Election Limbo Part II, Day 4: Welcome Back, Kotter Edition

Welcome Back, Kotter Carter!

The Cherokee Nation recommended that the Election Commission bring in a third party observer to watch the special election: the Carter Center, which observed Cherokee Nation’s 1999 election and was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to advance peace and health worldwide.

Well, we could use a little health and peace around here, and after watching the election, the Carter Center people already have written a little love letter to our election commission, and we’ve got a copy thanks to the fine folks at the Tahlequah Daily Press:

“Overall, Carter Center observation teams commended the competent administration of the election by the election commission and precinct polling staff.  The disciplined conduct of this election was notable given the shifting legal parameters and the additional administrative burden placed on the election commission in the days before the election by the federal court order.”

Trust us, if you wade through the rest of the message from the Carter Center, you’ll see that just how interesting those two sentences are.  To sum it up, the outside observers think the election commission is doing okay, saying things like “Polling was well organized in most precincts,”  “Poll workers were well informed about voting procedures,” and “the feel good hit of the summer.”  Okay, maybe not the last one.

One section of particular interest might be the part about the Freedmen voting, which says:

“Despite the controversy regarding the disenfranchisement and subsequent re-enfranchisement of the Freedmen, Carter Center observers did not report any cases of Freedmen encountering obstacles in casting their ballots on the Sept. 24 election day. No distinction was made between Freedmen and other voters on the voters roll.  In an exit meeting on Sept. 25, two Freedmen organizers told Carter Center observers that they received no complaints of discriminatory behavior or actions. The considerable efforts of the election commission to respond to the demands of the federal court order are to be recognized.”

So, hopefully that will keep the freedmen, BIA and APCSJC (the people who agreed on the order) happy because the court order says the freedmen needed to vote “without intimidation and harassment.” 

The Carter Center did make some recommendations, which you can read for yourself, but the biggie is: “The Carter Center mission would also suggest that the election commission undertake a more robust voter information and outreach program.”   

Thanks for the advice, Mr. Kott-Air! See you again in 12 days or so when the votes get counted, and who knows, maybe 12 years from now too.

 

8 Days before the new election: Is this Blog Post Illegal?

Some of our readers pointed to an article in the Tahlequah Daily Press the other day that deserves the attention of Cherokee Truth, and we would’ve got to it a lot faster if it weren’t for that pesky election- may-not-happen thing that came up.

The Tahlequah Daily Press (TDP) took issue with the Smith campaign for using its stories on two separate mailers, saying the mailers ‘may mislead voters’ into thinking the TDP endorses a candidate (that seems like a stretch). The TDP apparently did a story on this particular round of mailers because their name was on it.  The TDP blamed Smith for using different words in the headline than the Press originally did, and said it might violate copyright law to do so.

But, interestingly, they did NOT deny the truth to the actual stories Smith used, which said Baker and his family have been paid more than $1 million over a period of several years for work they’ve done for Cherokee Nation’s housing group, and Baker saying he didn’t think it would be a bad idea for Cherokee folks to come back home to Tahlequah to vote, even if they lived far away.  

If the TDP went so far as to get a lawyer, we’re sure they would do something if they had a good case, and since Baker did the same thing recently with a Muskogee Phoenix article, we’ll assume that either he’ll be hearing from their lawyers. But more likely, it’s a situation the TDP just didn’t like and used their printing press to make a point.

Earlier today, the Press went a little further on this subject, and you can find out more on their facebook page.

They said "We have NOT filed a lawsuit against anyone, nor have we threatened to. Do not take the word of partisan commenters looking to grind their own axes; check the courthouse records yourself! :)"

Yes, that smiley face does belong to the TDP!  TDP even says a couple of Baker folks (not Baker himself, according to an earlier post) were the ones spreading the lawsuit rumors.  Stop already!  Thank goodness there just a few days until the new election, and then everything will be over, right?   Right?

9 Days until the New Election: The Beastie Boys Edition

We don’t necessarily want to be all freedmen all the time, but seeing as how some of them are trying to stop the election from even happening at all, and they’ve got the election commission, APCSJC, the Cherokee Nation Attorney General,  HUD and New York Times all fired up, we thought we’d look into it further.

The interesting thing to us is closer to home:  some freedmen are unhappy with their tribal court attorney Ralph Keen trying  to get their citizenship rights in tribal court.

According to the Tahlequah Daily Press, some of them “don’t believe Mr. Keen has our best interests in mind,” because the BIA “was willing to step in to help us and we believe Keen was hired to avoid this happening.”

Considering Keen has been on the case since at least January of 2008, and won the case in district court three years later, it sure seems like he has done okay representing their interests. Certainly none of his clients seemed to mind while he was keeping their citizenship active despite a constitutional amendment saying otherwise.   And the BIA certainly wasn’t stepping to the defense of the freedmen in 2008, so it is really hard to believe that he was hired to avoid the BIA protecting the freedmen’s rights.  The BIA wasn’t protecting their rights in 2008, but a tribal court was-- because Keen was in court fighting for them.

So, we asked ourselves, how would we act if our lawyer gave us what we wanted for four years, won a court case, lost on appeal and thenasked the court for a do-over trying for a win again?   

Well, if we really wanted to win the case, we’d say go for it!  Especially if the other side beat us, but then said the do-over was okay.  We’d be pretty happy that our lawyer seemed to be working the system.  

It’d be like Texas losing to OU, and OU agreeing to play 5th quarter (even though they didn’t have to) just to give Texas  a chance to catch back up.  In this situation, the Freedmen are Texas.  They lost.  The Cherokee Nation is giving them another chance, and they are mad at the guy who asked for-- and received-- this gift from the judicial heavens.  Keen should go in the lawyer’s hall of fame for this, but instead, some of his clients say they’d rather have the federal court case go forward.

If they want citizenship, the shortest path is through tribal courts, because that’s where their rights have been won before.  The federal court case is eight years old.  If the freedmen want to be part of the Cherokee Nation, is it too much to ask they want to be part of our court system too?   

So Whatcha, Whatcha, Whatcha WANT??!

What’s different about the federal court case?  Oh yeah! The termination of the Cherokee Nation. And no election. Is that what the freedmen really want?

15 Days Until the New Election-The 2011 Annual Report to the Cherokee People, What Joe Crittenden (and Baker?) Didn't Want You to See

Click here to read the "top secret"
2011 Annual Report to the Cherokee People

We got ahold of the 2011 Cherokee Nation Annual Report and it’s hard to see what the fuss was about.  It looks nice, but it’s pretty non-controversial, considering it was banned/suppressed by Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC).

So what’s the Cherokee Truth?  Crittenden told the Tahlequah Daily Press that the report had messages from Chad Smith and Joe Grayson in it. Crittenden is right on thing--Smith does have a message on page 4, but the report also says he was chief from 2007-2011.  On page 8, there is a big picture of Grayson, but the ‘message’ is actually a story about how the doctors at Hastings saved his life when he had heart problems.  A ringing endorsement of our health care system by a guy who’s grateful for his life is pretty standard fare.  The fact that it’s a guy who’s been deputy chief for eight years just adds to it.

The document also has the names of all the incoming council members on the back, which looks like it might be a late addition or something, but still references the future leaders.

The rest of the document, like annual reports of previous years, is a look back on the past year.  It seems that Smith, Crittenden and Baker should all be happy for people to see the good things the Cherokee Nation has done.  Afterall, they were all on the council and/or chief last year.  

It’s a mystery to us why keeping this information out of the hands of the Cherokee people is in the interests of the Cherokee people at all.  By withholding the information, it looks like Crittenden and Baker don’t want people to have knowledge about the good things their government has done in the past year.  Why is that?

It’s one thing to find fault with what the Cherokee Nation has done-- every government can do things better, Cherokee Nation no exception.  But certainly they shouldn't mind giving employees credit for their hard work once a year, and letting citizens know what is going on and how their money is spent.

So take a look for yourselves. And if you want a hard copy, send a Freedom of Information Request to APCSJC. Be sure to include your name, mailing address and that you are requesting a copy of the 2011 Annual Report to the Cherokee People, as well as a copy of the video annual report (which we've not yet seen). You can even ask for multiple copies to hand out to your friends if they too would like to see what all the fuss is about. Here's his email address: joe-crittenden@cherokee.org so you won't even need a stamp!