North Dakota Republican Who Sponsored Law Disenfranchising Native Americans Loses Election - To a Native American
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Ruth Buffalo at her swearing in on Monday, December 3, 2018.
Republicans managed to beat former Senator Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, but further down on the ballot, Republicans paid a price for trying to block the Native American base from voting.
In the most poetic justice of the night, Randy Boehning, a GOP state representative in Fargo who sponsored the Native American disenfranchisement law in the first place, was unseated by Democrat Ruth Anna Buffalo whose mom is Hidatsa/Mandan and father is Chiricahua Apache.
Standing alongside other newly elected lawmakers during the swearing-in ceremony in North Dakota's state Capitol on Monday, December 3, Buffalo wore her traditional dress and held an ornate fan made with eagle feathers given to her by her clan brother hours earlier.
Buffalo stood in the chambers with her hand raised and made history as the first Native American Democratic woman to be sworn into the state's legislature wearing her traditional dress.
"It's part of my identity and who I am," said Buffalo, one of North Dakota's newest state representatives.
Buffalo, originally from Mandaree on the Fort Berthold Reservation didn't run her campaign targeting her opponent, instead, she focused on specific issues concerning her district: health care accessibility, property taxes and funding for education.
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