On the heels of a busy Montana legislative session, the advocacy group Western Native Voice is setting its sights higher and opening a Washington, D.C., office next week.

The nonprofit formed in 2022 to advocate for equity and opportunity for Montana's Native people. Since then, the group has gained members in, and collaborated with tribes across, many western states.

Keaton Sunchild, director of government and political relations for the group, said it can be difficult to operate at a national level from 2,000 miles away.

"Being able to be right there, be on top of the action and be able to use our voice in Washington is going to help us be a little bit more proactive," Sunchild explained.

He pointed out top issues at the national level include criminal justice funding for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and drug crises disproportionately affecting tribal communities. Sunchild noted the national office will open May 12.

Sunchild called this year's Montana legislative session "pretty successful" for Western Native Voice but highlighted one area of continued concern is voting rights. Gov. Greg Gianforte is expected to decide Tuesday on Senate Bill 490, which would add restrictions to same-day voter registration.

"It's a road we've been down before," Sunchild acknowledged. "Trying to figure out the best way forward for that, whether that's through the courts in Montana, maybe if there's some sort of backstop we can look at federally."

Other voting access issues Sunchild plans to work on are funding for more satellite elections offices and blanket protections for tribal IDs as valid voter registration identification.

A Montana-based Indigenous advocacy group said it is increasing membership this year in a new way, with a traveling conference.

Western Native Voice on Tuesday held the last of about a dozen conferences it has hosted since March in tribal communities across Montana. The group offers programs to attendees that focus on leadership development, civic engagement and education, and public policy advocacy.

Denise Juneau, former Montana state superintendent of public instruction and a conference keynote speaker, said Native legislators made a lot of headway in this year's session.

"There was a sense of pride in seeing what got accomplished through the 12 Native legislators who got elected from all these different communities," Juneau explained. "I think really a glimmer of hope about what can happen when people get engaged."

Bills passing in 2025 included updates to the Montana Indian Child Welfare Act and a new approach to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis, as well as reauthorization of Native language preservation programs and formal recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Juneau, an enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa Tribes of North Dakota, credits her own success in part to growing up with parents in the state Legislature and tribal leadership.

"Being in those seats of power and speaking truth to power, and being engaged at that level really makes a difference for your community, for your state, for the country and for the people who are around you," Juneau recounted.

She encouraged people to get involved at any level, from ensuring your family is registered to vote to running for office.

Shane Doyle, executive director of the nonprofit coalition Yellowstone Peoples and a member of the Apsáalooke Nation, said there is a common misconception tribes across Montana were historically in conflict, when evidence shows they were largely friendly.

"Despite the enormous and remarkable language diversity here in Montana, the tribes were all able to coalesce over generations and create their own sign language," Doyle noted. "It just is a testimony to their stable relations."


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The FBI has said it will add resources in 10 states including New Mexico to tackle unresolved crimes, with a focus on those related to missing and murdered indigenous persons but not everyone is convinced it will have a significant effect.

The agency said 60 agents will be deployed to Albuquerque to investigate unsolved crimes.

Darlene Gomez, a tribal attorney, has spent her career advocating for missing and murdered Indigenous women. When it comes to investigations, she said accountability can be lacking.

"When the Department of Justice or President Trump enacts legislation or (a) special task force, we very rarely see any of the data that comes out of what those task forces were supposed to accomplish," Gomez noted.

Prior to the FBI announcement, the Trump administration scrubbed an online report from the Not Invisible Act Commission, mandated by bipartisan legislation and signed into law by President Donald Trump during his first term.

In the U.S., less than 4% of the population identifies as Native American but it is disproportionately affected by violence, domestic abuse and mental health disorders.

Gomez has a friend who's been missing for 24 years, so she is encouraged New Mexico recently adopted the "Turquoise Alert," a system to help locate missing Indigenous people, similar to an Amber Alert for missing children and already operational in California, Colorado and Washington. Nonetheless, Gomez worries New Mexico is backsliding on its commitment to locate the missing.

"I feel like New Mexico was once the premiere state in the country working on murdered, missing, Indigenous women and relative topics, and we were making huge, significant strides," Gomez explained. "Now we are down at the bottom again."

Recent numbers are not available, but as of 2019, homicide was the third most common cause of death for Native American girls ages 15-19 and 20-24. The FBI's National Crime Information Center showed more than 10,000 entries for missing Indigenous people in 2023, a number believed to be inaccurately low.

Protections for Indigenous rock art in Wyoming are in limbo after state lawmakers and the Trump administration took potentially conflicting actions related to them.

Senate File 91, which handily passed the state Legislature, increased the penalties for any kind of petroglyph or pictograph site destruction to a $750 fine and up to six months in prison.

The measure moved forward as the U.S. Department of the Interior fast-tracked energy projects through a decades-old legal review of such sites.

Crystal C'Bearing, tribal historic preservation officer for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said she used to have 30 days to comment on a project, but now has seven.

"In terms of tribes, our sacred sites and our places of significance, that's our history on the ground," C'Bearing pointed out. "It's not in books, it's on the land. So it's really important for tribes to have that voice in there to protect those sites."

The original Wyoming bill included nearly $500,000 for the state's Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources to survey and make 3D models of Wyoming's petroglyphs but it was ultimately cut.

According to a 2024 "State of the Art" report, of the nearly 1,100 Indigenous rock art sites across Wyoming, about a quarter have been vandalized or defaced.

Beyond Wyoming's borders, C'Bearing noted her office provides legally mandated consultation on any projects in her tribe's ancestral migratory territory, which includes portions of 17 states. She added she takes on hundreds of requests.

"That 30-day window was barely enough time," C'Bearing contended. "Now we have to kind of prioritize those so we can push them through. But it's a challenge."

C'Bearing emphasized the office is allowed to request more time to review projects, giving consultants some leeway.


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