Wampum

There are two jurisdictions, Cherokee Nation and United States. In each there is a motion.

The motion heard by the District Court of the Cherokee Nation, filed by Nathan Young, seeks to reinstate the citizenship of plaintiff Raymond Nash and all similarly situated former Cherokee citizens referred to as Cherokee Freedmen. The motion asks the Court to issue a temporary order and preliminary injunction against the defendant, Lela Ummerteskee, in her capacity as Registrar of the Cherokee Nation, from enforcing the language on the Special Election ballot March 3rd.

There being no objection by the Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation, representing Ms. Ummerteskee in her official capacity to the motion, Judge John Cripps granted the motion.

The motion pending in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, inter alia, seeks to prevent the United States from recognizing any election held by the Cherokee Nation, and seeks to enjoin the Cheokee Nation from holding any election to which the Cherokee Freedman plaintiffs are denied the right to vote or the right of candidacy based soley on their status as Cherokee Freedmen.

The election in question is for Principal Chief, Deputy Chief and all 17 tribal councilor seats of the Cherokee Nation, the 15 seats which represent the nine districts of the Cherokee Nation, and the two newly created "at large" seats, representing citizens residing outside the Cherokee Nation. Of those 19 seats, one is central to the politics of exclusion -- that of Principal Chief.

Chad Smith is the incumbent, and he used the office of the executive to first get a majority of the tribal councilors to vote for a bill to strip the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship, and when the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the bill was unconstitutional, as the Cherokee Constitution, prior to March 3rd 2007, did not distinguish between classes designated by the Dawes Commissioners, to draft the exclusionary language and set the Constitutional ballot for 16 weeks before the general election.

Stacy Leeds is the challenger, and while a Justice on the Cherokee Supreme Court she wrote the opinion that the Tribal Council may not change the Constitution. As a Justice of the Cherokee Supreme Court, she could not run for elected office, nor could she change the timing or ordering of the special and general elections to her favor, and uphold the principal of the rule of law.

Elections in the Cherokee Nation are decided by a voting population of 35,000 registered voters out of an eligible population seven times larger. Chad Smith's special election on March 3rd had a turnout of 8,700 of those 35,000 (25%) with 7,000 (20%) voting for exclusion.

There are approximately 844 persons in this class who are registered voters, and another 134 persons in this class who's voter applications are pending.

It is reasonable to assume that the Cherokee Nation executive, mindful of the second motion in the Courts of the United States, seek to make that motion moot by making no objection to the first motion in the Courts of the Cherokee Nation.

The incumbent Principal Chief may be confident of a margin of more than a thousand votes in the general election, now set for June 23rd, 2007.

However, the question before the United States, both in its role set forth in Sec. 1 of Public Law 91-495, the Principal Chiefs Act of 1970:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, notwithstanding any other provisions of law, the principal chiefs of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Tribes of Oklahoma and the governor of the Chickasaw Tribe of Oklahoma shall be popularly selected by the respective tribes in accordance with procedures established by the officially recognized tribal spokesman and/or governing entity. Such established procedures shall be subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior.

(Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne is cited as "Federal Defendants" in the motion) and in its role as venue for motions based upon the 13th Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

(the Cherokee Nation and Chad Smith as an individual and in his capacity as Principal Chief are cited as "Cherokee Nation Defendants" in the motion) and in its role as a venue for motions based upon the Treaty of 1866, is not simply abstract ballot access and sufferage at a specific date, but voter intimidation and vote suppression by a political party enjoying the inherent advantages of incumbency, intended to produce a specific outcome favoring that party, and the scope of the 25 U.S.C. 476.

The set of remedies available to that Court are more fundamental than the nominal right to take and mark a ballot and have that ballot indifferently mixed with other ballots on June 23rd. The Court may find that the exclusion language of the March 3rd ballot is impermissable, that the Treaty of 1866 is the controlling law, not Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978).

But the law courts, the Cherokee Nation's or the United States', are not the only venue. Stacy Leeds is running a competitive campaign to defeat Chad Smith's effort to get a third term. Her campaign website is stacyleeds.com, and under the election law of the Cherokee Nation, her campaign may accept contributions from individuals -- enrolled citizens of the Cherokee Nation, citizens of other Indian Nations, unenrolled Indians, and non-Indians.

Diane Watson won't do it. She won't contribute a dime, though she has gotten the Congressional Black Caucus to promise to cut off federal funding to the Cherokee Nation.

ActBlue won't do it. The fiction is that the FEC and/or state election laws prevent them from collecting contributions for ... really just about anyone except 22 state and the federal markets.

The easily outraged race-means-black low-information bloggers and their commenters won't do it.

The easily outraged soverignty-needs-no-details low-information Indians and their allies won't do it either.

And after you contribute, I'll have phone lists to call and the grunt work all volunteers are tasked with, which you can take up, because nation is not race.