Tom Rodgers

Tom Rodgers (born July 28, 1960) is a Washington, DC, activist and advocate for Native Americans and tribal issues. He is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, and is a nationally-recognized commentator on Native American issues, politics, and ethics. In 1994, Rodgers founded Carlyle Consulting, a governmental/media/public relations firm located in Alexandria, Virginia that represents the interests of Native Americans.Rodgers played an important role in the investigation that led to the conviction of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Since then, Rodgers has waged a Native American Voting Rights effort to help provide Native Americans on remote, poverty-stricken reservations with equal access to voting. He played a lead role in an historic Native American voter registration and turnout effort in the 2016 elections. The effort drew the support of Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and National Congress of American Indians, prevailing in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Attorney General Eric Holder in June 2014 stated that the Montana native voting rights conditions are unacceptable and they are outrageous......As a nation, we cannot -- and we will not -- simply stand by as the voices of Native Americans are shut out of the democratic process. In May 2015, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch transmitted to Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner a request in statutory form that the outcome sought in the Wandering Medicine litigation should be enacted into federal law. This was soon followed by introduction of legislation by Senators Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp, Tom Udall, and Al Franken. The federal action elevated the significance of the Wandering Medicine litigation in the Native Americans empowerment and enfranchisement movement dating back to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.http://www.carlyleconsult.com/Building off the voter project, in the fall of 2016 Rodgers joined a national advocacy effort on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux, working to educate lawmakers and officials in Washington, D.C. and nationwide to the need to protect the water supply for the tribe and all downstream residents in the upper Missouri River region from the Dakota Access Pipeline.Rodgers is currently engaged in an effort to repatriate to his native land the remains and spirit of Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes in history known in his Sac and Fox Nation as Wa-tho-huck (the light after the lightning”). In what Rodgers describes as a sacred covenant with Bill Thorpe, the son of Wa-tho-huck, Rodgers is working to have Wa-tho-hucks remains moved from a tomb in Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, so his spirit can rest in peace in his ancestral home.

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