Issue 013
The Weekly Brief
For the week of August 2, 2026
The dominant story this week is Line 5, and it moved on two fronts simultaneously: the Seventh Circuit affirmed that Enbridge is trespassing on Mashkiiziibii land and ordered a reroute on a "reasonable" timeline, while the Michigan Supreme Court struck down the key tunnel permit beneath the Straits of Mackinac, sending Enbridge back to square one on that end of the pipeline. Bad River also filed a new lawsuit challenging waterway crossing approvals for the reroute itself, meaning the tribe is fighting on every legal front at once. Elsewhere in Indian Country, federal funding cuts are gutting domestic violence programs that serve urban and reservation Native communities, and Diné leaders are in Washington protesting the administration's push to lift the Chaco Canyon mining buffer. It was, as NARF's Daniel Cordalis put it plainly, a bad week for tribal nations in Washington overall, even as the courts delivered something worth celebrating closer to home.
Listen to this issue
Spoken by Deepgram Aura. The written brief above is the canonical version.
Across the Twelve Nations
Two Line 5 developments anchored Wisconsin Indian Country this week, but the Bodéwadmi Confederacy gathering in Forest County and a quiet but consequential NARF voting-rights reminder also deserve your attention.
Bad River Sues Over Waterway Crossing Permits for the Line 5 Reroute
The Bad River Band and allied environmental groups filed suit this week challenging state and federal approvals of waterway crossing permits for Enbridge's proposed Line 5 reroute through northern Wisconsin. The tribe argues the permits were granted without adequate review of impacts to the wild rice waters and wetlands that define Mashkiiziibii's homeland. This lawsuit runs parallel to the Seventh Circuit trespass ruling and the new injunction request, meaning Bad River is now contesting the pipeline's presence, its reroute path, and the permits that would make construction legal, all at once. WPR's Native American coverage, which has been the most consistent on this beat, broke the story.
Seventh Circuit: Enbridge Is Trespassing on Bad River Land, Reroute Must Proceed
The federal appeals court this week upheld the district court's finding that Enbridge's Line 5 is trespassing on the Bad River Reservation and ordered the company to complete a reroute on a timeline the court called "reasonable." ICT's coverage frames the ruling as a clear affirmation of tribal sovereignty, though the word "reasonable" leaves Enbridge room to argue about pace. The ruling does not halt the pipeline immediately, which is why Bad River simultaneously pressed its injunction request in district court. Read this alongside candidate 175 for the full picture of where the litigation stands.
Bodéwadmi Confederacy Adds Three Nations at Forest County Gathering
Dozens of Potawatomi leaders from the United States and Canada gathered at Potawatomi Casino Hotel Carter in Forest County this week for the 2026 Bodéwadmi Confederacy meeting, welcoming three new member nations into the confederacy. The gathering is a reminder that the Bodewadmi relationship to place and to one another is alive and expanding, not a relic. Forest County Potawatomi hosted, continuing their role as a hub of pan-Potawatomi organizing. The source here is Native News Online, which we generally avoid, but the underlying development is substantive and no Wisconsin outlet covered it.
NARF: Wearing a 'Native Vote' Shirt to the Polls Is Legal, Despite Past Harassment
With Wisconsin's August primary approaching, NARF issued a clear reminder this week: "Native Vote" shirts are nonpartisan and are generally permitted at polling places, even though some Native voters have been wrongly turned away for wearing them in past elections. The guidance is practical and timely for tribal members in northern Wisconsin counties where poll workers have historically been unfamiliar with Native voting rights. NARF notes that rules vary by state, so tribal election offices should verify local guidance before August 11.
Treaty Rights and Water: Line 5 Moves on Two Fronts
The Michigan Supreme Court's tunnel ruling and the Seventh Circuit's trespass affirmance arrived in the same week. Together they reshape the Line 5 landscape more than any single development in years.
Michigan Supreme Court Strikes Down Line 5 Tunnel Permit, Tribes Celebrate
In a ruling NARF called a major victory, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned the key permit authorizing Enbridge's proposed tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac, requiring the company to restart its application. NARF, which has been central to the tribal legal strategy on the Michigan end of the pipeline, covered this first and most clearly. The decision does not kill the tunnel permanently, but it forces Enbridge to re-do the environmental and regulatory process, buying significant time for tribal nations and advocates who have argued the Straits crossing threatens the Great Lakes. Paired with the Seventh Circuit's Wisconsin trespass ruling this week, Enbridge is now fighting on both ends of the pipeline simultaneously.
Michigan Approves Line 5 Permits Even as Supreme Court Case Looms, Tribes Decry Decision
Before the Michigan Supreme Court issued its ruling (candidate 169), state regulators approved a separate set of Line 5 permits, drawing sharp criticism from tribal nations and environmental advocates who vowed appeals. ICT covered the tribal response, quoting leaders who called the approvals premature given the pending court challenge. The subsequent Supreme Court ruling this week effectively overtook this story, but the sequence matters: state agencies moved to approve while the court was still deliberating, and tribes are now appealing those permits as well. Read this as context for the larger Michigan legal picture.
NARF's Headwaters Report: 'A Bad Week for Tribal Nations' in Washington
NARF water attorney Daniel Cordalis wrote with unusual directness in his Headwaters Report field notes this week, calling the past week "a bad week for tribal nations" in federal water and land policy. The column surveys a range of federal actions, from monument reductions to water rights rollbacks, that compound one another in ways individual news stories miss. Cordalis writes from inside the litigation, which gives the column a texture that agency press releases cannot match. Worth reading alongside the Line 5 and Chaco Canyon stories this week for a sense of the cumulative federal policy environment.
Indian Country: Federal Policy, Courts, and the Long Fight
Federal funding cuts to Native domestic violence programs, the Chaco Canyon mining buffer fight, and a model from the Osage Nation on zeroing out foster care entries are the continental beats worth your time this week.
Federal Funding Cuts Are Gutting Domestic Violence Programs for Native Communities
The Urban Indian Health Institute released a report this week documenting the concrete damage that recent federal funding cuts have done to violence-related programs serving Native people, including MMIW and domestic violence services for urban Indians. The report names specific programs that have lost funding and quantifies the gap in services left behind. This is the kind of story Patty has flagged before: not abstract policy, but specific programs serving specific people, now gone. The source is Native Sun News, which covered the UIHI report directly.
Diné Leaders Travel to Washington to Defend Chaco Canyon Mining Buffer
A delegation of Diné allotment shareholders and community leaders went to Washington this week to call on the Bureau of Land Management to keep enforcing oil and gas restrictions near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, after the Trump administration proposed lifting the buffer. The Wisconsin Examiner covered the protest; High Country News ran a fuller account (candidate 88) with Pueblo leaders and New Mexico lawmakers adding their voices. The Chaco Canyon fight is not a Wisconsin story, but the pattern, federal rollback of protections at a sacred site over tribal objection, is one Patty tracks as part of the broader federal policy environment.
The Osage Nation Zeroed Out Foster Care Entries for Six Months. Here Is How They Did It.
In early 2023, the Osage Nation had 27 children in tribal foster care. Then, for a six-month stretch in 2024, not a single child entered the system. ICT's reporting goes inside the specific practices, family preservation workers, early intervention, and community accountability, that made this possible. This is the kind of story Patty's editorial compass points toward: a Native nation exercising agency and ingenuity to solve a problem that has devastated communities for generations. The Osage model is directly relevant to Wisconsin tribes grappling with ICWA implementation and child welfare reform.
Nearly 70 Indigenous Candidates Are Running in August Primaries Across Indian Country
ICT counted close to 70 Indigenous candidates running for public office in August primaries across nearly a dozen states, a number that reflects a generation of Native political organizing bearing fruit. The list includes candidates for state legislatures, congressional seats, and local offices. Two Potawatomi candidates are facing off in a Michigan congressional primary (candidate 19), which is the most Wisconsin-adjacent of the races. This is the kind of story that belongs in the brief not as a horse-race item but as evidence of the civic vitality Patty documents.
Alaska Native Communities Build Their Own Sexual Assault Response Teams Ahead of a Mining Boom
High Country News reports on how one Alaska Native village established a Native-led sexual assault response team in anticipation of the man-camp dynamics that accompany mining booms, a proactive community safety strategy rather than a reactive one. The story is framed around agency and preparation, not victimhood, which is the register Patty's editorial compass favors. The MMIW connection is explicit: mining booms historically correlate with spikes in violence against Native women, and this community decided not to wait for the crisis to arrive.
People: Voices Worth Naming
A Forest County Potawatomi elder-veteran, a remembrance of Tim Giago, and a note on the FCP elder who shaped the water tower design process.
FCP Elder and Vietnam-Era Veteran JR Holmes: A Life of Service and Community
At nearly 81, Forest County Potawatomi elder and veteran JR Holmes sat down with the FCP Communications team to reflect on his childhood, his military service during the Vietnam era, and the decades of community work that followed his return. Holmes's story fits squarely in the ogichidaa tradition Patty has documented since Way of the Warrior: the warrior who comes home and turns his discipline toward his people. The Potawatomi Traveling Times piece is the kind of ordinary-voice profile, an elder speaking in his own words about his own life, that Patty's Studs Terkel principle puts at the center of the brief.
Remembering Tim Giago, Oglala Lakota Journalist Who Built Native Sun News
Native Sun News Today published a remembrance this week of Tim Giago, the Oglala Lakota journalist who founded the paper and whose career shaped what Native journalism looks like in the northern Plains. The companion piece "Carrying the Fire Forward" (candidate 45) frames Giago's legacy as a living obligation: a Native newspaper is "a drumbeat, a place where truth stands its ground." Giago is not a figure Patty has written about directly, but his work is part of the same tradition she has spent her career advancing, and the remembrance is worth reading as a meditation on what Native press means when it is done right.
Long Read: The Army Corps and the Promise Behind the Permit
Opinion: The Army Corps Faces More Than a Permit Decision. It Faces a Promise.
This Native News Online opinion piece opens not with a legal argument but with a grandparent, which is exactly where Patty's editorial instincts say the story should begin. The author works through what "treaty trust responsibility" actually means as a lived obligation rather than a legal phrase, and applies it directly to the Army Corps permit decisions that are shaping pipeline and infrastructure fights across Indian Country right now. The piece is short enough to read over a second cup of coffee but dense enough to reward slow reading. It is the kind of writing that does what Patty's 4 R's ask of journalism: it builds relationship before it makes its argument, it respects the limits of what a non-Native institution can understand, and it asks the reader to sit with the weight of a promise before moving on. The source is Native News Online, which we generally flag, but this is a substantive opinion piece, not a press release or branded content, and no other outlet ran it.