Election Limbo Day 48-49: The End?

Today is August 13, 2011.  The last day of the terms of office for Cherokees who were elected in 2007 but did not get re-elected this year.

That includes Chad Smith, who’s last day in office also coincides with the sad occasion of his mother’s funeral.  He sent a message to employees as he left office, at least for a few weeks.

“On Saturday my family and I will lay to rest our beloved Mother and Grandmother until we can meet together with her again. Your thoughts, prayers of support and most of all your kindness will always be a treasured memory for us, we will never forget.  I offer our sincerest thanks and immeasurable gratitude.

Finally, we have much left to do. Please be assured, when I return in the near future we will be stronger than ever with your help and dedication to make the Cherokee Nation better and continue addressing the needs of our people for the future of our children.    We as a people, a family and a government have endured, survived, prospered and excelled since time immemorial and with your help, we will continue this legacy.”

The Cherokee Nation honored its other outgoing public servants with receptions.  One for Joe Grayson, outgoing Deputy Chief who lost a race for Tribal Council and a separate one for four outgoing council members: Brad Cobb, Chris Soap, Harley Buzzard and Joe Crittenden who is moving to the executive branch as temporary Principal Chief and long-term Deputy Chief.

The Cherokee Phoenix did some good stories on these guys, and we’re borrowing some quotes from them.

Grayson, on his way out after eight years, said ““I thank all of you very much, and I want to thank every one of you for keeping the Cherokee Nation strong, for keeping our Cherokee culture alive and language alive. The Cherokee Nation is more powerful today than it ever has been, and the reason is because all of your work. You’re not doing a job; you’re building a nation and we need to keep that going.”

Cobb, leaving the council after a narrow defeat in a newly redrawn district, said

“I think it’s important to be involved. I think there are too many people that have their car tag, and that’s about it, and I think that’s sad because there’s a lot going on and things we should be proud of.”

And Crittenden, facing his last day as a council member and his first day in the executive branch, said: “I felt like sometimes you may have more effectiveness in ways at the Council House than you would in the executive office as far as dealing with people and the people’s needs to some degree. But the same time I felt like I might be able to change seemingly, the way we had been headed.  And maybe I would have the ear, if you will, or at least be able to be heard maybe more at the executive level if I was a part of that team sitting in the deputy seat.”

  

Tomorrow,  Crittenden will take the ‘deputy seat,’ at least for a few minutes.  Later, he’ll take the Chief’s seat, at least temporarily.  Anyone who is going to the inauguration, we’d appreciate information on what kind of speech or priority list Crittenden says he’ll implement while we continue election limbo for a while.  The more information you can give us, the better,  as we’ll analyze this topic as well as we can with tomorrow’s blog.

Election Limbo Days 32 & 33- Tribal Council

How have we gone this long
without a Survivor reference?

We haven’t done much analysis of the council races, but things will be different after August 14.   Half the council seats (8) were up for election.  As far as incumbents go, one council member, Janelle Fullbright, did not draw an opponent and is back on the council for four more years.  One, Chris Soap, chose to run for Deputy Chief instead.  Tina Glory Jordan, Bradley Cobb, Cara Cowan-Watts, and Julia Coates each had opponents.  Cobb was the only incumbent who lost, in a new district.  Finally, one race pitted two council members against each other, Jodie Fishinghawk and Harley Buzzard.  Fishinghawk won that one.

Two new seats were created, and they were won by Lee Keener and David Walkingstick.

So the new council looks like this:

District One (Cherokee and Wagoner County):  Tina Glory Jordan, David Walkingstick and Bill John Baker (for a few more weeks or two more years).

District Two (Adair, Delaware and Ottawa County): Jodie Fishinghawk, Curtis Snell and an open seat that will be vacated by Joe Crittenden on August 14 when he is sworn in as the Deputy Chief

District Three (Muskogee, McIntosh, Sequoyah Counties): Don Garvin, Janelle Fullbright, David Thornton

District Four (Mayes, Craig, Nowata, Craig, Washington County): Dick Lay, Chuck Hoskin, Jr., Meredith Frailey.

District Five: (Tulsa and Washington Counties):  Buel Anglen, Cara Cowan-Watts, Lee Keener

At-Large:  Julia Coates and Jack Baker

The short version is that Cobb, Soap, Crittenden and Buzzard are going to be off the council, replaced by Lay, Keener, Walkingstick and whoever replaces Crittenden on the council.  Since Cobb, Soap and Buzzard were generally pretty friendly to Smith, he’s going to have a less friendly council to work with if he gets re-elected.  Baker, if he’s elected, will have more friends on the council than he does now.  Depending on how it shakes out in the council races, he might pick up a couple of more friends.

Since a chief has to work with the council to get his initiatives passed, these will be important things to think about moving ahead.

Election Limbo Day 30: Whaddya Know, it’s S. Joe!

Photo Courtesy of the Cherokee Phoenix

The Deputy Chief results have been certified, and S. Joe Crittenden is the man. Like we talked about yesterday, it was really pretty close, 53% to 47%, but it looks like a landslide compared to the Principal Chief’s race.

Another couple of interesting notes about Crittenden's win:  Soap got about 1300 fewer votes than he did before, and Crittenden got several hundred more.  But, Soap got about 47% of the vote both times.

Both Soap and Crittenden were pretty classy in their statements to the media.  Maybe this is a sign things will get a little saner moving forward.  

Election Limbo Day 29- Deputy Chief Elected

Photo Credit Cherokee Phoenix

Last night, the Cherokee people successfully elected a deputy chief, and on August 14th, S. Joe Crittenden will be sworn in along with all the other new council members. But, he will also begin acting as Principal Chief starting that day until a new Chief is successfully elected and then sworn in.

The final certified results showed Crittenden receiving 6478 votes (53.17%) to Soap's 5706 votes (46.83%). A little more than 12,000 folks voted, so voter turnout was lower to the tune of about 3000 votes.

Three council races were also decided--In District 1, David Walkingstick trounced Mark Vance garnering almost 70% of the vote.  In District 2, Jodie Fishinghawk beat Harley Buzzard by collecting 65% of the vote, and it was a close race in District 4 when Dick Lay beat incumbent Dr. Bradley Cobb. Only 80 votes separated the two.

Now that this is behind us-- we still have another election upcoming. We don't know yet when the new election will be held, but expect that announcement to come any day. But what can we expect?

You can expect we will be here, sorting thru the allegations and digging for the truth. Although, in this election, even when the truth is presented to people, some don't seem to care or believe it. 

If you've not read this blog since the beginning, and have some time to kill, we would encourage you to start at the beginning-- back to Monday, May 2nd, 54 days before the original election. In the last three months, there have been rumors, misinformation and exaggeration. And we've gotten to the bottom of most of it. 

Election Limbo Day 28: Deputy Decision?

Tonight’s election results should come in online at www.cherokee.org after the polls close at 7.   There are run-offs for three council races and Deputy Chief.  Chris Soap got almost 47% of the vote in the general election, and Joe Crittenden got 36%. 

The other run-offs feature a couple of council members going against each other , Jodie Fishinghawk and Harley Buzzard in District 2.  Fishinghawk got more than 40% of the vote the first time around, making it an uphill election for Buzzard.  In District One, it’s two new comers going against each other, Mark Vance and David Walkingstick.  Walkingstick got almost twice as many votes as Vance the first time around, but only 36% of the total in a crowded field.   And in District 4, which is Mayes, Washington, Nowata and Craig counties,  only about 50 votes separated incumbent Brad Cobb from challenger Nick Lay.

Tomorrow, (or late tonight) we'll know a little bit more truth about what our government will look like.

Election Limbo Day 27: Deputy Chief = Principal Chief

The Deputy Chief Principal Chief Deputy Chief race will be decided tomorrow.  Probably.  Assuming there are no snafus/recounts/vanishing votes, whoever wins will be sworn in as Deputy Chief on August 14, and then immediately promoted to Principal Chief.  Attorney General Diane Hammons issued an opinion, at the request of council member and Baker honcho Chuck Hoskin, Jr., that said the Deputy will run the tribe until the new election and the new chief is sworn in. 

Since we don’t know when the new election will be, and since it’s a month after the general election and we still don’t have a winner, S. Joe Crittenden or Chris Soap could be running things for a while.

Soap and Crittenden have both been under the radar, but in the last couple of weeks we heard robocalls from Joe Byrd and Stacy Leeds for Crittenden, as well as some mailers from both candidates.    Soap has had a lot emphasizing his family, including his late stepmother, Wilma Mankiller, while Crittenden uses pics of Baker on a lot of his mailouts. 

The one controversial issue in their election was Crittenden’s support (or non support) of legislation that would have kept any Cherokees from voting by mail, even (and especially) at-large voters.  So anyone in, say San Antonio, would need to come to Tahlequah or not vote at all.  The measure was proposed by Jodie Fishinghawk, Crittenden’s neighbor in Adair County.  It was tabled once by Fishinghawk, then the next month, (October 2010 rules committee minutes) Fishinghawk again tried to table it. 

This time, the motion to table was defeated, including votes by the at-large council members who were strongly opposed to it.   Supporters, like sponsor Fishinghawk, wanted to table it to bring it back, while opponents of making Texas Cherokees vote in Tahlequah, wanted it off the table so they could defeat it.  After the tabling fail, Fishinghawk withdrew the legislation.  Soap voted with the at-large council members,  to allow folks to vote by mail.  Crittenden voted with the bill’s sponsor, who wanted to deny Cherokees the right to vote by mail.

Unfortunately, (or conveniently) the video of that meeting is not available on line, so we don’t know for sure, but it sure looks like Crittenden was in favor of making it impossible for Cherokees to vote by mail.  That would include even the people in Adair County who like to vote by mail, or who can’t leave the house.  Crittenden says he didn’t support disenfranchising mail-in voters, but Julia Coates, an at-large tribal council representative who easily won her re-election campaign this year, disagrees.

By now, everyone with a mail-in vote should have already sent it in, but there is definitely a difference in the candidates. 

If you are voting tomorrow, you might want to check out the information from the two Deputy Chief debates.  The one in May, sponsored by the Cherokee Phoenix, and the one in June at Rogers State.

Regardless, tomorrow night we should know who the next deputy principal deputy chief is.

The Day After- Election Results?

Nearly 12 hours after the polls closed yesterday, the Cherokee Nation Election Commission finally posted results. This election was a nail-biter til the last votes were tallied. 

This morning, in a posting of unofficial results, the election commission showed that Bill John Baker took the incumbent Principal Chief Chad Smith by a mere 11 votes. Chad Smith had 7589 votes and Bill John Baker had 7600. 

Preliminary results late into Saturday night showed Smith up by 8 votes, but the election commission spent the entire night considering the validity of "challenge" ballots before coming to the total listed above.

Photo Courtesy Cherokee Phoenix

Bill John Baker celebrated the win this morning, read for yourself coverage in the Cherokee Phoenix, The Tahlequah Daily Press, and The Tulsa World, as well as his Facebook page where he said: 

"I’m humbled and honored to be the new Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Wado to my supporters, your prayers and work made the difference. 

I congratulate Chief Smith on a hard fought campaign and thank him for his years of service.

I have said “we all come from one fire.” Now I pray we can join together to keep our fire burning brighter than ever before.

God Bless America and the Cherokee Nation."



Chief Smith, however, has not conceded the race. He issued the following on his website this morning, saying:

Early this morning, the Election Commission posted unofficial election results to this point, which shows my opponent leading by 11 votes. With such a slim margin among 15,000 ballots, it is important to make sure that each and every one of them were properly cast and were counted correctly.  In the coming days, we will examine the record and make sure our election was conducted properly and accurately under our law.

I want to thank the Election Commission for their hard work to this point, and I want to thank each of my supporters who showed their passion for the Cherokee Nation with their votes.  I want my supporters to know that we will proceed undaunted.   

So what does that mean? We guess the coming days will tell, but it seems obvious he will ask for some sort of recount. We assume that if Smith had won by a handful of votes, Baker would certainly not have conceded without a recount.  


It was a historical election to say the least. We'll be watching what transpires over the next few days and, of course, be reporting back. 


*There will definitely be a runoff for Deputy Chief between Chris Soap, who walked away with the most votes at 7010 and Joe Crittenden who took home 5488 votes.

17 Days Until the Election- Deputy Chief Debate

The fine folks at Rogers State also had a deputy Chief debate on Monday night, and we’ve got a recap.  The sound was a little hard to hear sometimes, but we’ll interpret as well as possible.   Feel free to watch it yourself.

  

If you do watch, the first thing you’ll notice is the shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee posture the candidates are in.  It’s a good thing the candidates seem to respect, if not actually like each other, because they were in pretty close quarters.

After brief introductions, they jumped straight into the questions.

First question was about qualifications and motivations for running.

Chris Soap went first, saying he answered the call of duty, because a lot of people asked him to run.  He said he’s been very involved in the Cherokee Nation his whole life and that he would be honored to serve as Deputy Chief.

Callie Hathcoat was next, and she said she’s worked a lot of years with the Cherokee Nation in her career and she would bring ‘a lot of passion’ to the job.

Raymond Vann said he felt like it was his chance to help more people get better services from the Cherokee Nation. 

S. Joe Crittenden said he’s been doing something for the Cherokee Nation ‘since 1968 in some form or fashion’ and he’s seen the good times and the last four years the Cherokee Nation has had blinders on.

The next question was about representing the Cherokee people and not any special interests. 

Hathcoat answered first and said she didn’t have any special interests, which appears to be true, because even on her facebook profile she only lists one.

Raymond Vann said he’d treat everyone the same; Crittenden said we’re all entitled to the same type of service and Soap said that even on the Council he feels like he tries to represent the interests of all Cherokees, not just the ones in his district.

The next question apparently was posed by someone with an old version of the Cherokee Nation Constitution:  They asked if the candidates would be prepared to ‘preside over the tribal council,’ which stopped being a duty of the Deputy Chief in 2006.

Vann answered first saying he thought all branches of the government should work together.

Crittenden then explained that the question was off base because ‘the Deputy Chief has not presided over the tribal council for some time’ and that we have a Speaker of the Council now.

Soap agreed with Crittenden and said that his experience on the council would help him work together with the council because he understands their viewpoint. 

Hathcoat said she hopes that she will try to represent the Chief’s viewpoint if she has to represent him to the council.

The fourth question was about language preservation, and Crittenden had first shot.  He said he’d like to use CN community buildings and expand language programs more into the communities. 

Soap said the communities have done a great job working with the Nation on this, and he’d like to see more partnerships with public schools.  Hathcoat said she would build on what we already have in place and that the ‘earlier we reach them the better’ with language classes.  Vann echoed Crittenden’s comments about using community buildings more, but that might actually have been Vann’s line from the first debate, so let’s give them both equal credit for it.

The final question was on term limits, and just like the last debate, all the candidates agreed that there should be term limits.  No new ground here, really.

The candidates finally got to their closing statements.  Soap went first, and spent some of his time thanking supporters, RSU and the people who have put in time to work on all the campaigns.  He said he wanted ‘to invest in the future’ and promised to ‘represent you well.’

Hathcoat had her best moment of the evening, using a Margaret Thatcher quote that we don’t have exactly right, but basically said real leaders are out with the people making change and listening, and that’s the kind of leader she would be.

Vann wrapped up taking about treating people right because ‘we’re all Cherokees.’

Crittenden said he was ‘the most qualified’ candidate, having spent eight years on the Council and before that serving on the Housing Authority board after being appointed by Byrd ‘during the good times,’ which isn’t how most people remember the Constitutional crisis.  He reiterated his campaign promises as well.

And they were done.  And so are we.  

20 Days Until the Election: Deputy Chief Campaign Finances

As one alert reader pointed out (thanks Robin McClain Smith), we haven’t covered campaign finance for the Deputy Chief race.  So we researched it, and then we remembered why we haven’t covered it much.  Four candidates and we’ll break it down quickly and alphabetically.

S. Joe Crittenden, current council member has raised $3,250 from donors, and loaned himself more than $6200, for a total of nearly $10,000 raised.  He’s got about $940 left.

See his April report here and his May report here.

Callie Hathcoat has submitted two reports that are kinda blotchy and hard to read.  We’ll leave it to you to try to figure it out, but she reports nearly $5000 in expenses the first month.

If the expenses are itemized, the Phoenix hasn’t posted them online, like they have for everyone else.  If they are not itemized, then that’s a violation of campaign laws.  The May finance report shows a previous balance, which wasn’t on the April report and some math we don’t understand.  If you understand it better, have at it and let us know.

Chris Soap has raised the most money, a total of more than $34,000. He raised $24,337 from the April reporting period and $10,115.72 for the May reporting period.

We’re going to give ourselves some kind of award for awesome addition techniques:  Soap’s May report shows a balance of $4325.44, which is actually the difference between the amount he raised that month and the amount he spent.  With his beginning balance, he has almost exactly $10,000 in the bank.  Which is more than his closest fund raising rival has raised (and spent) already.

Raymond Vann has raised $1,025 between loans and donations and he’s got $139 left. Here are his April and May reports

We’ll return to our regular programming tomorrow.  Here’s a clue:  We’re getting to the bottom of the ‘Hatch Act’ stuff some of you have been talking about.

41 Days Until the Election- Deputy Chief Candidates Debate

Last night’s Deputy Chief debate featured all four candidates, Chris Soap, S. Joe Crittenden, Raymond Vann, and Callie Hathcoat.  It was less eventful than the Chief’s debate, but we’ll spend some time catching up on it.

Chris Soap

Really there were maybe just a few high points, as the candidates agreed on almost everything.  The thing they disagreed on the most was whether the policy of a 30% dividend from our businesses is right or, what the percentage should be if they got to pick the number.

S. Joe Crittenden

Soap went first, and said 30% was the right number and the Nation has had good results with it.  Crittenden disagreed and thought we should double it to 60%.  Vann agreed and Hathcoat got some laughs by saying that it should be at least 50%, because she’s a woman and thinks that the relationship ought to be fair.

All candidates agreed that there should be term limits.  Crittenden had a rather cryptic remark, saying something like:  “In my heart I’m not sure we’re under the 1999 Constitution to be honest.”  It’s rare that someone runs for office while denying the existence of that same government’s Constitution, but there you have it.  We’d love to find out more about this in the future.

Raymond Vann

Callie Hathcoat

The best responses came to the last question, which asked about the language programs of the Cherokee Nation.  Soap had a good story about his son being able to read Cherokee to Soap’s father, a multi-generational language success story.  Crittenden had a good line saying that language represents the fire that represents the center of our nation.  Hathcoat finished up by saying that a lot of the Indian people she knows don’t know how to turn on a computer, and that technology was not the answer to continuing our language.  We’re not sure how the Indian people who read this blog will feel about that comment, but we do congratulate you on being able to turn on the computer!

We heard the link to the archive of the debates will be up Monday on Cherokee Phoenix’s website. When it is, we’ll let you know.