HELENA, MONT. — Jonathan Windy Boy was a longtime champion of the international Grass Dance competition, a native event in which the object is to simulate the natural movement of tall prairie grass swaying in the wind.
But, recalled Windy Boy with a laugh, "that was many years and about 40 pounds ago."
Now Windy Boy moves his considerable frame around the House chamber in the state Capitol here, bargaining and cajoling as a leader of the 10-member Native American caucus in Montana's state Legislature.
The caucus has the highest number of Indians ever elected to the 150-member chamber and reflects a broader trend of increased participation by Native Americans in state politics across the country.
When legislatures convened earlier this year, at least 73 Indian, native Alaskan or native Hawaiian lawmakers were sworn in, the highest number in the nation's history, according to the National Congress of American Indians, a tribal advocacy group.
Windy Boy recalled that while he was growing up on a Ojibwa-Cree Indian reservation in north-central Montana, "there was a lot of skepticism, a lot of cynicism about the idea of voting at all."
"Some people didn't vote as a point of pride -- defiance, even," he said. "But that's all changed. There's much more of a sense today that we can work within this system."
The Indian vote was an important factor in several state races in 2006, and turnout on the reservations and among urban Indians in Montana was crucial to Democrat Jon Tester's razor-thin victory over incumbent Republican Conrad Burns in the recent U.S. Senate election here.
For now, the Indian vote in Montana is solidly Democratic, and all 10 Indian members of the Montana Legislature belong to the party.
"An Indian voting Republican is like the chicken voting for the colonel," said Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat.
Republicans obviously reject that notion, noting that 15 of the 73 native lawmakers belong to the GOP, according to figures from the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. And perhaps the best-known Native American politician of recent years, former Colorado U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse-Campbell, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, started as a Democrat but switched to Republican in 1995.
Oklahoma has the most native legislators, with 19, while Hawaii and Montana have 10 each, followed by Alaska with eight.
