MINNEAPOLIS — Leaders of Minnesota’s biggest American Indian tribes are criticizing U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber for his efforts to build opposition to President Joe Biden’s pick for Interior secretary, who is herself a tribal member.
Most egregiously, state tribal leaders said, Stauber — a Republican whose northeastern Minnesota district is home to several of the state’s largest bands — did not even give them a heads-up that he would be trying to sink the nomination of Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Department of the Interior.
“We felt like we were blindsided,” Faron Jackson, Sr., chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, said Thursday. “You know, we might not change his opinion or his outlook, but at least give us the consultation.”
Several groups of tribal leaders sent angry letters to Stauber last week, after learning that he had been circulating his own letter to
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