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A moderate size crowd of supporters gathered as they awaited the arrival of Lyla June Johnston, and I was among them as an eyewitness. Johnston opened her initial Dec. 12 campaign speech at the Roundhouse in her native Diné tongue, followed by a brief synopsis of her goals in Spanish before sharing her platform in English.
She's a grassroots organizer who advocated on behalf of the people of Standing Rock, and now she's got her sights on a local seat in the New Mexico Legislature.
Her campaign as a Democrat for the state House of Representatives in District 47 challenges nine-year incumbent House Speaker Brian Egolf.
Johnston told me later that she was born in Santa Fe and grew up in Taos. Her mother is Diné and her father is European. She worked in District 47 for two years from 2016 to 2018 when she was employed by New Energy Economy, and she came back to the city, she said, specifically to enter the race.
"I am proud of the work I did with [New Energy Economy] because they work with the most vulnerable members of the Navajo Nation…I have moved to Santa Fe specifically to challenge Speaker Egolf," she said in our interview.
She denied any connection between the New Energy Economy nonprofit and her campaign, however.
When I asked why she chose to run for the office, Johnston said, "the top issues are climate change and education. Current leadership is failing because they are funding our children's education with the oil revenue that is going to destroy the future of these same children."
Definitely, something to consider in the wake of the New Mexico oil boom.
I also had the opportunity to speak with Egolf a few days later concerning Johnston's announcement. He said, "It's been our top goal to change the composition in the House. Women are [now] the majority of the caucus."
Egolf said he is confident that what he has accomplished in the state thus far will speak for itself in the upcoming election, including the reality that all of the majority leaders in the House are now women of color.
He also did not shy away from the concerns about our state's oil revenue; rather, he said, "Half of the money in our state budget comes from a single economy, and we know we need to move away from this. [In] the next 10 years we are working on diversifying the state's economy and introducing more green technology into the state."
Johnston, on the other hand, encouraged New Mexicans to outright give up their addiction to oil and compared it to her own former struggles with substance use, noting that the state is currently "investing in our own destruction."
Johnston has an admittedly limited political background, but she's unveiling an agenda calling for the protection of the water and sacred lands that are native to her people and valuable to all New Mexicans. "We don't have much money. But we have something more valuable," she said. "We have the truth."
Johnston rides the wave of support from her work as a water protector and spoken word artist as she confronts the effects of fracking in the Permian Basin on communities throughout the state. Her YouTube video “All Nations Rise” has been watched more than 130,000 times.
Johnston's work is and has been the preservation of natural resources and uplifting the people in her communities. She co-founded The Taos Peace and Reconciliation Council. Additionally, she works alongside many organizations and groups, including the Sovereign Sisters Gathering in South Dakota, Bioneers of New Mexico and The Esperanza Project. She also founded The Regeneration Festival, which has spread to many countries and is now thriving in its 10th year. In 2017, she was a recipient of the Auburn Lives of Commitment Award.
For now, Johnston said she is devoting the majority of her time to campaigning and fundraising.
In her campaign speech, she quoted the Lakota leader Sitting Bull (d. 1890) and his morals as a guide for her work: "Let us put our minds together and see what kind of life we can create for our children."
"Our times are calling for us to be brave…to take our democracy back… to reduce our state budget's dependence on oil revenue…to localize our food systems, localize all of our systems to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels…for more creativity than perhaps we've been ever asked to have… but we live in an artist community," she said, addressing the crowd.
Johnston said her decision to run for the House seat is also rooted in the relationship between big business and education, as well as climate change.
Time and the views of Democrats who vote in the closed June 2020 primary election will prove if her background has prepared her for this position.
She holds a bachelor's degree in environmental anthropology from Stanford, a master's degree in American Indian Education from the University of New Mexico, and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Indigenous studies. She is trained as an anthropologist and an educator.
Johnston has a proven track record for drawing the masses, but does she have the force needed to take on a longstanding state legislator, especially Egolf, who has a proven track record as a progressive? She thinks so.
And so do a plethora of supporters who came out on her behalf for her declaration of candidacy. She has attracted more than 1.2K people alone following her announcement that she is running for office. In general, 49,000 people have liked her Facebook page, which is a fair amount for a budding politician.
One of her supporters, Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers, said, we "have a breath of fresh air coming to represent us. Celebrate a woman indigenous to this place, a woman of deep intelligence and integrity who embodies bold and effective leadership."
Does she really expect to beat the leader of the majority party in the House? Maybe not. With a bravery deeply connected to her ties to the land, she is already claiming the victory. "I'm excited because in many ways, we've already won!"
Tintawi Kaigziabiher is part of the Fall 2019 cohort for the New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism.
