. Senators from Arizona, (along with the governor, secretary of state and the attorney general) by convincing reservation residents that they need to vote to send leaders to Washington and Phoenix who will improve their lives.
Dawnafe (pronounced Donna-Fae) has a track record of using her monthly radio broadcasts to engage tribal members on discussions of important topics ranging from allowing tribes to enforce criminal laws on their territory, to cleaning up abandoned uranium mines, to providing running water, electricity and Internet to remote homes.
The crime problem on the Navajo Nation is a good example of an issue that she has encouraged elected officials and candidates to deal with. There is no 911 service. If you have no cell phone
service you can’t call anyone. There are approximately 150 patrol officers to cover an area the size of
West Virginia. (This is fewer police officers than are employed in the small city of Charleston, West
Virginia, let alone a fraction of the more than 1100 officers in the state of West Virginia.)
And if you do manage to get a tribal officer to respond to an emergency, they probably don’t have jurisdiction to deal with it because of rules against tribal officers arresting non-Native criminals, and rules against tribal officers arresting anyone for major crimes. These limitations do not stop criminals from killing tribal officers. Two officers have been murdered on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in recent years.
Dawnafe and her guests address these and other difficult issues on her radio program. It helps Natives understand the real connection between their votes and progress on the ground in their communities.
If you would like to help us with the thousands of dollars of expenses to produce and distribute these radio programs, please donate at secure.actblue.com/... .
In case you haven't heard, ”The Native Issues Conference” is a radio program and podcast hosted by
Dawnafe. Last year she anchored twelve hour-long programs that featured her interviews
with almost every important member of tribal leadership and Arizona state and federal congressional representatives and senators. She and her radio production team have brought Arizona tribal people in touch with their leaders and as a result expanded their voting power which made the crucial difference in the 2022 elections.
Continuously sharing this important message is making a real difference both in quality of life on the
reservations and election results in Arizona. Tribal members provided the margin of victory that elected Mark Kelly twice to the U.S. Senate. In the most recent cycle, they elected Katie Hobbs as Arizona governor, Adrian Fontes as secretary of state and Kris Mayes as attorney general. In a state with more than seven million people, Mayes’ 300-vote victory was a cliff hanger, but it ended control of the office by Big Lie Republicans.
Our biggest expense is getting the program on KTNN, a station that serves the sprawling
Navajo Nation and its 150,000 residents. As many as 90% of Navajos are Democrats. The two main Apache Reservations combined are the size of Connecticut and there we reach the 17,000 White Mountain Apaches through their station KNNB. Apaches vote a little more Democratic than the Navajos.
So far, we've been paying for it all ourselves, but now the time has come to ask you for some financial help to keep the good work on the air. You can listen to our body of work at nativearizonavictoryfund.com or at our podcast channel www.buzzsprout.com/... . If you would like to help us with the thousands of dollars of expenses to produce and distribute these radio programs, please donate at secure.actblue.com/... .
Our mailing address is Arizona Native Victory Fund c/o Eric Kramer, 1910 Douglas Fir Dr., Pinetop, AZ 85935-8708
Looking forward to 2024, or course we have to re-elect a Democrat as president. Another issue we have to deal with is MAGA Congressman Eli Crane, who came to us via a Republican
gerrymander. Though many Natives struggled with Covid without running water in their homes, Crane’s answer is to withdraw from the World Health Organization. It will take a lot of work to get rid of this guy who makes MTG look moderate in comparison. And, it goes without saying, that we need Native votes to deal with Sinema.