Election Limbo Day 40: To Meet or Not to Meet?

Friday there is a special council meeting with four agenda items, two of which are focused on the election and two of which are not.

The two election-related items are the appointment of the council’s election commission nominee, Susan Plumb, and potential election law changes.  The council chose not to take up the changes in committee last week, even though the majority of the committee voted to do so.  They needed two thirds of the vote to amend the agenda, and came up one vote short.  Baker was one of the votes against considering changing the laws, and he tells the Muskogee Phoenix that changes to the election law ‘would not be valid at this point,’ even though he asked the Supreme Court to change the rules himself just a few weeks ago.

In fact, Baker proposed seven different election law changes himself to the Supreme Court, and could have had the council consider them at last weeks committee meeting, but instead voted not to.

It will be interesting to see what he does tomorrow, because, it’s apparent that a lot of Cherokees, including Smith and Baker, think things could be improved in our election processes.

Smith seems to think Baker might not show up at all, and points out that Baker once supported penalties for council members who skipped meetings back during the crisis.  In the Muskogee Phoenix story earlier this week, Smith challenged Baker to show up, and Baker didn’t appear to answer whether he would be there or not.

If he’s not, it may have something to do with the other two items on the agenda, the appointments of Diane Hammons as Attorney General and Sharon Wright as Marshal.  Both of these appointments are for 5 year terms, which are intended to overlap chief terms in accordance with the Cherokee Constitution.  Their terms have expired, but some council members, including Hoskin and Crittenden who are in Baker’s camp, wanted to wait until after the September election to fill those slots, just in case Baker wins and he can appoint them instead.  That’s just politics, but the other two items could impact the quality of our election-- so it will be interesting to see if Baker and his friends who have been critical of the previous election show up, or if they try to keep a quorum from being assembled.

Added to the mix is the fact that council member David Thornton is recovering from heart surgery and likely won’t be at the meeting.  It takes twelve members to make a quorum, so we’ll see if they get that many and see if they address the election issues that both candidates (and their supporters) have raised over the past few months.

2 Days Until The Election- Great Balls of Fire, McFly!

With just a few hours until the polls open Saturday, and walk-in and mail-in voting already under way, there’s not much time left for campaign strategies.  But in the last couple of days, both the Baker and Smith campaigns have sent out some interesting emails. 

Baker’s camp sent out an email with outrageous statements that they claim Baker ISN’T making.  Smith’s campaign sent out an email that includes a video clip of an old Baker ad.  

Here’s an excerpt from Baker’s email:  “Chad’s folks are so desperate to hang onto power that they are spreading rumors left and right, telling everyone Bill John is going to close the casinos, fire everyone in the Nation, take away their health care and kick Cherokees out of their homes. These are all lies.”

We agree on many levels.  First and foremost, we agree that Bill John will not do these things.  We also believe he will not strangle kittens.  But as far as we can tell and from what we’ve heard, none of these have ever been campaign issues.  

Gone with the Wind

If Baker’s last minute platform is to tell voters that he promises to treat the Cherokee Nation at least slightly better than Sherman treated Georgia in the Civil War, then super.  We’ll rest easy Saturday night knowing that if Baker is elected, he has promised not to evict us on Sunday.

Back the the Future

Meanwhile, Smith apparently fired up the DeLorean and found an old campaign video of Baker from 1999 and sent it out in an email blast.

It’s 13 seconds of nostalgia.  Apparently this will make the true hearted Cherokee burst into a patriotic rage, seeing Baker and Byrd smiling together as ‘responsible leadership for the Cherokee Nation,’ while Smith is in a chokehold. 

Make like a tree-- and get outta here!

Perhaps Smith’s closing strategy is to post pictures of himself getting a 1.21 gigawatt booty-kickin’ from a Biff-wannabe.  And maybe mix in some inspirational music and glamour shots of Baker.

So here’s today’s TRUTH:  You should check out both candidates for yourself.  Our blog and Facebook notes are a good place to start, as we’ve spent 50+ straight days digging through the campaign material quagmire for the truth.  But please do your own research, study the candidates, use common sense and go vote. 

5 Days Until The Election- Partying Like It’s 1997

We decided to wait until after tonight’s council meeting to do the TRUTH tonight, and we’re kinda glad we did.  We had some campaign finance stuff ready to go, but there was some interesting action at the council meeting, so we’ll save that other stuff for later. 

We watched the video stream, and then afterwards got an email from Chad Smith’s campaign.  The email referenced a vote tonight, which repealed a couple of laws that have actually been referenced in campaign material and have been the subject of Cherokee Phoenix Truth Reports as well as some of our reports.

Basically, the council tonight was repealing the laws where Bill John Baker had made motions in illegal meetings (meetings without a quorum) in 1997.  Smith said during the council meeting, and in his news release, that Baker pushed these illegal measures when he should have known better.  To paraphrase, Smith basically said that the Constitution says a quorum is 2/3 of council, and that third grade math shows that 2/3=10/15, so a council meeting with 9 doesn’t work.

In 1997, Baker (and eight other council members) ignored that and went ahead with their illegal meetings.  Apparently, the repeal of this illegal law has been in front of the Rules Committee already this month and Smith’s email included a link to the May 2011 Rules Committee meeting, where he says just last month Baker voted twice to table a measure that would repeal the illegal laws and then finally voted against repealing them.  Check out this link to watch for yourself. (shuffle forward about an hour and 20 minutes or so into the video)

After viewing the link, that’s right.  However, tonight Baker reversed himself and asked to be a sponsor of the bill repealing the illegal actions of the 1997 council of which he was a part.  He made no explanation, so we won’t hazard a guess why he changed his mind, but not every council member did.  The final vote was 13-3 in favor of repealing the bill.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Baker has to say about why he changed his mind on the vote, and if he acknowledges that the 1997 actions were illegal or wrong.  He’s avoided that one so far.  Smith, on the other hand, is starting to pick at Baker’s record.  Baker has been hitting Smith’s record hard,  often taking things out of context to do so, but now is Baker’s opportunity to give us some context as to why he changed his vote and to defend his 1997 actions.

22 Days Until the Election- Double Truth, Feat. Cherokee Phoenix Part II

Day two of following up with the Cherokee Phoenix Truth report, where they shine a hazy flashlight of truth into the muck and mire of Cherokee Nation’s campaign season.  We prefer using some big ol’ floodlights instead, trying to add context if there is any, because TRUTH doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Yesterday we looked at Baker truths/Smith lies as verified by the Phoenix. Today we look as Smith truths and/or Baker lies as verified by the Phoenix.  (scroll down to page 10)

Turns out, Smith is telling the truth when he says Hastings' services have improved and the Nation has invested $9 million to bring facilities up to snuff since the takeover. They also spend a long, tortured paragraph saying that Smith is telling the truth when he said Baker ‘voted to impeach the justices of the tribe’s highest court.’  Some people remember that and call it the Constitutional Crisis.

And yes, Baker did actually call the members of the Cherokee Nation’s highest court ‘idiots and boys’ but he did later say ‘I never should have got that carried away.’  He did, in fact, make a motion to impeach those ‘idiots’ in an illegal meeting without a quorum, and then voted YES to impeach them. 

Yes, Baker was actually chair of the tribe's executive and finance committee with responsibility to oversee the budget when the auditors were unable to express an opinion.  The Phoenix does point out that in some years, other audits conformed with ‘generally accepted accounting principles.’

CHAirforce One

The Phoenix also confirms that Baker has twice flown on what we now affectionately call "CHAirforce One," and provides context that it was with other council members.  They confirm Baker receives a travel allowance of $6,000 but discontinued submitting mileage when ‘he got a campaign truck,’ and that the truck is just one of five different vehicles he has used for Cherokee Nation business.  The Phoenix neglected to provide the context that all council members get that stipend regardless of their mileage.

Tomorrow:  The Cherokee Phoenix uncovers the biggest lie of the campaign so far.