Wampum

Ben Campbell (Holland & Knight) has an "I'm impartial and Congress shouldn't" oped in The Hill. Chad'd timing is inadept as the resignation of assistant secretary Carl Artman is bigger news than anyone's oped.

A a work of political framing, the Campbell letter doesn't impress me. I can't see any of the staffers and members of the CBC reading "... individuals claiming to be descendants of slaves, known as Freedmen ..." and not having adverse responses to the entire text.

As a work of policy framing, the Campbell letter also fails to impress. If it is improper to make funding Chad's administration conditional, what is the Congressional Theory of the Federal-Tribal Relationship? That Congress can't decrease, maintain, or increase, appropriations except at the pleasure of each interested Tribal administration? That Congress can't manage its relationship with inferior domestic entities, like Oklahoma, through appropriations? If Oklahoma decides to abolish the speed limit on federal highways within Oklahoma, is the Congressional recourse limited to authorizing federal troops to enforce the speed limit on federal highways? Is the only constitutional recourse available to Congress for systematic voter suppression by an incumbent Tribal executive revisiting the Act which enabled elections?

Again, as a work of political framing, the Campbell letter is wicked beyond its sell-by date. Congress should defer to the Courts ... this Congress? The Pelosi/Reid Congress, should defer to a judiciary constrained by the precedents of the Rehnquist Court on a controversy that ultimately arises from voter disenfranchisement? That may have worked for the DeLay/Frist Congress, but that time has passed. This is Gore vs Bush for Indian Country, involving much more than just the CBC.

I keep wondering about how quickly assistant secretary Carl Artman signed off on Chad's "we're done with election oversight" letter.

Posted by EBW at 02:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 18, 2008

Dear Tribal Leader:

I am writing to you to give you an update on pending Indian housing legislation and also to seek your assistance in getting the legislation enacted into law this year.

Culminating years of hard work by Indian Tribes and their Tribally-Designated Housing Entities, legislation has been introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 2786) and U.S. Senate (S. 2062) to reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). I am happy to report to you that both of these bills have been approved by their respective committees of jurisdiction and, in fact, H.R. 2786 has already passed the House. The Senate legislation, S. 2062, will pass the Senate in the coming weeks. The NAIHC has prepared a summary of the major provisions of these bills that will significantly benefit Native communities nationwide. The summary is attached to this letter.

As you may know, a dispute has arisen within the Cherokee Nation involving the citizenship status of the Cherokee Freedmen within the Tribe, with the Freedmen having filed lawsuits pending in the courts of the Cherokee Nation as well as Federal Court. Unfortunately, this tribal dispute has spilled over into the U.S.
Congress and has the potential to prevent the passage of Indian housing and, indeed, other Indian legislative priorities.

On March 13, 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicating that the CBC will actively oppose legislation to reauthorize the NAHASDA unless the legislation includes "a provision that would prevent the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma from receiving
any benefits or funding under the bill until the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is in full compliance with the Treaty of 1866 and recognizes all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants as tribal citizens."

The NAIHC is cognizant of the delicacy of the issue to the CBC and is also well aware that Indian Tribes conscientiously guard their rights and prerogatives to determine their own citizenship criteria. The NAIHC is very concerned that the Freedmen matter might upend not only the pending NAHASDA reauthorization but the passage of all Indian tribal legislation in this and possibly future congresses. This would be an unfortunate outcome for the hundreds of thousands of American Indian and Alaska Native low income families that would be unwitting victims in a controversy involving one Indian Tribe.

In the absence of some creative, equitable resolution, the NAIHC fears that NAHASDA will fail to be reauthorized this year. We therefore seek your consideration of these matters and look forward to your involvement and support for passage of NAHASDA in 2008.

Sincerely,

Marty Shuravloff
Chairman

A controversy involving one Indian Tribe. So Chad is on his own. As the root cause was Ross' urge to suppress some specific votes, an urge that also moved Wilma Mankiller and now runs through Chad's veins like ... electoral firewater, the core of a "creative, equitable resolution" lies in the CNO ballot box.

Posted by EBW at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chad Smith flew in to LA today to meet with the local Cherokees. I just got the fall-out. Here's the money graph:

If the second-largest tribe in the country can be threatened with termination and bullied by Congress -- then no one is safe -- including you.

The expectation is that every Indian is under the impression that Oklahoma Statehood didn't happen and the Cherokee Nation wasn't dissolved in 1907, and the Principal Chiefs Act didn't happen and Richard Nixon didn't recreate the Cherokee Nation in 1970, and that every Indian Tribe shares a Treaty History with the United States just as fungible as the CNO's as a barrel of sweet light crude from any West Texas or Oklahoma well or pipeline.

As if that weren't funny enough, Chad manages to under-inform the people he lobbies for support. Here's one result, from someone I've known via the TribalLaw list for a decade:

Please note that Senator Barak Obama is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Someone needs to ask him how he can reconcile his support of the efforts of the Congressional Black Caucus and his rhetoric about supporting Tribal Governments.

Pushing the CNO off a cliff and restoring the Clinton Executive Order concerning consultation would be a wicked big win, for everyone except Chad's 4,210 voters. Making Chad King-for-Life and leaving everything as is would not be a wicked big win, except for Chad's 4,210 voters. And why the heck can't Chad and his sock puppets ask their own damn push-poll questions? Because the media might ask "Chad, was your election more, or less rigged, than any of the other five Jack Abramoff client/contributor tribal executives who used to control Indian Gaming operations and rubber stamp legislatures and who are now behind bars or lobbyists for non-Indian casino operators or writing their memoirs?"

Brad Carson handled the Obama vote for Oklahoma. Brad is employed by the CNO as the "CEO of Cherokee Nation Businesses". You'd think the contract would cover a phone call. You'd think that Chad might disclose that his guy ran Obama's campaign in OK, and he doesn't need help getting a memo thrown over the transom to the Obama campaign's policy staff.

Corrections from the original version.

Posted by EBW at 01:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chad's been working the United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights, here's a copy of his pleadings, and here's a link to the controlling text -- International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, lovingly known to its friends as the CERD.

During the lifetime of the triballaw mailing list, which I suppose really I should restart, now that I've got the resources to host it (and MB's going to law school), where Robert Williams (Getches, 3rd) and I parted company was on the question of whether FIL practitioners should (prospectively) have some exposure to International Treaty Law. It was a long and interesting thread on TL on the subject of our various critical frameworks for the hundred or so of us then contributing to TL.

So, if you had to pick your first case where an Indian claim was argued before any part of the UN system, would you pick the {Chad Smith / Wilma Mankiller / Ross Swimmer} cause of action (lack of electoral love for Ross by Cherokee Freemen, continued into the present), and the Congressional Black Caucus' mild and mindless counter cause of action (unwillingness to review the Oklahoma Acts, or the larger Rehnquist framed conception of race and personal jurisdiction as the definition of citizenship), or is there something slightly less non-serious somewhere hiding in plain sight?

Posted by EBW at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over on HuffPo Tim Giago writes:

I wonder if Ms. Watson has ever visited the Cherokee Nation? It is easy enough to ask Bert Hammond, her legislative aide, but the answer is yes. Congresswoman Watson held meet-and-greets in Tulsa with Cherokees, it was reported in the Muskogee Phoenix, which counts as "the home page" inside the District.

... the ballot in March of 2007, 76 percent of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation voted NO. Actually, the correct statement is that of the approximately 8,700 ballots cast in the March 2007 special referendum, by approximately 48,160 registered voters, or on a 18% turnout, approximately 6,600 ballots, or 13.7% of the registered vote, supported Chad Smith's disenfranchisement text. Substitute "14 percent" for "76 percent" and "currently registered voters" for "citizens" and Tim's text is correct. What 6.6k votes cast and 250k total citizens works out to is ... 2.6%.

I'm a Dawes Rolls Cherokee and I suppose I should get off the dime and enroll in the CNO and register to vote. However, I spent my Spring running the Leeds/Vann campaign website and while in Telequah shuttling the kids between the pool and the library while my spouse helped Stacy and Raymond in the campaign office. I'm OK with that.

And I have the CNO voter file. All 48,160 records. And I'm OK with that too.

Posted by EBW at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Leaving Monterey after visiting my mom and taking the kids swimming I spotted Tjatjakiymatchan (coyote in Rumsien Ohlone) working the field across from Olmstead Road and the airport. I pulled the truck over and we watched tatjakiymatchan hunt for mice and gophers.

Diane Watson blogs at HuffPo, she's written a half-dozen pieces since she started, and her latest is Jim Crow in Indian Country. It is an interesting piece.

Imagine yourself as an African American and resident of the State of Alabama in 1964, the year that President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the historic Civil Rights Act. And again imagine in 1964 that Alabama Governor George Wallace, in an act of defiance that not even he considered, introduced legislation to expel all African Americans from Alabama.

Now fast forward to the year 2007, over four decades later, when the citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma voted last March to expel their black citizens in a manner that equaled if not surpassed the most vitriolic attacks against African Americans in the once segregated South.

Many Americans do not realize that some Native American tribes owned slaves of African descent. As an independently recognized nation in the 19th Century, the Cherokee Nation embraced and promoted African slavery, a position it maintained after removal to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the 1830s.

During the Civil War, the Cherokee Nation fought on the side of the Confederacy in order to preserve its southern slaveholding tradition of trafficking in the ownership and sale of black slaves. In fact, Stand Waite, the last Confederate General to surrender to the Union Army, was Cherokee.

The Cherokee Nation emancipated all its slaves in 1863. In 1866, the Cherokee Nation signed a new treaty with the United States Government that formally ended the practice of slavery and made the former slaves citizens of the Cherokee Nation. The Treaty of 1866 resulted in an amendment to the Cherokee constitution that same year, which read in part: "All native born Cherokees, all Indians, and whites legally members of the nation by adoption, and all freedmen (the term used for freed slaves of African descendants of the Cherokee Nation) shall be taken and deemed to be citizens of the Cherokee Nation."

Toward the end of the 19th Century, a distinction, a product of the new Jim Crow South and later codified in practice by the U.S. Government, had emerged between black freedmen Cherokees and those who were categorized as Cherokee by blood. The distinction is used today by the current Cherokee leadership that claims it is primarily concerned about preserving the Cherokee Nation's heritage for those who can prove that they have Cherokee blood lineage.

But such claims, as Professor Robert Warrior of the University of Oklahoma elegantly makes the case, "fail to rise to the level of those earlier Cherokees who understood that the tragic absurdity of reconciling a nation to its history of slavery requires wisdom and compassion, not insulting and ridiculous appeals to faulty membership requirements and the poses of victim-hood."

Today, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma receives roughly $300 million a year in federal taxpayer dollars. The Cherokee Nation is also the beneficiary of a federal gaming franchise that is estimated to yield it another $300 million yearly. This is not an insignificant amount of money.

If the Cherokee Nation is allowed to pursue its current policy of expelling black descendants of the Cherokee Nation, black descendants obviously will not be able to receive federal assistance from the Cherokee Nation in the form of health, education, and housing assistance.

I do not believe that your or my taxpayer dollars should go to any group that practices discrimination. First and foremost, it is against the law. That is why I have introduced legislation, H.R. 2824, that cuts off all U.S. government relations with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma until it agrees to accept the black descendants of the Cherokees as full participating citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

I respect the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma as a sovereign entity. But no sovereign nation, particularly one within the confines of the United States, should be given a free pass to exercise its sovereign rights to expel its citizens on the basis of ethnicity, class, or race. And when a nation violates its treaty obligations with the United States, Congress is obliged to take action.

Is she generalizing from the CNO to all tribes, including some California Tribes which have disenfranchised as much as a third of their citizens? Does she mean to take on the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians? The Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island? Any or all of the tribes between LA and LI? What are the rights of persons disenfranchised from Indian Nations? Does Santa Clara mean there is no procedural minimum for Tribal Governments contemplating or conducting mass disenfranchisements? Are the obligations of the Treaty of 1866 controlling or is that treaty to be discarded for some work of historical fiction from the last, or the next Rehnquist, controlling?

Is she generalizing from access to the ballot and the per-capita payments, the political enfranchise to access to the courts, the civil franchise? Does she mean to end the legal incompetency of Tribal Courts to hear claims against non-citizens, an incompetency based without nuance on "ethnicity, class, or race", for felony cases in the Major Crimes Act 1885, and reaffirmed in PL 280, and for civil and non-felony cases in Oliphant, reaffirmed in Laura and Duro right up to the present moment?

It is hard to imagine a single Indian standing behind, or in front, of Chad Smith, if those issues are being considered seriously by Rep. Watson.

By the bye, Robert Allen Warrior is worth reading for other reasons in addition to his recent contribution on this particular political controversy. Tribal Secrets is wicked good, good enough for a government reader, and far too good for Stanford.

Posted by EBW at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From Scott Richard Lyons' (Leech Lake Ojibwe/Mdewakanton Dakota) editorial:

Acting and thinking as a nation means more than respecting one's treaties; it also means using national terminology and conceptual frameworks to characterize what is going on. For instance, it would be more appropriate to use the word ''denaturalization'' instead of ''disenrollment'' to accurately describe what is happening to the freedmen, who, after all, have long been citizens of the Cherokee Nation regardless of blood.

Denaturalization is legally losing your citizenship, and the idea didn't exist until World War I when France, Belgium, Italy and other European nations passed laws revoking the citizenships of ''enemies of the state.'' Those laws targeted individuals, but it wasn't long before ethnic groups were denaturalized, too. The Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped citizenship from non-''Aryans'' using a system that eerily resembles today's Indian blood quantum formulas. Four German grandparents made one a German, three or four Jewish grandparents made another a Jew, while one or two Jewish grandparents made one a ''mischling'' or mixed-blood. We all know how that social experiment ended.

From its inception, denaturalization has been considered a human rights issue of major importance because the global community generally loathes seeing citizenship revoked. Citizenships are considered permanent in ways that ''memberships'' are not. When a country club grants memberships to whites only, that's rightly decried as racism but not considered to be a national emergency. When a nation does the same thing to its existing citizens, it raises concerns about ethnic cleansing, refugees and other national matters.

Ethnic cleansing is the deportation of an ethnic population from a national territory, and the last time it happened at the Cherokee Nation it was called ''removal.'' If the freedmen were purged today, they wouldn't become ''non-Indians.'' All propaganda aside, Indian identity is not really in question here. It's citizenship. The freedmen would become refugees.

(HT Indianz.com)

Posted by MB Williams at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Diane Watson (CA-33) and John Conyers (MI-14) have organized a two-hour long panel in the middle of the CBC's Annual Legislative Conference this Friday. The panelists are interesting, Jon Velie, who represents the Cherokee Freedmen, Eli Grayson, Cherokee Freedmen Advocate, Marilyn Vann, Descendants of the Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes, Angela Walton Raji, Historian & Genealogist, Joe Byrd, former Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Hilary Shelton, NAACP, Washington Bureau and Rusty Brown, Attorney, Member of Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma. The panel's moderator is Ron Daniels.

My mom read bits of the AP piece over the phone to me until I recognized the story ... the writer didn't go back to the absentee ballot to look at either the numbers, or the process to see how effective Smith was outside of the core districts.

Venue: Washington, D.C. Convention Center, from 11 AM to 1 PM, in Room 209-C. I'm particularly interested in Joe Byrd's comments, both on the policy, and the electoral politics.

Mom surprised me yesterday. I recall a Miwok "auntie" making acorn bread, but I'd forgotten that Mom made acorn bread too, so now I have her experience at hand ... in theory.

Posted by EBW at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

H.R.2786 "To reauthorize the programs for housing assistance for Native Americans" went to Yeas and Nays in the House on the 6th. The results were 333 - 75 (Roll no. 859). Where the bite on Chad Smith's quixotic trajectory as Indian Country's Last Yellow Leg Standing at the Battle of the Grafty Grass is in Section 2 -- Block Grants.

`(l) Limitation on Use for Cherokee Nation-

`(1) IN GERNAL- No funds authorized under this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, or appropriated pursuant to an authorization under this Act or such amendments, shall be expended for the benefit of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma until the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is in full compliance with the Treaty of 1866 and fully recognizes all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants as citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

`(2) CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS- The Congress hereby finds that--

`(A) the Cherokee Freedmen have appealed the March 3, 2007, vote of the Cherokee Nation to rescind their tribal membership and it is currently in litigation in tribal courts; and

`(B) on May 14, 2007, Cherokee Nation District Court Judge John Cripps issued a temporary injunction requiring reinstatement of citizenship for the Cherokee Freedmen, pending appeal of the constitutionality of the March 3, 2007, tribal election rescinding membership.

`(3) EFFECTIVE DATE- Paragraph (1) shall not have any effect--

`(A) during the period that the temporary injunction issued on May 14, 2007, and referred to in paragraph (2)(B) remains in effect; and

`(B) if the Cherokee Freedmen prevail upon final judgment in the pending appeal referred to in paragraph (2)(B) regarding rescinding membership or a settlement agreement regarding such appeal is entered into, at any time after entrance of such judgment or such settlement agreement.'.

Western Iowa's gift to the KKK, Tandcredo look-alike, Steve King (IA-05) added this historical first to Indian Country:

SEC. 10. LIMITATION ON USE OF FUNDS.

No amounts made available pursuant to any authorization of appropriations under this Act, or under the amendments made by this Act, may be used to employ workers described in section 274A(h)(3)) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(3)).

Posted by EBW at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mel Watt (NC-12) offered an amendment to H.R. 3002 that restricts the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma) from access to funds authorized by H.R. 3002 until such time that the Secretary of Interior certifies to Congress that the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma) is in full compliance with the Treaty of 1866 and recognizes without reservation all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants as citizens of the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma).

House Committee on Financial Service's (voice vote of the full committee) voted in favor of the Watt amendment. The full text of H.R. 3002, "Native American Economic Development and Infrastructure for Housing Act of 2007", is available at thomas.loc.gov.

Congressional Black Caucus 1, Chad Smith and his coterie 0, and the co-sponsor count on Diane Watson's bill has gone up from 11 to 17, with endorsements by the NAACP and the National Congress of Black Women.

Posted by EBW at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BIA Regional Director Jeanette Hanna wrote to Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith that the Region "... has recommended approval of the vote on removal of Secretarial oversight."

For those not watching closely, this means Regional Director Hanna does not see any Federal issue in an election for Principal Chief, under the Principal Chiefs Act of 1970, which did not contain a substantive issue until after the absentee ballots had been sent via US Mail to a substantial number of actual voters (more than one third of the actual votes cast were absentee), necessitating a second ballot precipitously close to the date of the election, in the larger context of a substantial number of voters having been unconstitutionally (Cherokee Constitutions of 1839 and 1975), and illegally (Principal Chiefs Act of 1970) having been disenfranchised, then reenfranchised, and some number of them only allowed to vote by polling-place challange and disenfranchised in fact (mandatory absentee ballot requirements).

This election is the "hanging chad" of Federal/RNC/Abramoff/gaming elections in Indian Country, and each time the Administration fails to exercise the oversight authority, Congressional action on the RNC/Abramoff/gaming corruption becomes less and less avoidable.

Chad Smith may think he's going to go down in Indian History as the Chief who ended Plenary Powers, but I don't know of anyone who really shares his vision and is willing to put their tribal interests (other than Chad's faction on the CNO Tribal Council) in front of Congress.

The Congressional Black Caucus is not as good as many would like it to be, but its likely to be good enough to hang Chad.

Posted by EBW at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

via the Native American Times

As my car left the red clay hills which make up the Mississippi Choctaw reservation this past Saturday, a collective sigh of aiali (justice) and relief overtook me. It was the same feeling that was plainly visible in the expressions of many of the Mississippi Choctaw people who I had spent the last two days with. The reign of Phillip Martin and his administration composed of numerous non-Indians had ended. In its place was change and renewal. A break from the lobbyists in Washington D.C. was talked about. More jobs for Choctaw community members were expected.

To understand the effect one individual could play on the larger Choctaw Nation, most people have only to think about where the Choctaw Nation extends. The majority one talks with may remark about the Choctaw Nation being located solely in Oklahoma, while some others offer up Oklahoma and Mississippi. Very few talk of the communities outside of these areas. Of course, the communities outside of these areas don't currently own and operate gaming facilities, the seeming prerequisite for publicity these days in Indian Country.

So the question becomes who is the Choctaw Nation? The Choctaw Nation is comprised of those descendants of the Choctaw people who were dispersed following the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and some previous migrations. These current communities cover 6 states and are comprised of eleven bands with varying degrees of interconnectedness.

The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians are located in southwestern Alabama near the Mississippi state line. This reservation based community of approximately 3,600 tribal citizens has remained on lands held by their ancestors since the Choctaw treaties extending from 1803 to 1830. The main reservation lands are surrounded by ten smaller communities which compromise the homes of 93% of the tribal population. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are located in 8 communities and one additional uninhabited community (Ocean Springs) spread out across the state of Mississippi. These communities including Bok Chito, Standing Pine, Conehetta, Crystal Ridge, Bok Homa, Red Water, Pearl River and Tucker are home to over 9,000 Mississippi Choctaw Citizens. The West Tennessee Choctaw live on 172 acres of reservation land in Eastern Tennessee and are enrolled citizens of the Mississippi Choctaw. This community formed in the middle part of last century as Choctaw families moved to the area in search of employment. The Bayou Lacombe Choctaw are located not far from the Mississippi State line near Lacombe, Louisiana. This particular group was heavily studied by anthropologist David Bushnell in 1910 and again by other academics in 1953. A group of approximately 100-300 tightly knit descendants of these Choctaws studied still remains in the marginal and previously isolated lands of this Southeastern Louisiana community. South of this community lies a Choctaw related community which was devastated by the recent Hurricanes. The United Houma Nation with a population of 17,000, has continued their lives in the southern bayous of Louisiana for many generations. To the northwest, the town of Clifton, Louisiana is home to approximately 500 Choctaw Indians who are known for their basket making skills. A little further north, the Jena Band of Choctaw Indiansmake their home near Trout, Louisiana. Their population stands at around 250. On the far western side of Louisiana, near the town of Zwolle, is the Choctaw-Apache of Ebarb community. These people of mixed Choctaw, Apache and Spanish descent number nearly 2,000. Occupying 10 counties in the Southeastern Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma with a population approaching 200,000 is by far the largest contingent of Choctaw in the United States. Within their midst are also communities of Choctaw Freedmen who stood side by side with one another throughout the tribe's history. In California, due to relocation programs aimed at Choctaws in Oklahoma, the Okla Chahta Clan of California was formed to bring together these families which number over 20,000 individuals. Other related communities to the Choctaw include the Coushatta of Louisiana, Alabama-Coushatta of Texas and Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

As one can see, the Choctaw Nation, is much more diverse than what many imagine. And this diversity has caused decades of cultural sharing as well as infighting. Battles over issues of blood quantum, federal recognition, cultural & language retention, historical alliances and of course gaming, have caused lines of division not unlike those faced by communities across Indian Country. The architect of many of these divisions, Mississippi Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin watched his meteoric rise and pronouncement as an economic powerhouse crumble in recent days due to his close association with non-Indian lobbyists, politicians and anthropologists who reeked havoc on neighboring Choctaw communities by overturning federal recognition petitions and postponing land in to trust applications.

So last Friday, on the day he conceded victory to his challenger Beasley Denson, we watched the opening rounds of the annual stickball tournament across the street from the tribal complex and office where he led his tribe for 7 terms. While standing there, numerous community members approached me with outstretched hands and words of greetings and thanks in our Choctaw language. Many people in the Mississippi Choctaw & MOWA Choctaw communities, as well as numerous Indian people from various tribes across the nation, had spent a great deal of time over the past few years, advocating for the rights of the Mississippi Choctaw people and exposing the fraud committed against the MOWA Choctaw community 120 miles to the southeast who were thought to be possible competition in the gaming industry. For years, the same tactics were played against the now federally recognized Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Twelve years after their federal recognition, they are just now being able to take land into trust for the purposes of economically and socially growing their community.

While Jack Abramoff, J. Steven Griles and a host of others associated with Chief Phillip Martin's administration are now serving jail terms or awaiting trial, Mr. Martin has been able to use the tribe's federal immunities to ward off investigations into his role in the matter. Of course, little of this matters now as power has been rested from his hands.

And so the stickball games ended and we headed back to our hotel room for the night in preparation for day two of the Choctaw Spirit Language & Culture Seminar, which we had been invited to speak at. The theme of the conference discussed the unification of Choctaw people. As I sat down with one of the Mississippi Choctaw's current council members and we discussed a new future for our two communities, the theme seemed only too fitting.

You see, sometimes the unification power of one man's leadership is only found ... through his absence. Chata hapia hoke.

Cedric Sunray serves as Advisor to the Chief of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

We've no regrets at having worked hard to replace Chad Smith and his allies in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma election last month.

Posted by EBW at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reform challenger Beasley Denson out-polled seven-term incumbent Phillip Martin by 211 votes. The results will be certified Friday. Earlier coverage is here and here.

This leaves only Chad Smith, the incumbent executive of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, as the last remaining of an original six Jack Abramoff client/contributor tribal executives who still control Indian Gaming operations and rubber stamp legislatures.

Compare the reported process and transparency of the Mississippi Choctaw absentee ballot (below) with the slight-of-hand announcement that Chad Smith got an overwhelming inland absentee vote, and the news that some inland (Vian) Cherokee Freedmen voters who did not request absentee ballots were sent ballots late, and were turned away at the polls when they attempted to vote.

More than 100 people packed into the Tribal Council Hall as committee members convened to count the absentee ballots and recount the results from Tuesday's poll voting.

The process was slow, as ballots and affidavits were sorted, reviewed, checked for matching signatures and counted.

"We don't want any injustice. Beasley took it fair and square and that's what we're here to see," Denson supporter Nolan Mitch, 33, said as the crowd gathered.

The crowd applauded when Denson walked into the standing-room-only tribal hall.

Denson, 57, quit his job as a car salesman to take on what is likely the most intense political fight the reservation has ever seen.

Denson supporters wanted to ensure that all absentee ballots came with a request letter, indicating the voter had requested a ballot for Tuesday's runoff.

But when the counting began, a dispute broke out over whether committee chairwoman Nellie Steve should have sent absentee ballots to voters who requested them for the June 12 election but not for Tuesday's runoff.

It is worth noting that neither Congresswoman Diane Watson nor the National Congress of American Indians gave active support to Phillip Martin in the Mississippi Choctaw election last month, or this week's run-off.

Posted by EBW at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The side of the corner store in Vian features an iconic "indian" wearing a plains-style eagle feather bonnet. Vian is about an hour's drive south of Tahlequah, in Sequoah County, which Stacy Leeds took 689 to Chad Smith's 498, according to the Cherokee Nation Election Commission, in non-absentee votes.

Monica Keen, staff writer at the Sequoyah Country Times, writes in today's edition that Thomas Drew, a longtime Vian resident, church pastor and Cherokee Freedman went to the polls on June 23rd -- and was turned away, as were others in his family. They hadn't requested absentee ballots, but the Cherokee Nation Election Commission sent them absentee ballots anyway. Because the Drews had not requested the ballots, they tried to vote in Vian, and were not allowed to vote.

It is an interesting story, the link is here, and a larger class of Cherokee Nation citizens may be affected than just one extended family of Cherokee Freedmen in Vian.

Recall, the election was within recount distance until the absentee ballots were reported, and Smith got 3492 of them, to Leeds' 1544.

Posted by EBW at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Heading out to the Jemez Mountains, to get away from the computers and out into the sunshine. Feel free to comment and offer suggestions as to how you think the Cherokee should proceed. We'll be back this evening.

Posted by MB Williams at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The absentee ballots moved Smith's margin from 400 to nearly 2,000 -- out of recount range.

Leeds and Vann carried Districts 1 and 2, and the in-person Absentee ballots.

Smith and Grayson carried Districts 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9. The votes were close in Districts 3 and 6.

District 5 is close enough to recount.

Districts 4, 7 and 8 have results that are significantly at variance with all the other Districts, though they are consistent with the Absentee (not in-person) ballots, with a 2 to 1 advantage for Smith.

In Districts 1, 2 and 4, Grayson significantly outpolled Smith.

There appears to be a ballot design problem, in the Grayson and Vann portion of the ballot, but its effect is not consistent in all Districts. In particular, in three out of the four ballot sets where Smith obtained landslide margins (Districts 7, 8 and the Absentee (not in-person)), the effect is absent, and the Smith and Grayson votes differ by only 2, 11, and 31 votes, resp.

Here's an interesting dilemma. According to the Cherokee election results site

So what can account for the difference? Did absentee voters care so little about the resolution removing federal oversight? Did they get the second absentee ballots, the one with the resolution too late, or not at all? Was there some other explanation?

Posted by EBW at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Polls closed 90 minutes ago.

Incumbant Chad Smith -- 4,027 (52.5%)

Challenger Stacy Leeds -- 3,645 (47.5%) [7,672 total]

48,160 citizens of the Cherokee Nation are registered to vote. This includes the 18,000 "at-large" voters.

6,233 requested absentee ballots, and almost 800 of these voted "absentee-in-person", leaving 5,400 yet to be counted.

... out of 250,000 enrolled citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

In the 1st District Stacy is ahead, and Bill John Baker (reform slate), the target of the "Friend of the Freedman" hit piece is at 1,236, and Barbara Dawes Martins (Team Cherokee) is at 710.

Something peculiar is the disparity between the Deputy Chief vote and the Principal Chief vote.

Updates.

Incumbant Joe Grayson -- 4,210

Challenger Raymond Vann -- 3,538 [7,748 total]

The in-person absentees are peculiar, 80 ballots went for Joe, but not Chad, and half of those voted for Stacy. In several districts the ballots are going Leeds Grayson, which suggests a ballot design problem.

Absentees just posted.
Smith 3492
Leeds 1544

Absentees have always be suspected to be fixed, for the last 4 elections. No surprise here.

I told Eric that the final would be 60% Smith, 40% Leeds. Smith had to make sure with the absentees that it was more than the margin of error.

Nearly 5000 absentees voted, 2/3rd of the number of in-district voters. Many of these people, like one of our commenters in an earlier thread, have CDIBs of 1/256th. That's a Cherokee ancestor eight generations back, or between 200 - 250 years. These are the people who decided that Chad Smith was correct to disenfranchise the Cherokee Freedman, all of whom have ancestors on the Dawes Rolls (circa 1900.) It's important to remember that many of the white Cherokees (1/16 - 1/64th) who were listed on the Dawed Rolls did so in order to get the land allotment, which many sold off as soon as it was allowed - one reason there are so many of them now in California.

In total, less than 13,000 Cherokees voted, out of a population of over 250,000. The system is broken and no election it seems can fix it.

Think good thoughts for Stacy. She deserves them. Personally, I think should run for Dan Boren's seat, and I'd work my butt off for her if she ever chose to do so.

Posted by EBW at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

The pact between Chad Smith and Diane Watson is a much smaller affair than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but it leaves the citizens of the Cherokee Nation with two profoundly bad choices.

The pact worked out by Smith and Watson delayed full disclosure of Watson's bill until only one news cycle remained before the polls opened in the nine Cherokee districts of North Eastern Oklahoma.

Diane Watson did not want to disclose that Chad Smith was offering (a) Cherokee trust land, (b) a portion of the Arkansas riverbed settlement, and (c) creation of a fourth Federally Recognized Cherokee political entity, and (d) one of the five existing Cherokee Nation casino operations. Offers he is legally incapable of making, on behalf of the Cheorkee Nation (a & b), or the United States (c & d).

As early as March 13th Watson was organizing the Congressional Black Caucus to exercise Plenary Powers to prevent Smith's faction from violating the civil rights (Cherokee Nation law), of at least two thousand citizens of the Cherokee Nation and United States. As early as June 7th we contacted Diane Watson's office and were informed that her bill would be dropped "as early as next week" -- a week that ended June 15th, no fewer than seven complete news cycles before the polls opened, and the basic contours of the bill itself. As early as June 9th, the Vann plaintiffs filings contained language which contains the core of the Watson bill -- termination of government-to-government status, federal funding, and authority to conduct gaming under the IGRA, a full two weeks of news cycles before the polls opened.

There is only one reason why Diane Watson would want to suppress news in the last weeks of an election, whether the news was dropping the proposed bill into the "hopper" that sits on the House, or more electrifying than that, Chad Smith's offer to saw off bits of the Cherokee Nation, either to buy time, or simply to buy off, a case he can't win, which she knew, again, seven full news cycles before the polls opened in the nine districts of the Cherokee Nation. Congresswoman Watson needs an enemy more than she needs the Cherokee Nation electorate to make a change in the Tribal Council and Tribal Executives. Diane hearts Chad. Hers is fundamentally a phoney war, contrived, like the hunt for WMDs in Iraq after 2001, serving some completely different purpose altogether.

Edward Rydz-Smigly described the choices facing Poland in 1939. "With the Germans we run the risk of losing our liberty. With the Russians we will lose our soul". Cherokees, and Indian Country more generally, have two poor choices: side with Diane Watson or side with Chad Smith.

There is an alternative.

The Department of the Interior and the energy exploitation industry does not want a complete accounting of what is owed to the Cobell v Kempthorne plaintiffs in the Individual Indian Trust case. Secretaries Babbit, Norton and now Kempthorne have proposed pennies on the dollar -- their current proposal is $7 bn to fund disolution of the Individual Indian Trust, with no monies at all going to the individual Indian trustees, for a breach of fiduciary trust estimated in excess of $200 bn, according to the latest numbers from Attorney General Alberto Gonzolas, or 3.5¢s on the dollar.

Eloise Cobell and her team want the Individual Indian Trust Fund to be placed in receivership, with a court appointed receiver, who will open the books on what the energy exploitation industry paid, and as importantly, failed to pay, the Minerals and Mining Services of the Department of the Interior. The core legal problem -- knowning what the commercial terms were, from 1880's to the present -- will be discovered rather than invented.

In the present we have a legal mess consisting of two jurisdictions, Cherokee Nation and United States, with one, if not both, overturning a central act of the other in the past five years. We can't know the eventual D.C. Circuit Court's ruling on the issues, nor can we know if the D.C. Circuit will consider the the full scope of substantive law issues present in this tangle, and it is not impossible that if the case goes to the Supreme Court, the Roberts Court will fabricate an imaginary pan-Indian "fact pattern", as the Rehnquist Court did in Oliphant, which in turn created the necessity for repeated Congressional action to determin what personal jurisdiction tribal governments have over non-member Indians, and non-Indians, for misconduct within the tribe's territorial jurisdiction.

We don't actually know the law -- that is, there is no consensus among the candidates for office on June 23rd, 2007, as to what the controlling law, American or Cherokee Nation, is on this day. That is a problem for the citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

We don't actually know the law and we don't want the law to be invented. To have a rule of law we must first find the law, and that cannot be the product of "precident" that draws incoherently upon bits and pieces selected from two, or three, or even four or more, distinct theories of what the controlling law of the Cherokee Nation is on June 23rd, 2007.

The core political problem -- knowning what the law is, from the Constitution of 1839 to the Curtis Act to the Principal Chiefs Act to the present -- must be discovered, not invented. That is a problem for the members of the Federal Legislature.

The alternative we have is to draft a bill establishing a receivership for the Cherokee Nation, and to find a sponsor and co-sponsors for that bill, and to make the case in the Congress of the United States that there are better choices, wiser choices, than an up-or-down vote on Termination, choices that remove corrupt administrations from the control of the ballot box, and make the government-to-government relationship healthier for both governments, and the people each exists to serve.

We can't do away with Plenary Powers, as popular as that desire is, so we must find a way to work with Congress so that its Plenary Powers do the least harm, and the greatest good, while properly punishing the stingy.

Posted by EBW at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Title: To sever United States' government relations with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma until such time as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma restores full tribal citizenship to the Cherokee Freedmen disenfranchised in the March 3, 2007, Cherokee Nation vote and fulfills all its treaty obligations with the Government of the United States, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] (introduced 6/21/2007) Cosponsors (11)
Latest Major Action: 6/21/2007 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

The following are now listed as co-sponsors to Diane Watson's bill:

Rep Butterfield, G. K. [NC-1] - 6/21/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] - 6/21/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 6/21/2007
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] - 6/21/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 6/21/2007
Rep Faleomavaega, Eni F.H. [AS] - 6/21/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 6/21/2007
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] - 6/21/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 6/21/2007
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] - 6/21/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 6/21/2007

Thomas.loc.gov link

Posted by EBW at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The polling places opened this morning and the Saturday ballot will close this evening, barring surprises.

We support Stacy Leeds and Raymond Vann and the reform slate -- District 1 Baker and Walkingstick, District 2 Leach and Crittenden, District 3 Yargee and Thornton, District 4 Igert (only), District 5 O'Leary and Shotpouch, District 6 None, District 7 Boen (alone), District 8 Herman and Earley, District 9 Hoskin (alone), and for the two at-large seats created in the 2003 election, which the BIA has correctly declined to approve due to the unlawful exclusion of a portion of the electorate, Keen and Nordwall.

Posted by EBW at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A bill was introduced in Congress today to pull our federal funds, close our casinos, and terminate our federal recognition. It's truly a sad day for the Cherokee Nation. The rash decisions and inconsistent legal arguments of our current administration bring us to this point.

Will the bill pass? Doubtful.

Does the introduction of the bill matter? Without a doubt.

In addition to this proposed legislation, a federal court case is pending and there is on-going review by the BIA regarding the legality of the March 3rd Special Election. Now all three branches of the United States government are fully engaged in the fall out of our decision to expel a class of tribal citizens.

Why is this happening? The Cherokee people, although certainly possessing the right to redefine citizenship, were not told the whole story by the current administration. The Cherokee people were not fully advised of the legal and political consequences of the special election. Instead, the decision was rushed and public debate and deliberations were suppressed.

Why was the federal bill not introduced earlier? Principal Chief Chad Smith has been in negotiations to delay the introduction of this bill so that it would not be introduced the week before the election. He didn't want to allow the Cherokee people the opportunity to know the seriousness of our present situation. Instead, he attempted to negotiate some undisclosed deal to keep this out of the media.

My concern is two fold: (1) The Principal Chief does not have the authority to strike a secret "deal" with the Freedmen without discussing it with the Tribal Council; and (2) exactly what were the details of Chief Smith's "offer" to the Freedmen?

The introduction of the bill was delayed for a week based on the Principal Chief's promises. What exactly did he promise? How much would his promise cost the Cherokee people?

I will alway support the Cherokee people's right to make decisions, good or bad. What must end, if we are to be a healthy nation, are the half-truths and secret dealings of our present leadership.

A positive change is just around the corner . . . . vote Saturday June 23rd.

StacyLeeds.com

Posted by MB Williams at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Usually I don't include entire articles due to copyright infringement, but this time, the article in its entirety is necessary to prove the point.

Donna Hales, of the Muskogee Phoenix, on the Chad Smith/Freedmen negotiations:

Negotiation over freedmen faces deadline
By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer

Legislation will be filed to sever relations between the federal government and the Cherokee Nation if an agreement is not reached by 2 p.m. today to restore rights to Cherokee freedmen.

Freedmen, black descendants of Cherokees, were voted out of the tribe on March 3 and temporarily restored to citizenship in May 2007.

U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., will file a bill today that proposes cutting off tribal funding from several federal agencies and suspending the Cherokee’s gaming authority until the Cherokees restore full rights to the freedmen and fulfill all Cherokee Nation treaty obligations.

"She will drop (introduce) it today," Watson's spokesman, Bert Hammons, told the Phoenix.

Negotiators for the Cherokee Nation are representatives of Principal Chief Chad Smith, said Wayne Thompson, a former lobbyist who works as a consultant and as an advocate. He is a negotiator for the freedmen.

Dr. Ron Daniels, national civil rights leader associated with the freedmen, said negotiators continue to work toward an acceptable agreement to all parties.

Thompson denied rumors on various Web sites that negotiations had included talk of the freedmen receiving land within the Cherokee Nation, receiving part of the Cherokee's Arkansas riverbed settlement, help in getting a casino and a promise not to protest the freedmen receiving federal recognition on their own.

Smith emphatically denied all such offers.

"We would never support creating a federal band," Smith said.

The proposed legislation calls not only for suspension of the right to conduct gaming operations but includes not being able to administer any funds from such gaming until the Cherokee Nation is in compliance with all treaty and other obligations with the United States.

The proposed legislation, if passed, could affect other tribes. No later than six months after the date of enactment, a public report to Congress on the status of freedmen in the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations of Oklahoma would have to be given from the secretary of the Interior.

So here is my critique.

A central part of the "rumors on web sites" was that Ms. Watson agreed to a seven-day delay, reversing her earlier position, as expressed to me by her legislative aide on June 7th, 2003, that she wanted to get the legislation on the floor of the House well in advance of the June 23rd election, so it could have maximum effect on convincing Cherokee voters that Congress was serious in flexing its plenary powers. During my first conversation yesterday with the same aide (the one also mentioned by Hale in the article), he informed me of the seven day delay, and how it would "run out tomorrow" (now being today.) He later emailed me, asking me to call him. Clearly, Ms. Watson's office was getting some blowback, as he informed me that the bill would definitely be dropped Thursday. There is no mention in the article of Ms. Watson's agreement to delay submitting the bill until, at the earliest, two days before the election. In fact, there's no mention of the June 23rd election in the article. Clearly, this all happened in a vaccuum.

Ms. Hale succeeded in getting all parties involved in "negotiations" to emphatically deny what they weren't negotiating over, such as land, separate federal recognition and gaming, but never pinned down just exactly was then on the table. If it was permenant reinstatement of Freedmen citizenship in the Nation, was Smith asserting he could unilaterally, or even with the Council's rubber stamp, overturn the March 3rd election?

Overall, pretty poor reporting. I understand it was probably rushed, but still.

Update: I've sent these questions to Ms. Hale. Hopefully she'll clarify.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A rumor started gaining steam yesterday over on John and David Cornsilk's Cherokee board. Apparently, Chad Smith approached the lawyers for the Freedmen with a deal: Ask Congresswoman Watson to hold off on introducing her anti-Cherokee bill, and he would work to get the Freedmen separate "federal recognition" and gaming operations. Well, the Freedmen bit, and Watson put the bill back in her pocket for seven days.

Of course, those seven days aren't up until tomorrow, two days before the election, when it will be too late to have an impact on the outcome of the Cherokee election.

I can't decide with whom I disappointed most - the Freedmen for falling for an obvious "October Surprise" by Smith, or Congresswoman Watson, for allowing this clear subversion of civil rights and the federal recognition process. What do they all think, anyway? That the Federal Recognition Fairy just appears and confers Federal Recognition on any random entity claiming tribal status?

I warned Stacy Leeds that Chad Smith would come after her in the last week of the election, slime her when it's too late to really mount an effective defense. Clearly, he couldn't dig up any dirt, as, frankly, she's clean as a whistle. So he went with this.

Text of the Watson Bill. [108 downloads in the first 24 hours. ebw]

Update: The bill will be dropped into the hopper tomorrow and acquire its HR number. The legislative aide with whom I spoke doesn't seem to think it's at all a big deal. I hope he's right, but I suspect he's not.

Posted by MB Williams at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBacks (0)

Marcy Wheeler was kind enough to forward to me the latest DoJ Griles docs, which I'd missed with all of the past weeks excitement/travel. In it, I found this doosy:

Thereafter, in an e-mail dated September 24, 2002, Abramoff made the following request of defendant Griles through Federici:

The Chief of the Cherokees is meeting with Steve Griles tomorrow afternoon. This is the one I have talked to about representation and giving to CREA. If Steve could mention both your name and mine to him it would be a big help. He can just say "we have mutual friends" or something if that is possible. It would really help. Thanks so much!!!

Federici's response: "I will remind him about that and I'm sure he'd love to mention your help. I will let you know when we talk." Defendant' Griles' DOl calendar documents his September 25, 2002 meeting with the Chief of the Cherokee Tribe of Oklahoma.

This document had been previously released, HOWEVER, the identity of the client, Chad Smith, Prinicipal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, was not released. Smith has argued all along that he had nothing to do with Abramoff personally, that it was all "corporate" Cherokee Nation Enterprises who met and worked with Team Abramoff.

Posted by MB Williams at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

With weeks of preparation for a debate between the challengers for Principal and Deputy Chief, Stacy Leeds and Raymond Vann and the incumbents Chad Smith and Joe Grayson, the Cherokee Phoenix, a media outlet controlled by the incumbents, botched the production of the streaming video and audio feeds.

We understand that Stacy Leeds did much much better than Chad Smith, and the utility of losing 18 minutes of the debate to the loser is wicked obvious. This photo ran in the Muskgee Phoenix, which chose to use a moment when the incumbent is speaking, and the challenger is looking down, and from an angle that placed the incumbent closer to the viewer than the challenger, which are choices the MP didn't have to make, but made anyway.

Posted by EBW at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guess it's time for Congress to flex those plenary powers, neh?

Judge tosses motion to stop Cherokee Nation's general election
Associated Press - June 13, 2007 7:15 PM ET

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A federal judge today denied a motion to stop the Cherokee Nation's general election scheduled later this month.

Descendants of people the tribe once owned as slaves filed the motion for a preliminary injunction last month to stop the election, in which current Chief Chad Smith is seeking re-election.

US District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Junior denied the injunction because a Cherokee tribal court last month reinstated the freedmen descendants' right to vote and the Bureau of Indian Affairs had approved the June 23rd election.

Posted by MB Williams at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cherokee Nation Chief Chad Smith once again wants the tribal members to vote yes on the amendment to keep the Bureau of Indian Affairs from interfering with his personal agenda.

What he is not telling the tribal members is vote for the amendment and you vote away all the U.S. federal protections the U.S. Constitution affords everyone in the Cherokee Nation (CN).

The 1975 Cherokee Constitution gives CN employees a right to redress wrongful actions by the CN or its agents as does the Treaty of 1866, which states, "The U.S. Constitution will be the supreme law of the land."

The "new" CN constitutional amendment takes this away from CN employees and tribal members. Rights are only "granted" to you by the administration.

Why? Why does the CN chief allow the ballot numbers of each ballot be written by each voter’s name in the registration book when you vote? Then has his followers check to see how you voted?

Perhaps, if you are an employee of the CN, you will be fired for voting against him or have tribal services denied if you vote against his administration.

Does this happen when you vote in a city, county or state election? No. Your vote is kept secret.

I challenge any veteran of the Cherokee Nation who has served in the U.S. military, who has fought and defended the rights afforded to every American by the U.S. Constitution, to stop and think before voting for who will lead the Cherokee Nation the next four years -- a leader who doesn’t uphold, defend and protect the Constitution of the United States or the Cherokee Nation? A leader who follows his own agenda and not the will of the people? A leader who only serves himself and not the Cherokee citizens?

Or a leader such as Stacy Leeds, who will take the Cherokee Nation on the right path.

Billy R. McCoy

Tahlequah

I agree with Mr. McCoy's analysis. Ballots marked incorrectly will result in job and benefit loss in a regime of managed scarcity. It is unfortunate that Billy hasn't voted in the last two elections.

Posted by EBW at 10:49 AM | Permalink |