Election Limbo Part II, Day 14: John Blutarsky Edition

The voting is over right?  Please tell us the voting is over right?  That’s what the schedule says, that’s what the calendar says, but if there’s anything we’ve learned from this election, it’s that we should never say it’s over.   

We thought it was going to be over June 25.  Then we thought Baker won on the 26^th.  Then we thought Smith won on the 27^th.  Then we thought it would be over after the recount.  After the Election Commission botched that one, we thought it would be over after the court hearing, and their own personal recount.  We bet Smith hoped so too, because he was ahead then.  But was it over any of those times?   

Nope.  A new election was scheduled.  So we thought it would be over on September 24.  But then S. John Crittenbaker decided to extend the election two weeks for the freedmen, and then, AFTER ELECTION DAY, they decided SOME Cherokees could still vote, as long as, heaven forbid, they didn’t mail in their absentee ballots.  The Election Commission then decided that Cherokees who voted by mail deserved just as much an opportunity to vote as the ones who live in Tahlequah.  But it’s still not over.  Not even today.  Or tomorrow.

When will it be over?  Well, to quote an American icon:  “Nothing’s over until we decide it is!  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

Ummmm…. No.  

We’re putting the over-under for the inauguration as Halloween.  Which side is the smart money on?

Stayed tuned: tomorrow we get unofficial, semi-formal, partial results from the election commission.

Cherokee Truth will tell you what the numbers mean tomorrow night.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 13: What’s One More Week?

Yesterday, the election commission told us that even though we’ve already waited three and a half months since Election Day, and almost two months since inauguration of APCSJC, we still have to wait another week after voting ends tomorrow.

Usually on election night, they count the votes, declare a winner (unofficially), and they go home. Well, in June, their unofficial winner turned out to be different than their official winner, which may be why they want to take at least THREE DAYS to count the ballots this time, and then take up to another 48 hours after that to certify the election. That could put us into next Friday or Saturday.

The Election Commission did put out a news release about this, which is how we know, and they have some explanations:

“Because of the circumstances surrounding the special election for Principal Chief, the Commission has established a three-day process for counting the election results,” said Susan Plumb, chairperson of the Election Commission. “We know that this has been a long process and people are eager to know who will serve as the next Principal Chief, but the Commission must remain focused on its responsibility of providing the Cherokee people with an accurate, fair and impartial election.”

The commission says they will count walk-in votes on Sunday, then spend Monday processing absentee ballots, getting them ready to be counted. Why do they need a whole day? The commission has a reason: “12,000 registered Cherokee voters requested absentee ballots, which means there were more than 3,800 absentee ballots requested in special election than were requested in the June general election.”

That’s a bunch more absentee ballots. We know there were about 700 more walk-in votes on election day, but also that the increases mainly came in Smith areas. Now we find out that there are 3800 more mail-in votes possible (remember, not all those will be returned), and Smith had the edge on those in June as well, by about a 54-46 margin.

Which leads us to the last little chestnut from the election commission:

“Our sincerest hope is that the candidates will not speculate outcomes of this election until the last citizen’s vote is counted and that candidates will respect the Commission’s procedures and timelines that enable the Commission to fulfill its responsibility,” said Plumb.

We’re sure neither candidate would ever speculate--awwww… who are we kidding?? After all, they are going to count votes on Sunday, and presumably tell us who has the most, and then not count any more votes until Tuesday.

The ONLY thing that will happen between Sunday and Tuesday is speculation. Heck, there was speculation after the commission released TURNOUT figures about who was ahead, and we’re admittedly guilty of that (but at least we labeled it speculation). So Sunday night it will be interesting to see if our speculation from a couple of weeks ago is true: Did Smith gain ground on Baker in the walk-in votes? If so, by how much? If not, did Baker gain enough to offset what was a significant Smith advantage in mail-in votes in June, and might be larger considering how many more absentee ballots might now be in play?

Sorry Susan Plumb-- if it's going to take a week to tell Cherokees who their chief is, we’re pretty sure Cherokees will use that week to “speculate outcomes.”

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 10: Accountability Watch, Part 1

Today’s post doesn’t have a lot to do with the election, but it does have a lot to do with why Cherokee Truth even exists in the first place.  

We are going to make it a point to call out elected officials when they vote for something that is bad for their constituents but good for their political career.  And some of that happened last week at the Rules Committee meeting.

Lost in some of the discussion about who gets to vote after election day, and where they get to vote and when (all of which was decided by the freedmen, APCSJC and the BIA--at least two of which favor Baker for Chief), is the fact that the tribal council had an opportunity to send a message to the election commission about the idea that LATE voting should only take place in Tahlequah.

Smith made a big deal out of Baker voting against having any voting locations anywhere but Tahlequah. But Smith probably gives Baker too much credit--- the vote was 7-7, so Baker didn’t singlehandedly kill the idea of voting in other places besides Tahlequah.  He had some help.  Which made us wonder:  who was it that voted against their own constituents having a convenient way to vote late?

To start, there are 15 members currently on the council (APCSJC seat has yet to be filled, and Meredith Frailey is Acting Deputy Chief, so two seats are currently empty).  David Thornton arrived late, and didn’t vote.  So the council members who voted in favor of allowing people to vote in their own district were:  Lee Keener, Buel Anglen and Cara Cowan Watts, from District 5, Don Garvin and Janelle Fullbright from District 3 and at large council members Julia Coates and Jack Baker.  Voting against it were Baker, Tina Glory Jordan and David Walkingstick, who are all in District 1. Their folks are already voting in Tahlequah, so they were actually voting in favor of keeping an advantage for their constituents.  

That’s not the case for the other four voters. Jodie Fishinghawk from Stilwell and Curtis Snell from Kansas basically told their neighbors that if they wanted to vote late, they needed to drive to Tahlequah.  Same with Chuck Hoskin, Jr. from Vinita and Dick Lay from Ocheleta.

Lay is new on the council, so this was really one of his first votes, and it was to tell his constituents that they don’t deserve to be able to vote in  their district-- only in Tahlequah.  Our google maps show its 101 miles one way from Ochelata to Tahlequah.  202 miles round trip.  If you get 25 mpg that’s 8 gallons of gas-- a whopping $25+ to cast a vote.

Chuck Hoskin lives 70 miles away in Vinita.  That’s 140 miles round trip to vote.

Granted, any vote in a committee meeting would not have been binding, but it could have sent the election commission a message.  Hoskin, Lay, Fishinghawk and Snell could have at least made a symbolic gesture to fight for their constituents right to vote in their district during the extended voting times.

What do all of these council members have in common?  They all support Baker, not Smith, in the election. Baker wants the voting only to happen in Tahlequah, and at least four council members made the conscious choice to do what Baker wants instead of what would be good for the people that elected them. How's that for representation?

Election Limbo Part II, Day 9: "Diane Hammonds" Edition

This pops up on a google image
search for "Diane Hammonds." 
This is not, as some would suggest,
the Cherokee Nation's Attorney General.

Who is this "Diane Hammonds?"  Twice in the last two weeks, Baker has sent out statements demanding this woman take some action.  The problem is, Diane Hammonds probably isn’t who Baker thinks she is.

A couple of days before the election, Baker, in a press release, “demanded Attorney General Diane Hammonds open an investigation of Chad Smith for secretly cutting a deal with Congressmen in DC.”

He also said that “Council members are concerned that the fact that Hammonds was hand appointed by Smith she may put loyalty ahead of duty.”

 

Then this past Saturday, Baker issued another statement, ostensibly about the Cherokee Nation winning the DC lawsuit, but most of his comments were directed at Smith and this “Hammonds” person.  He wrote:   “Smith's handpicked Attorney General Diane Hammonds must immediately open an investigation of Smith's actions as demanded by Tribal Councilors or resign. She is paid by the Cherokee people, not Chad Smith.”

This is where we respectfully point out that the Cherokee Nation’s  Attorney General is named Diane Hammons.  There is no ‘D’ in her last name.  We all make the occasional typo, but in this case, Baker has used her name incorrectly three times in the past week and used it wrong every time. 

Baker has voted to approve Hammons twice, once as general counsel in January of 2006 (Resolution 03-06) and again in July of that year in the new Constitutional position of Attorney General (69-06). He even called her on the phone in this July’s Rules committee to make her promise to resign if he got elected and he didn’t like what she was doing.  Check out the video for yourself, about 90 minutes into the July Rules committee meeting.  

Again, the spelling of her name is clearly not a typo. This is three times in a little more than a week that Baker has incorrectly spelled the name of a Cherokee Nation Cabinet Member, whose name he (should) see in print at least once a month on Rules Committee agendas.  He talks in the Rules Committee about calling Hammons, but apparently her number is programmed into his cell phone as “Diane Hammonds.”

Considering Hammons reports monthly to the Rules Committee, and her name is on the agenda every  month, and that Baker has been on the council for 8 straight years, it’s a little disconcerting that he doesn’t know the name of the Cherokee Nation’s Attorney General.  Of course, there is another explanation:  Baker doesn’t read his own news releases before they go out, and they are being written by someone who doesn’t know the name of the Cherokee Nation’s Attorney General.  And, frankly, neither possibility is all that inspiring.

This pops up on a google
image search for "Diane Hammons." 
This is the Cherokee Nation
Attorney General.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 7: Kennedy’s Curve Ball

Judge Henry Kennedy

For the second time in 10 days, Judge Henry Kennedy out of Washington, DC has weighed in.  Late on Friday, he dismissed the 8 year old case the freedmen brought against Cherokee Nation.  So the Freedmen lost.  Does that mean the Cherokee Nation won?  Well, according to the Cherokee Nation’s Attorney General, absolutely.

Diane Hammons said that the order from the judge was “exactly what the Cherokee Nation had asked for.” News reports also quoted Smith as saying “Today’s ruling proves that when the Cherokee Nation stands up and fights for its rights, it can win.”

According to media reports, freedmen retain citizenship rights as part of the deal Crittenden, the freedmen and the BIA cut in Washington DC-- and Smith has some choice words to say about that on his Facebook page.

“Because Crittenden and his running mate Bill John Baker counted on the votes of non-Indian freedmen descendants, they willingly gave them citizenship rights just moments before a federal judge was going to rule that the Cherokee Nation didn't have to.  Bill John Baker won't stand up to the BIA and the freedmen:  when they could've won the case, they compromised instead.”

Baker, of course, says the Cherokee Nation won in spite of Smith, not because of him, and takes a less than optimistic view:   "We should fully expect and prepare for the Federal Government to sue our Nation and Chad Smith has proven over seven years he's not up to the task of defending us. Indeed his actions have prolonged this process."

Then he starts talking about Cherforce One again and secret, unknown deals made by Smith.  Well, S. John Crittenbaker’s deal was done in open court, and just because you give up sovereignty in full public view doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

So, in some ways this doesn’t effect our election.  Even though the freedmen lost their case, they still get to vote. 

In other ways, it really does effect the election! Remember the last two things that happened in the case, right before it got dismissed? 1) Grant voting rights to Baker supporters (who aren't Indians) and 2) extend voting after the election at Baker’s request (but only in Tahlequah).

If there hadn’t been a compromise by S. John Crittenbaker to give the freedmen citizenship and the right to vote along with extended voting privileges, it looks like Judge Kennedy would never have interfered, because afterall-- he was about to throw the whole case out! Oh, and we wouldn't be writing this blog BECAUSE THE ELECTION WOULD ALREADY BE OVER.

All we know for sure now is that Judge Henry Kennedy finally did what he intended to do on September 20th-- so at least now he can't be used by Crittenbaker, the Freedmen and the BIA to throw any more curve balls into this election.  

Click here to read Judge Kennedy's opinion.

Four Days Until the New Election: Beat to the Punch

So today was the day a federal court judge was going to tell us how or if we could run our own election, but it turns out the Freedmen and the BIA, working with APCSJC beat him to it.

According to media reports, our election is not only going to be this Saturday, but also the next few Saturdays. 

Crittenden cut a deal with the BIA and Freedmen that gave them their citizenship back, and allowed them to vote-- even extending the timeframe for voting until October 8, though the regular election is still on for Saturday.  Which Crittenden basically told us he’d do a few days ago if we were listening, when he said:  "They may have helped put me in office. I believe they're entitled to vote again.”

We’re not sure how this works, because the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court ruled that freedmen weren’t citizens, so how can APCSJC agree in federal court to grant them citizenship anyway?

We’re not sure, but he did.  His statement on the Cherokee Nation web site says “I am especially concerned about the funding that has been withheld.  I hope the action today will allow those $33 million in HUD funds to be released to us.  It’s a significant sum and the people at the Cherokee Nation who work in housing programs will not have to worry about the funding or services to our people.”  So, I guess if the Cherokee Nation does something the BIA doesn’t like, all they have to do is tell us they won’t give us any money and we’ll do whatever they say. 

So now the BIA and the freedmen get to tell us who votes in this upcoming election, not our Supreme Court and not our own Constitution.  How do the candidates feel about that?  Well, they are both pretty sure it is the other guy’s fault.

Baker blamed “Smith and his Supreme Court” for trying to steal the election and then demanding a new election, spending a fortune on lawyers and then losing the case.

All of which is a little weird,  considering that if the court was going to steal the election, they could’ve just made Smith Chief a few weeks ago and saved us a lot of trouble.  And that it was Baker who argued for a new election after the Supreme Court told him he had less votes than Smith, the court gave him what he wanted!  And that the Cherokee Nation didn’t lose the case, APCSJC just handed over the decision about who votes in our election without much of a fight.

Smith blamed Baker by saying "The agreement in the federal court is in direct violation of the decision of the highest Cherokee Nation court that Freedmen are not citizens of the Cherokee Nation.”  He said that Crittenden was doing Bakers dirty work, getting Freedmen special treatment and accusing them both of “sell(ing) out the Cherokee Nation to the BIA and non-Indian freedmen descendants for a few votes.”

To put this all in perspective, the people in Taiwan this morning are reading about us in their paper.  Here’s the message they are hearing: “Osiyo, y’all.  Cherokee Nation is a sovereign nation.  We’re just waiting for another nation to tell us how to run our elections and government.”

5 Days until the New Election: Smith's August Finances

As we discussed yesterday, this has become a $1 million Cherokee Chief campaign .  In the last few days before the election, we’ll spend some time talking about where that money is coming from and where it is being spent. We’ll start with Smith today and move to Baker later. 

Smith raised $154,108.99 in the most recent reporting period, including a $38,000 loan.  He had about 132 donors, for an average donation of $879 or so. Donors of note include Barry Derryberry, an OKC area attorney, Council member Jack Baker and former speaker of the house for Oklahoma Chris Benge.  The biggest expenses were $18,924 for telephone (which turns out not to be long distance calls to Uzbekistan, but actually phone polling), $35,106.24 for printing (mailers anyone?) and $23,131.50 for compensation to individuals.

The polling was done by Cole Hardgrave Snodgrass, who we talked about earlier.  He even spent $5,247 on office supplies, which is a lot of staplers and paper clips!

Smith’s total expenditures were $110,992.26, which leaves Smith with $42,616.73 in cash as of September 15. We’ll plan on Baker’s finance report tomorrow, but if our tribal court or the federal court come up with something soon, you’ll understand if we push it back, right?

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?