50 Days Until the Election-Just Plane Nonsense

In recent days, the Baker campaign has gone on the offensive, attacking Smith for the Cherokee Nation having an airplane.

Smith says the Nation has had a plane for decades, and it’s nothing new. 

Baker says Smith won’t release flight logs.  Smith says they aren’t his records, but CNE’s and the council already has them. 

Enough already.

The Cherokee Nation does, indeed, have a Freedom of Information Act. Read it for yourself here.

One or both of these candidates could simply follow existing law instead of throwing accusations around.  If Baker has filed an actual request, he should demonstrate that he asked CNE for the records.  Once an actual request has been filed, there are 15 days for the ‘corporate body’ (CNE) to produce the records.  If they don’t, THEN someone truly is ‘refusing’ to release documents.  Until then, it’s just a bunch of political nonsense.

If Baker has not formally requested the documents, then Smith could go ahead and formally request it, because CNE has the records and he doesn’t.  That would be very transparent. 

Regardless, someone should hurry up and do it already, so we can move on and start talking about things that Cherokees actually care about-- like health care, jobs and education.  It only takes 15 days, max, to get to the truth, if anyone actually cares about that.