Would You Trust this Man with $600 Million Part 2

Yesterday we talked about Bill John Baker’s new pick to assist the best CPA in Vian, Lacey Horn. The Cherokee Nation now has some help from another Sequoyah County CPA, Jody Reece-- who just happened to be in charge of either the finance department & grants administration in the 1990s when the Nation got busted for not auditing its own books, for using federal program funds illegally, and using tens of millions of dollars improperly. The details are in yesterday’s blog, and you will find the list is very long and very embarrassing for the Nation.

How embarrassing? Well, the result way back when of all the financial shenanigans during the Byrd/Baker/Reece era was that the Cherokee Nation wasn’t trusted with its own money and had to be put on an allowance, like a third grader.

According to the Tulsa World, because the Nation was in such bad financial shape and the feds had “substantial concerns about the tribe’s financial systems” so they gave the money to the nation “month-by-month until the tribe restores its financial credibility…”

That made Cherokee Nation officials upset at the time.  The Tulsa World quotes one as saying: “While it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable for us to have lost credibility by having weaknesses pointed out everywhere, we’ve got a plan in hand,” said the tribe’s executive director of finance and administration in a November 6, 1998 interview with the paper.

So who said that he was so embarrassed about what happened either under his own watch as the top finance guy or the controller, Jody Reece, who moved over to administer grants, which then somehow got used for purposes they weren’t supposed to be?

None other than Charles Head. Remember him? He was recently appointed by Baker to be the new Secretary of State for the Cherokee Nation.  Head and Reese were in charge of the Cherokee Nation’s finances during the worst financial crisis in the history of the Cherokee Nation.  And now Baker has brought them both back.

Justice Darrell Dowty (left) administers the oath of office to the newly confirmed Secretary of State Charles Head while Frances Head looks on.
Photo Courtesy Cherokee Nation

Wado & Donadagohvi

Photo courtesy: Tulsa World  (2011)

The fine folks at the Tulsa World did a nice thing today, something we should do here as well--- they looked back on the Chad Smith era at Cherokee Nation.   

We’re steaming into Baker’s term at full speed, but we think it probably is right and fair to do what the World did, which is to look back at the full 12 years and give credit where credit is due.

Photo Courtesy: Tulsa World (1999)

There is a certain respect that should be accorded former Chiefs.  There is a reason it is called public service, and its best illustrated in the comparison of the two photos of Smith at his inauguration and Smith today.  Smith certainly gave of himself.  

There is a time and a place for political disagreement, even anger if that’s your choice.  But as part of Baker’s idea of reconciliation, let’s try something here.  We challenge every reader to say something respectful and nice to or about our former Chief.  It’s a chance for Baker supporters to show they are good winners.  For Smith supporters, a chance to honor the candidate you rallied around.  We’ll have almost four more years (at least) to tout the accomplishments of Baker, so let’s let Smith have his day.   

If you want to say something rude or mean about our former Chief, feel free to scroll down to another blog post (or another page entirely) and do it there.  On this post, follow Mama's advice: if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 11: Know your Roll/Role

It is important to know your roll* as a council member.

Ever since the Cherokee Nation won its lawsuit against the freedmen (last week), there has been some discussion about the OTHER lawsuit with the freedmen, known by some as the Nash case.  Nash is the name of the one of the freedmen who sued the Cherokee Nation in Tribal court (and lost) over citizenship.  The Cherokee Nation sued him (and a bunch of others) back in federal court.

Baker and his lawyer, Chuck Hoskin Jr., are referring to this when they said that Smith “secretly cut a deal secretly cutting a deal with Congressmen in DC to allow the Freedmen to remain on the roles (sic)* as long as he was chief in exchange for HUD money.  Smith illegally cut this deal with a group of Congressmen without the knowledge or consent of the elected Cherokee Council.”

He also said that the  "Tulsa World further verified that Smith waived the Tribes (sic) sovereignty and we demand the details. The tribe's suit, which waived the Cherokee Nation's sovereign immunity only, in that case, was originally filed in Tulsa,’ the Tulsa World wrote.”

They asked Attorney General Diane “Hammonds”   to investigate this “secret deal.”

Well she did, and she released the results of her investigation today.  The Smith campaign liked it so much, they posted it online.

 

It’s just a couple of pages long, and it’s pretty straight forward.  She notes that the request for the investigation was filed 3 days before the election and immediately publicized by Baker’s campaign.  She also points out that Baker was well informed about the Nash case, despite his claims otherwise.

We did a little research of our own, based on Hammon’s analysis, and the more we looked the more Cherokee Truth came out. Here’s what we discovered:

On February 3, 2009, the Cherokee Nation issued a news release, which is still publicly available on the Cherokee Nation’s web site for all to see. It begins:

“TULSA, Okla.—The Cherokee Nation filed today a lawsuit asking a federal court in Oklahoma to resolve the long-standing dispute of whether non-Indian Freedmen descendants have a federal right to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.  The Cherokee Nation is asking the court to confirm that Congress unilaterally modified the Treaty of 1866, and, as a result, the non-Indian descendants of those Freedmen have no federal rights to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.”

It later has a quote from Smith:

“Last year, I assured members of Congress, including Barney Frank (D-MA), that if they would let the federal courts decide we would push to have the controversy heard on the merits,” Smith said.  “This filing today is the Cherokee Nation keeping its word, and letting the federal courts have a clear path to reaching a decision on the merits without compromising the Nation’s sovereign immunity, and without the risk of setting procedural precedents that may affect other tribes.  Members of Congress have said they will respect a federal court decision on this issue, and this is the quickest way to an impartial, apolitical, judicial solution."

Nothing secret going on here: There was and is a news release about it on the Cherokee Nation’s web

site.

There are also later media references to the case, including an Associated Press story. 

Just two days after the case was filed, Hammons told a council committee meeting about it (see the rules committee meeting minutes from February 5, 2009).  Smith talked to the full tribal council about it at the February Council meeting (see the council meeting minutes from February 17, 2009).  The full council voted on, and unanimously approved of the lawsuit in the March council meeting (see minutes of the March 16, 2009 council meeting).  

Unanimously, of course, means everyone on the council agreed.  Bill John Baker and Chuck Hoskin Jr. were both on the council during these meetings, and both men were in attendance.  Hammons was kind enough to pass along a PDF showing Baker and Hoskin had indeed approved it.

So not only is the "deal" not secret, Baker and the full tribal council were explicitly informed about the case--so much so that they agreed it was a good idea for it to move forward!

So, that said, let’s walk back through Baker’s quotes again after having done some cursory research that any Cherokee citizen could do for themselves.

Baker claims: “Smith illegally cut this deal with a group of Congressmen without the knowledge or consent of the elected Cherokee Council.”  WRONG. Council minutes referenced above show that the council, and any Cherokee who checked the Cherokee Nation web site, were proactively informed about the lawsuit.

Baker claims: “Tulsa World further verified that Smith waived the Tribes (sic) sovereignty and we demand the details.”  WRONG AGAIN.  And while we’re handing out demands, how about this: the Cherokee people demand you pay attention in the council meetings we pay you to attend!  The details you need are in the minutes from the meeting in 2009 when you voted IN FAVOR of the lawsuit you are now criticizing.

Smith had some choice words on the subject and he, rightfully, lets Baker have it with both barrels.  You can visit his facebook page if you want to find out more.  

Baker and Hoskin may have presented more evidence to Hammons, but the evidence that any Cherokee can find is clear:  the discussion of the Nash case was made in a very public way and approved by the very people who now claim not to know anything about it.  It doesn’t seem like they take their rolls** as council members very seriously if they don’t even know what they voted on.

  

*Probably a typo.  He probably meant tribal rolls, the list of Cherokee Nation citizens, not ‘tribal roles’

** We meant to use the wrong word here.  Because it is funny.  We know our role, as citizens on the Cherokee Nation’s rolls.  See?  It isn’t that hard really. But don't get us started on the difference between polls and poles.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 3: Pleased to Meet You, Mr. S. John Crittenbaker

Three days after election day 2, our election rules are changing thanks to Jon Velie, APCSJC, Baker, Smith, the BIA, Judge Kennedy in Washington DC and our own beloved Cherokee Nation Election Commission. But the two biggest players seem to be the guys sharing a brain that wants to do whatever the BIA and the freedmen tell them to.  

And henceforth we shall call it... S. John Crittenbaker!

Picture Credit & Caption: www.joecrittenden.com

This morning, S. John Crittenbaker worked out a deal with the freedmen and the BIA saying not only should freedmen be given more days to vote because APCSJC didn’t comply with last week’s court order, but also that Cherokees would now get to walk in and vote.  Hooray for Cherokees, right?  Not so fast. 

1) APCSJC's deal didn’t extend the mail-in voting for Cherokees, so if you forgot to mail your absentee ballot, or mailed it late, too dang bad for you. 

2) Freedmen who haven’t voted by mail already, but did request an absentee ballot, will all be sent a SECOND ballot via overnight mail. 

3) If Cherokees by blood still want to vote, they better know somebody who knows somebody (or just read Cherokee Truth, but we’re sure all our readers already voted, right?), because APCSJC’s custom-made court order does NOT require any notification about extra voting days be sent to Cherokees by blood. But EVERY Freedman must be notified. And lucky for them, that’s already happened.

So while that was sinking in, the election commission met today and Smith told them he didn’t think it was fair that only Freedmen got two extra weeks to turn in their absentee ballots and that only local Cherokees who could drive to Tahlequah (and Freedmen) got to vote, not people who live far away or voted by mail. And the Election Commission agreed with Smith and changed things some more, allowing all Cherokees to turn their absentee ballots in by October 8th.

Smith and Baker both put up comments online, as did the election commission and APCSJC.

Smith pointed out that he was the guy who fought for Cherokee absentee ballots to be counted and equal notification of the extra voting days, while Baker (again) accused Smith of stealing the election the first time saying the AG and the Supreme Court were just doing Chad’s bidding. Keep in mind, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court hasn’t done anything in a month or so, and declined to make Smith Chief even after they found he had the most votes.

So the votes haven’t been counted yet and it looks like Baker is already lining up his excuses.

The Election Commission got their digs in saying, "It appears that people who know little about the mechanics and physical requirements of conducting an election have decided to try and insert themselves into the Election Commission's day-to-day operations."

On that same page, APCSJC's statement seems to be just a repetition of what the order says. Towards the bottom, he does say: "As of today, the required notice to the Cherokee Freedmen has been mailed. There were never any negotiations that non-citizen Cherokee Freedmen, Cherokee Freedmen unregistered to vote, non-citizen Cherokees or Cherokees unregistered to vote were going to be allowed to vote during the Friday hearing. The Nation will continue to work through this important matter."

So, now we know what "never" happened in the negotiations. But we wonder if we'll ever know what actually DID happen when S. John Crittenbaker was making another deal with the freedmen and the BIA to change our election laws.

6 Days Until the New Election: Barenaked Ladies Edition

If I had a million dollars.... I'd build a tree fort in our yard!

If you had a million dollars what would you do with it?  If you answered run  two campaigns  for Principal Chief, you would need every penny.  Between Smith and Baker, more than $1,171,000 is invested in this campaign.  

The Tulsa World did us a semi-favor by posting some information about the latest campaign finance reports, but they managed to not post the actual reports online, so those are still to come. However, we can get to the basics now and the details later.

In August, Smith raised $ 102,979.12 and loaned himself $38,000.    That makes his fundraising total (our math, not the World’s)  $494,544.19, and his loan total of $78,301.91 for a total available to his campaign so far of: $572,648.10.  Which sounds like a lot of money, and it is, until you realize Baker’s stack is just as big.

Between August 16 and September 15, Baker raised $152,851.97, bringing his fundraising total to $444,297.59.  With his loan total of $155,000, the total money available to his campaign so far is $599,297.59.

So we’ve got what has to be the first million dollar campaign in Cherokee Nation history, and we still don’t have a chief!  We’ll post more on the campaign finance reports (and links to the reports themselves) of both candidate  soon.

11 Days Before the New Election: BIA Goes Nuclear

As our alert readers have pointed out, the BIA sent a letter to the Cherokee Nation saying the BIA won’t recognize the upcoming election if the freedmen don’t vote. And that had Cherokee Truth blowing up!

Eight years into the freedmen court case in DC, the BIA decides to tell the world that the “Department’s position is, and has been” that the freedmen have citizenship rights in the Cherokee Nation.   

Really?  Even though they've recognized tons of other elections where Freedmen didn’t vote (Wilma Mankiller, anyone?), suddenly the BIA has always said the Freedmen should be citizens. Odd, they didn’t think to mention this once in the previous eight years!

Our readers and other news sources (the Tulsa World was first and thorough) have covered what this letter and the accompanying court filing might mean:  an unrecognized election, no election at all (which is what the freedmen have asked for), a loss of sovereignty and/or the BIA basically picking who would be chief.

APCSJC put a letter on the Cherokee Nation web site today in response. It said, in part: 

“The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA.  We will hold our election and continue our long legacy of responsible self-governance." 

He also says some more interesting stuff:

“I am also pursuing political remedies that are in the best interest of the Cherokee Nation. I will do my best to quickly resolve this issue and I have mobilized all resources to quickly resolve this matter so that services to our people and the operation of the tribal government are protected.  I will also do my best to ensure that services will not be interrupted and the election will occur timely.  The Cherokee Nation will emerge stronger because we will act quickly.”

Notice he uses the word "quickly" three times and "timely" once. Even though this issue has basically been going on at the Cherokee Nation since 1866, APCSJC is going to fix it all in his six weeks or so running the show. Which will be impressive if he can do it. It makes us wonder what he means by ‘political remedies.’  Thousands of Cherokees thought that a constitutional amendment was a political remedy to this issue, in part because our Supreme Court told us so.

The BIA says the election can happen, but in their opinion it won’t count unless the Freedmen vote.  The Freedmen say the election shouldn’t happen at all unless they get to vote, and oh by the way, if they don't get their way-- just terminate the whole dang Cherokee Nation.

But no worries-- APCSJC says he’ll "quickly" resolve it.  Let’s hope he does it while following the Supreme Court and upholding his oath to defend the Cherokee constitution.  Election Day is little more than 10 days away, absentee ballots are being mailed in as we speak, and early voting starts Saturday.

18 Days Until the New Election: Marilyn Manson Edition

Last week, we talked about how some people seem to think the freedmen court decision might alter the election with the overall perception being that it would benefit Baker more than Smith if freedmen folks couldn't vote.  

Well, while we were all celebrating the Cherokee National Holiday, freedmen were suing the pants off of the Cherokee Nation.  On Friday night, about the time some of us were loading up on more funnel cake than anyone can really justify, the freedmen asked a federal judge to fire all Cherokee Nation employees, close the health clinics, and terminate the Cherokee Nation.  

That, my friends, is a little harder to swallow than the last Indian taco when the powwow shuts down.  We understand the freedmen not being excited about getting booted out of the tribe via constitutional amendment/supreme court action.

But it takes a special kind of person to pull the ol’ "if I can’t have you no one can" move and the freedmen are basically telling us that if they can’t be part of the Cherokee Nation, then rest of us should just swallow a hand grenade.  And that tastes even worse than leftover powwow food.


They also asked the judge to stop the election, or at least let them vote, and there will apparently be a hearing on September 20th to decide what happens.  


Does this mean that our election will be postponed?  Stopped?  Or will the freedmen get their way and eliminate all our funding and our tribal recognition with the stroke of a judge’s pen?

19 Days until the New Election-Missing Anything?

The Cherokee National Holiday has come and gone and with all the differences between this year’s holiday and the usual ones, there is one thing that the media has picked up on:  The Cherokee Nation’s annual report was not distributed at this year's Holiday festivities.

The Tahlequah Daily Press and the Muskogee Phoenix both had stories on the lack of the report, which has become a staple of the Holiday over the years.  It usually includes things like contact numbers for programs and council reps, budget information and of course some feel good stories about the Nation. We do know what the annual reports look like for the past ten years or so, because they are posted on-line.  You should check them out if you haven’t because, again, there is a lot of truth and public information out there and it can dispel a lot of rumors.  The Cherokee Truth, if you will.

But back to the point: APCSJC has issued an order saying that the reports are NOT to go out this year at the Holiday, because, well, Crittenden is the Chief and he says so.  Crittenden points out that the report contains messages from Smith and Grayson (we’ll have to take his word for it) and they aren’t chiefs right now. All true. 

But in 2007, no one complained when outgoing council members like Taylor Keen and Phyllis Yargee, among others, were featured in the report.  Also, all the numbers in the reports are retrospective, from the year before. So, the information for this year's annual report to the people is from the year when Smith and Grayson were in office.

Acting Speaker of the Council Cara Cowan Watts (ASCCCW) isn’t happy about it though. She told the Muskogee Phoenix:  “The Cherokee Nation Annual Report has traditionally been passed out at Cherokee National Holiday for at least the past eight years.  By not following through with the report at Cherokee National Holiday, I believe Acting Chief Crittenden is violating the spirit of the Tribal Freedom of Information Act.”

Smith doesn’t like it either, saying “It’s understandable they feel like Bill John Baker and his friends are trying to keep information from the Cherokee people.”

Crittenden says he thinks the information is good ‘for the history books’ and that its up to the guy who gets elected September 24 to make the decision on what to do with the reports.  Until then, it looks like the Cherokee Nation has spent a bunch of money to NOT inform its citizens about what is going on.

We’d like to see a copy, just to see what the fuss is about and see if we can tell why APCSJC wants to keep a lid on it.  And to let everyone else see what the fuss is about.  If anyone comes across a copy, please let us know. As always, our email is cherokeetruth@gmail.com.

21 Days Until the New Election: State of the Nation, according to Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC)

What is the state of the Cherokee Nation?  From all accounts from Tahlequah today, the state of the Cherokee Nation is blazin’ hot, if nothing else.  The actual state of the Nation today was long, maybe longer than ever.  The event was live streamed at cherokee.org so Cherokees everywhere got to see the sweatiness as fast as your internet connection could handle it.

What we saw was relatively uneventful.  APCSJC talked about a lot of the successes of the past year, focusing on jobs, language and community, which is the holiday theme.  The rest of his speech sounded like it was written by Baker’s campaign staff, because he started Baker’s riff about having Cherokees building houses for Cherokees, and hiring Cherokee people at the Cherokee Nation, neither of which seem to be controversial and the latter already being Cherokee Nation hiring policy.  He didn’t mention the plane, which means if Baker’s people wrote it, Crittenden at least got to edit the speech before he stood up to deliver it. 

Overall, we’re just happy that between the Freedmen, Baker’s people and Smith’s people, there seemed to be little actual anger, just a lot of polite clapping, nervous laughter and awkwardness.

For more right now, check out the Tulsa World, or the streaming events at www.cherokee.org when they get around to posting it. 

Election Limbo Day 24: Video Shows the Truth About Ballot Stuffing

The Tulsa World has blown the lid off some of the biggest lies of this election season, and they have the video to prove it. 

Last week, Bill John Baker gave us a laundry list of harsh accusations about election criminality, and offered no proof.  Baker told us that Chad Smith was ‘trying to steal an election he clearly lost’ instead of conceding.  He said a guy named Terry Rainey ‘went into the vault that contains the ballots two times and altered the numbers,’ so Smith would win.  He said ‘it’s obvious that the ballot box was stuffed by people with access to the vault.’  And he said a lot more that was just plain angry, directed at Smith. 

 What we’ve learned since then is that all of this isn’t true.  The Tulsa World has had some very good coverage since election night, and they got their hands on the security video that the Supreme Court has already seen.  (It’s also available on the Smith web site).

What it shows is revealing:  a bunch of very bored people doing exactly what they told the court they were doing, which is going inside the vault, picking up an envelope and coming right back out.   Less than a minute total, between the two trips.  At least four people present at all times, including an election commissioner whom Baker and the Tribal Council appointed, Roger Johnson.  No extra ballots to quickly stuff in some random box.  No evidence at all backing Baker’s accusations.

Baker continues to drag the Election Commission and this Rainey guy through the mud, with absolutely no evidence.  Worse, it appears he flat out lied about what they did!  We don’t know why he did it, but we do know he was wrong about the original recount.  We know the Cherokee people who serve on the Election Commission deserve better.  They’ve made mistakes, certainly.  But there’s a difference between a mistake and criminal conspiracy, and it appears that Baker either can’t or won’t tell the difference, even if it means trashing Cherokee citizens doing a thankless job.

Thanks Tulsa World for uncovering some Cherokee Truth.  Not just about what happened in the vault (ho-hum) but about Baker, too.