SENATE CANDIDATE’S PLATFORM IS ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL

Editor’s note: Paulette Jordan sat down with The Press after the Feb. 15 “Day of Unity” event at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library, answering questions about her campaign for U.S. Senate and life in general.

One recent morning, Paulette Jordan prayed with her family on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, gathering her strength after learning her application for candidacy for the United States Senate had been approved by the Federal Election Commission. Her uncle reminded her of the foundation of government.

“He said now that you’re running for U.S. Senate, you have to realize that all of the great functions of this country have not been adhered to,” Jordan said. “This is what it comes down to are the basic principles. That we all want to live our life in liberty, peace, and the pursuit of happiness. We should always be free, as a people. And so that is what it comes down to, form and function.”

The form of the country, as Jordan describes it, includes both the principles and the land that the country was founded upon. Jordan believes current government operations are hypocritical of its foundation. Frustrated by current Idaho Sen. Jim Risch’s part in deregulating environmental protections, Jordan decided to run for his position in the Senate.

“It’s not about Republicans and Democrats ... It’s basically, where is your heart?” Jordan said. “What are your principles? What are you founded upon? What do you want to be? When you see someone being bullied, what level of action do you take? When you see someone polluting our environment, where do you stand? These are basic moral questions that we have to ask ourselves. I have to ask myself everyday, knowing exactly what I know, what do I need to do?”

Jordan sees her work as an effort to find peace, to defend and serve humanity for the greater good. It is something she said runs in her lineage.

Her grandfather was one of 44,000 Native Americans who served in World War II. The entire Native American population at that time was less than 350,000.

“I wear this flag because my grandfather served in World War II,” Jordan said, touching the American flag pin on her lapel. “When he fought for this country he said he was serving the people who don’t yet understand what it means to have your freedom taken away. He said ‘I’m defending the children. And our children’s children because we all deserve freedom. We all deserve happiness.’”

Jordan echoed her grandfather’s mission. Legislative work calls to her as a way to advocate for the future of the next generation. She first served as a councilwoman for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and later as an Idaho legislator. She ran for governor on the Democratic ticket and lost to Gov. Brad Little in 2018.

When Jordan’s grandfather came home from war, he returned home to North Idaho to his family’s farm. He saw signs at the local country store that said no dogs and no Indians allowed.

“This man’s dignity was stripped from him,” Jordan said. “He was slapped in the face for serving our country. That was hard for me to hear. But he reminded me, in his dying days, he said to me, ‘Granddaughter, you have to be the bigger person. You have to have compassion, because that is what I learned in that experience, to have compassion for our fellow men.’”

Jordan believes greater compassion in government happens when more women participate in governing.

“I feel this great responsibility that I am accountable to leading this next generation forward,” Jordan said.

Jordan has a different way of thinking about politics — she draws her strength from the land.

“Often I talk about this with women, because women are looking for places to revitalize themselves in their own spirit,” Jordan said. “They’re spiritually looking to align and connect.”

In nature, people have the ability to be both vulnerable and grounded, she said. For Jordan, connecting with the natural world means connecting with a divine god or guidance. She articulated that people look at this in a multitude of ways, but that for her, to seek spirituality in the landscape allows her to see through the fog of daily living.

“Truth is the one great unifying factor, so that is all you really need, You need to make sure you connect as much as you can, which means honoring the water,” Jordan said. “You go out into nature. You are even vulnerable that way, but that’s a way to spiritually be grounded.”

Jordan spends time on horseback, walking, bicycling, and being in or near the water.

“I always grew up around the lake, because we are a lake people, the Coeur d’Alene people,” she said.

Jordan understands water itself to be a god. It is an understanding inherited from the teachings of her tribe.

Ted Fortier, an anthropologist and professor at Seattle University, worked with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe to publish an article in “The Indigenous People and the Environment” journal in 2012. He wrote:

“The story of the transformation of the land and the water has to be understood in the light of conflicting worldviews. For the indigenous people of the Columbia Plateau, the plants, animals and the processes of the land are imbued with spirit. The role of the people is to care for them and in doing so, what Westerners refer to as nature cared for the people. It is a relationship in which an embedded spirituality connected the land and people.”

Fortier’s article gets at the complexity of translating between indigenous and non-indigenous worldviews. It’s a job Jordan did working as a state legislator and one she aims to do as US senator.

“I will be one of 100 but yet still able to champion forward these ideas and translate the message because it is really a message that nature employs, the land employs,” Jordan said.

In the past year Jordan founded a nonprofit, Save the American Salmon, to advocate for the removal of four dams on the lower Snake River. While Jordan and her family have been part of the agricultural community in North Idaho for time immemorial, she said the dams are not only a dysfunction of society, but a drain to taxpayers in addition to preventing salmon runs to the Pacific Ocean.

“Ultimately, what we really need to do is think big,” Jordan said. “And thinking big means giving rights to nature. Why doesn’t nature have rights? Why does water not have a say? I think about everything that’s dying. We have thousands of species dying or on the brink of extinction and it's a tragic issue to me.”

Jordan said people take nature for granted.

“People often think that it’s about money, because they think money is going to keep us safe and secure,” she said. “But you can’t drink money, you can’t eat money, you can’t breathe it in.”

For the most part, nearly all of Idaho’s senators have lived in the southern portion of the state.

“My tribe, my family lived on this land and around this lake,” Jordan said. “We inhabited it for thousands of years and yet we were on the brink of extinction. And yet here I am today. I get to fight for you, having experienced everything that has happened. So don’t talk to me about immigration. And don’t talk to me about not defending our land, because that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

“I was told by the ancestors that this world will not change until the women are at the forefront, speaking for the children and for all life. We are almost there. We are slowly getting there.”