15 Days Until the Election- It's Getting a Little Ridiculous

Bill John Baker is keeping it interesting-- it seems like every day he throws something new out there. 

Today, he sent out an email blast declaring his opponent, "a man who blocked a bill that would have given councilors $40,000 to restore and protect cemeteries in their districts, but he has no problem spending $2 Million on a private plane- we need to Ground Smith."

The best part is that the Baker campaign  attaches a PDF of the legislation with Smith's veto stamped across the top. We're just wondering if the campaign itself read the entire document before sending it out. 

We read the whole thing, cuz that's what nerds like us do. And what is interesting reading is Chief Smith's explanation of the veto at the bottom of the document. He vetoed the legislation because it was unconstitutional. 

What? Cemetery preservation is unconstitutional? No.

Smith says any law passed that is to be executed by the legislative branch of Cherokee Nation's government, which is the Tribal Council, is unconstitutional, which is how this law is written. To put it simply, the Council can budget money but they aren't allowed to hand it out themselves. In fact, the document states a similar program was already in place and Smith believed duplicating it with an unconstitutional council hand-out program was illegal.

Did Chad Smith veto a law focused on Cherokee Cemetery Preservation back in 2004? Sure. But it's evident from the very documents sent out by Baker that it wasn't because Smith hates preserving sacred Cherokee cemeteries. Or because he needed the money to fuel his plane. 

The document indicates Baker and Smith both think Cherokee cemeteries should be preserved, they just disagree over how to get it done. For Baker to insinuate otherwise is not quite the truth.

16 Days Until the Election-Broken Promises

Tonight's truth delves into the murky water of campaign promises. Usually, a candidate waits until he/she is elected before they break a campaign promise. Remember "Read My Lips---No New Taxes?" But in this election, one candidate already has egg on his face. 

Since Bill John Baker first announced his candidacy for Principal Chief, he's made a big deal out of campaign finance, honesty and integrity. As recently as the end of April, Baker "challenged" Chad Smith to forgo campaign contributions from non-Cherokee, outside vendors. He also challenged Smith to not accept campaign donations from owners of businesses that contract with the tribe and its entities.

Baker, early on in January, told the Cherokee Phoenix, "I believe refusing contributions from anyone who benefits from contracts with our people will ensure there is not even the hint of impropriety or conflict of interest."

Then, in campaign material Baker mailed out to voters he made a promise. It was such a big promise that he underlined it. He declared to Cherokee voters that "He is the only candidate who refuses to accept campaign contributions from non-Cherokee outside vendors who make money from our Nation."

The Truth? Bill John Baker has taken at least $11,000 from three individuals who are both non-Cherokee AND vendors who make money by doing business with Cherokee Nation. What's even more startling is that when he made the above challenge to Smith on April 27, 2011, he had ALREADY POCKETED all $11,000 from the very folks he promised he would not take campaign contributions.

We'll break it down for you. Baker took $5,000 from non-Cherokee vendor Dr. Christopher DeLoache back on January 13, 2011. Dr. Deloache has made more than a million dollars thru his association with the tribe. 

Then, on April 14, 2011, he took $1,000 from Randy Skinner, owner of Tahlequah Lumber, a non-Cherokee vendor who has made more than $6.7 million doing business with Cherokee Nation.

A few days later on April 18, Baker pocketed another $5,000 from George Glover of Glover Construction Company who has been paid more than $6 million by the tribe for services rendered.

Want to see for yourself? Click here to and scroll down to page 4 to see DeLoache's donation and click here and scroll down to pages 5 and 7 to see Glover and Skinner's donations.

And because we are only interested in the truth, the Freedom of Information Act confirms what we are reporting tonight:

It's possible, but not likely, that Baker didn't know that three of his biggest campaign donors did business with the Cherokee Nation. Especially the two Tahlequah donors. If he knows them well enough to ask them for money, and he's made an important campaign promise about his donors, you'd think he'd ask them whether they did business with the Cherokee Nation.

In the campaign flyer in which Baker talks about not taking money from vendors, he also says 'the integrity of tribal government needs to be restored.' At this point, Baker needs to either return the money and keep his promise, or admit that he's breaking his promise.

The Truth is that Baker broke a campaign promise just weeks after he made it, and weeks before he was even an official candidate.

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.  

18 Days Until the Election- Debate Round 2!

A rapid fire debate hosted by Rogers State U in Claremore crammed 8 questions, answers, rebuttal and closing statements into roughly 30 minutes.  A lot of information and relatively few fireworks compared to the Tahlequah debate.  In this case, we’re just reporting what the candidates said.  We’ll try to come back with the TRUTH on anything that’s iffy here, so keep that in mind.  We haven’t had time since the debate to fact check all these claims, though some of them have already been dealt with.

You can check out the debate for yourself online here.

After a brief intro of each candidate they started in on questions.  The first one was about protecting Cherokee interests in compacts with the state.  Smith went first and said he would ‘jealously protect our sovereignty’ and ‘we will not yield.’  Very patriotic sounding stuff.  Baker didn’t disagree, and said that he was part of a team that negotiated a successful motor vehicle compact between the Cherokee Nation and the state back in the mid 90s.

More agreement on the second question, which was about the citizenship status of the Freedmen.  Baker went first and said it’s in the courts now and ‘when the courts decide I’ll follow’ what they say.  Smith agreed, and pointed out that as Chief his duty is to defend the Constitution, and since the Cherokee people decided in the Constitution what the citizenship qualifications are, it’s his duty to defend that.  He also brought up a point about the opportunity for reconciliation with Freedmen after the court decision, however it turns out.

The candidates disagreed on term limits.  Smith again said he was against them and saying that we fought for the rights to elect our Chief since 1907 and questioned why would we want to give it back.  Baker disagreed, and says that since Smith has been Chief for so long, he’s appointed every judge on the Supreme Court, and the Attorney General, and others, and that ‘when you get in that position, you think you are above the law.’  Smith countered by saying that the council, which includes Baker, has to approve all his appointments and that when the Cherokees had a Chief who fired the court judges and the newspaper editor, the Cherokee people put a 1-term limit on that guy by voting him out.

The next question had to do with improving health care.  Baker said “we’re doing pretty good,” but that we could do better by spending money on paying off our clinics instead of building more casinos and hotels, and that way more money would go for health care.  Smith listed off numerous clinics constructed or expanded since he took office…we lost track but we think he mentioned Vinita, Salina, Sallisaw, Muskogee, Nowata and maybe Jay.  He also talked about improving services at Hastings and how the health budget has increased from $18 million to more than $300 million since he’s been in office. 

Another question was on making education more accessible.  Smith talked about how 23,000 students have received scholarships since he’s been in office, and that education has to build leaders for the future.  Baker said that the Cherokee Nation education department just cut scholarships ‘to the poorest of the poor kids’ who get Pell scholarships.  He reminded us of the Cherokee Nation’s great history in education, dating back to our missionary schools and seminaries.

Things got slightly more heated on the question of involving Cherokees who live outside the Cherokee Nation boundaries.  Baker answered first and said that he feels they’ve been ‘left out on the car tag compact,’ especially the people who live across the border in Tulsa or Muskogee who can’t get tags even though the tag money goes to their public school system.   Smith countered by saying the Nation has established at-large communities to provide a connection with heritage and the Nation, and offered the history class to more than 10,000 people.  On the car tag issue, he said a candidate who will say anything to get elected will do anything once he is elected, but he ‘can’t change the boundaries of the Nation and to suggest otherwise is unlawful.’  Baker disagreed, saying ‘Osages, Creeks and Keetoowahs’ all have car tags in Tahlequah, so Cherokees in other parts of the state should be able to have tags as well.

They asked a question about jobs, and Smith talked about creating 5,000 jobs by planning for the future.  He said “the greatest service we can provide our people is a job,’ and pointed to jobs in aerospace, environmental, and IT companies that give people a chance to support their own families.  Baker said he disagrees with Smith about the number of jobs created, but the real issue is that ‘the Chief will not demand we hire Cherokees.’  Smith replied that Indian preference is the policy in place and that more than 70% of the workforce is Native.

The last question was about top priorities in office.  Baker led off by saying that he wants to ‘take away the fear and intimidation from employees’ and make them feel like ‘it’s their Cherokee Nation.’  He would start construction for houses and start hiring Cherokees.  Smith took exception to Baker’s comments about fear and intimidation, pointing out the pre-Smith era, when Baker was on the council and supportive of the previous Chief, where hundreds of Cherokees were laid off and furloughed, and the budgets couldn’t be audited, as a time for embarrassment for all Cherokees.  Baker responded by giving a shout out to the folks at the Cherokee Phoenix and their truth report, saying that wasn’t true, and that he was going to work for better health care, not jobs in Colorado.

The candidates each got a closing statement, with Smith going first.  He said the voters had an opportunity to look at the 12 years each have spent in office.  Smith pointed out his accomplishments again, including kids ‘texting in Cherokee’ and said Baker won’t tell you what he has done since he’s been in office, instead, ‘ using negative, deceptive mail’ and ‘slurs and attacks.’

Baker closed with a prepared, written statement saying ‘good isn’t good enough’ and that he wants to ‘build 100s of homes with money we already have,’ and that he’ll sell the CN/CNB plane.

That’s our blow by blow but you should take half an hour and watch it for yourself.

19 Days Until the Election- Watch for Flying Mud

Nothing like a federal investigation to get the election kicked into high gear.  Even if it appears to only be a one day long investigation that never really WAS an investigation to begin with.

The Baker campaign said they had ‘clear evidence’ that Smith’s campaign was ‘violating federal law by shaking down tribal employees for money.’  In an email blast, Bakers campaign said Smith’s actions were ‘not only wrong, but illegal.’

Baker attached a letter  that he says three Cherokee Nation employees high up in the health department sent to other health group employees. The letter spends a lot of time talking about how awesome the health group is, a paragraph or so talking about registering to vote in the election, etc. and a few sentences on giving to Smith’s campaign, asking ‘health professionals’ to give ‘$500-$1000’ to Smith’s campaign.  Baker claims this is a violation of something called the Hatch Act.

Smith’s campaign responds by saying the U.S. Attorney has already looked at this and said nothing illegal happened.  Smith’s email includes comments from the Cherokee Nation Attorney General Hammons who said, “I was made aware of allegations by Bill John Baker's campaign that Cherokee Nation Health Services employees had violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for Chad Smith. I have spoken with the U. S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and have been informed that there is no Hatch Act violation. That federal Act pertains to partisan campaign actions by federal employees. The employees are not federal employees and a tribal election is not a partisan election.” (click link for full story)

This can hardly be the first time in the history of Cherokee elections that employees have been asked to donate money to candidates.  It is the first time anyone thought it was a violation of federal law, and the feds have said, no, that’s not the case.  We assume Baker doesn’t think this is a violation of tribal law, or he would have said so.

It’s amazing how much time is being spent on who is giving to whom, but those are a lot of the questions we are getting at Cherokee Truth.

In this case, Baker immediately got an answer to a legal question he raised.  Hopefully, from here on out, he’ll use the truth to educate Cherokee voters.  Maybe he doesn’t like employees supporting Smith, but he shouldn’t accuse them of breaking the law if they haven’t done so.  Maybe that one-day "investigation" will be the end of it, but for some reason we don’t think so.

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.

21 Days Until the Election- The Biggest Lie Thus Far

Bill John Baker claims the Cherokee Nation has lost 1,000 Cherokee jobs since Chad Smith has been Chief.  We pointed out that was hooey about two weeks ago but the Cherokee Phoenix had the resources to show exactly how far off Baker (and Smith) have been on their claims about jobs.

We’ll just quote from the Phoenix here, so no one thinks we are making this up: 

Baker “says in 1999 the tribe employed about 3000 Cherokees, while the Housing Authority of the Cherokee Nation and W.W. Hastings Hospital, as stand alone entities, each employed about 1000 workers. He says if Hastings and former HACN employees are being counted now by the administration, then there were 5,000 Cherokee jobs. The tribe's and Cherokee Nation Businesses’ employment numbers now collectively sit at approximately 8,200 jobs. However, Baker says only half of those are Cherokee.”  (scroll down to page 10).

The TRUTH?  CN and its businesses had 2410 employees (not 3000) in 1999.  HACN had 204 employees in 1999, not 1000.  Hastings was operated by IHS in 1999, so the earliest records Cherokee Nation had are for 2008, when Cherokee Nation took it over.  The number for 2008, was 522 employees, not 1,000.    So that’s a grand total of 3,136 employees in 1999.  So Baker is off by a whopping 1,864 jobs.  If the Cherokee Nation had nine more housing authorities than it actually did in 1999, it still wouldn’t have has as many employees as Baker tells people it did.   So that’s the biggest lie of the campaign so far.

The Phoenix says there are not records for how many employees were Cherokee in 1999. But, they do know how many employees are Cherokee today:  5,073, or 61%-- way more than half.  So even if every employee in 1999 were Cherokee (doubtful), Smith has created almost 2,000 jobs for Cherokees, and likely a lot more.  And according to the Cherokee Phoenix, Smith may be underselling the job creation.  It’s between 5,100 and 5,800 jobs, depending on how you look at it.

The Cherokee Phoenix did not come right out and say it, but the idea that the Cherokee Nation employs 1,000 fewer Cherokee citizens than it did in 1999 is ridiculous and an outright lie.  So hopefully Baker will quit saying it.

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.

23 Days Until The Election: Double Truth, Feat. Cherokee Phoenix

We’ll borrow again from our friends at the Cherokee Phoenix and their new online edition of the paper.  They do a truth report, which gets to the facts behind the claims candidates are making and either verify, disprove, or throw a big confusing question mark on the whole deal.  We try to sort through the question marks to the truth. 

Rather than take them one by one, we’ll do two separate posts, each of which might make one of the candidates mad. Basically, we’ll do one on the things the Phoenix says Baker is truthful about and/or Smith is lying about, and another one on the things Smith is truthful about and/or Baker is lying about.

We’ll start with what the Phoenix says Baker is truthin’ about (scroll down to page 10 on the link to follow along).

First, the Phoenix says Baker is telling the truth there are $42 million in health care carryover. No context is provided as to what this means, or what Smith might say about it, but the Phoenix confirms it is true on face value.

Next, it also says that Baker is telling the truth when he says the housing authority has $25 million in ‘current assets’ that could be used for housing. 

The Phoenix says that Baker is telling the truth when he says ‘only a nickel out of every dollar of CNB’s revenues went towards services to the people.’  We’ve spent some time on that, with our Show Me The Money blog.

It’s very misleading, but not false, because revenues mean total dollars taken in. So if you buy gas at the Outpost, Cherokee people get a nickel for every dollar you spend there, even before the Outpost buys the gas from whoever they buy it from.  Cherokee Nation gets 30% of the PROFITS and 70% stays at CNB for reinvestment and to create jobs.

The Phoenix says Baker is telling the truth when he says Cherokee Nation has tied up “$24 million in vacant jobs” in the budget.  No explanation or context is given, though we presume everyone wants those jobs filled with Cherokees.

Tomorrow: The Double Truth About Chad Smith

24 Days Until the Election- Finger Pointing over Money

Both campaigns have recently pointed fingers at the other guys’ campaign contributors.  Baker says he wants “to keep Chad’s corporate donors from buying this election.”  He says his campaign is “scaring the pants off Chad Smith’s inner circle of executives and rich big wigs.”

Well, we can’t verify how scared they are, where their pants are, or the size of their wigs. And, as we have noted before, corporate donors are illegal, so we’re assuming if these folks truly were “corporate donors,” Baker would have reported it to the Election Commission and they would have dealt with it.

But, what we can do is simple math. 

Over the two reporting periods so far, Baker has had 137 people donate to his campaign, and they have given a combined total $129,328.28.  That works out to just over $944 a donor on average.

Over the same two reporting periods, Smith has raised $185,715.86 from 226 donors. That comes to an average contribution of under $822 per donor.

Baker has also loaned his campaign nearly $70,000, which could buy a nice size wig, if one were so inclined, but that is not factored into his average per donor give.

Overall, Baker has had nearly $200,000 to spend so far on his campaign, nearly $90,000 coming from himself and his family.  With those resources, he has raised more than Smith. 

Smith’s donor list does have a lot of people listed as executives.  Some are recognizable as Cherokee Nation employees or people who work for Cherokee Nation’s businesses or boards, so Baker is right about people in Smith’s inner circle giving to Smith’s campaign.

But let’s be real. Neither campaign is being financed by poor people on social security.  And yes, it’s possible someone is trying to ‘buy the election.’  But, we’ll leave it up to you to figure out who.