12 Days Until the New Election: Betting the Farm

The Tulsa World did a finance story over the weekend about the campaign, and got some answers to questions we’ve been wondering about ourselves.

They noticed that Baker has lost money on his furniture business, but still managed to loan himself $155,000.  Baker told the World that he was “plowing a good portion of my lifetime profits into trying to serve the Cherokee people.”

That’s the first time we’ve heard a peep from Baker about how he’s paying for the election, so many thanks to the World for getting Baker on the record.   The World also solved the mystery of how Baker’s income is less than his actual council salary.  They say “much of his $36,000 council-member salary is withheld for tax purposes or goes directly into a retirement fund.”

Smith has loaned himself $40,000, which we’ve covered before as well.  He says that money comes from a loan.  He tells the World:  "For my adult years, I've worked hard, paid my taxes and provided for my family. I do not have the means to self-fund my campaign."

So it looks like both candidates are betting the farm on this one.  The stakes are not just high for the Nation, but for the candidates themselves, which may be a contributing factor in the high emotions surrounding this election.

13 Days Until the New Election: Best Month Ever

Best month ever!  Very Nice!

Yesterday we looked at Chad Smith’s most recent campaign finance reports, to see who is giving him money and what he is spending it on.  Today, it’s Baker’s turn, and we’ll repeat some of yesterday’s caveats:

Keep in mind, this reporting period is for the calendar month of July, which, looking back, went something like recount, court appeal, second recount, court orders new election, Deputy Chief election, then we’re pretty much in August.  The new election was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 21 (see our riveting blog here).

Baker’s report though, covers July 15-August 15, so his numbers should, and are, higher than Smith's.

In fact, the Baker campaign might call July 15-August 15 the best month ever.  The Supreme Court didn’t make Smith chief, even though they counted more votes for Smith.  Baker’s Deputy Chief fave S. Joe Crittenden won the runoff election, and then got sworn in as APCSJC on August 14.  Then on August 15, Baker turned in a report showing that he raised almost $100,000 in those 30 days, which is almost half as much as he raised from other folks this whole election cycle up until July 15.  And he didn’t have to add to the $155,000 in loans he’s made to his campaign.  So again, a pretty good month for Baker. 

His contributors include a few folks who gave to Smith before, so some people may be hedging their bets.  Contributors of note include $1000 bucks from election commissioner-to-be Susan Plumb, $500 from freedmen advocate David Cornsilk, and $2000 from former Supreme Court Justice and Chief candidate Stacy Leeds.  Also, another big donation from a Cherokee Truth reader, but we’ll let that person ID themselves if they wish.

Baker’s expenditures for the month totaled $68,438.79.  His biggest expenses were related to the recount and other miscellaneous ($28,500) and printing ($26,969).

Baker’s attorney Kalyn Free got $10k for ‘lawsuit’ and a DC firm got $20,000 for mail printing.

Baker’s cash on hand was $61,176.20 on August 15.

Baker’s total contributions from others so far now total $291,445.62.

That’s on top of the $155,000 loan, which puts the total money in his campaign so far at $446,445.62.

The September 15 reports will be out soon, and we’ll get you information on those as quick as we can.  If any of our readers have access to those reports, please email them to cherokeetruth@gmail.com.

14 Days Until the New Election: Money Money Money!

Maybe it’s a little overdue (since we’re into September), but we owe it to you, our readers, to keep up with our campaign finance watchdoggery. Mainly because no one else is really trying very hard!  We’ll look at Smith and Baker’s August 15 financial reports in the next couple of days.  Today, we’ll start with Smith and tomorrow we’ll go with Baker.

Keep in mind, this reporting period is for the calendar month of July, which, looking back, went something like recount, court appeal, second recount, court orders new election, Deputy Chief election, then we’re pretty much in August.  The new election was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 21 (see our riveting blog from that day here).

So there wasn’t much time for fundraising, or much to spend money on, for either of the candidates.

Smith started with $28,060, raised $12,890 and loaned himself $26,003.  That brings his total loans to about $40,000. Click here to reference Smith's entire report.

Interesting donors include state legislator Brian Bingman, former Cherokee Supreme Court Justice Philip Viles, and an employee Baker wrongfully accused of breaking the law. 

Smith’s expenditures for the month totaled $53,824.  The biggest expenditures were for miscellaneous/recount/election challenge, which includes paying some lawyers.  That total was $18,631.  Next was advertising, which might be bills coming in from the ads placed prior to the June election.  The total there was $16,698.

Smith’s cash on hand at the end of July was $13,129.87

Smith’s fundraising total through the whole campaign $391,565.07. On top of his $40,103.91 in loans,  Smith has had a total of $431,668.98 to spend on his campaign thus far. 

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!

16 Days Until the New Election: Barney Frank Edition

News on Wednesday is that the smart folks at HUD can’t figure out what the law is, so they are holding up $33 million of housing funding that was set to hit the Cherokee Nation’s bank account.  HUD told the Tulsa World they had “suspended disbursements to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma while we seek additional guidance on an unclear statute involving the Freedmen. The funding can be restored once this issue is resolved.”

Cherokee Nation Attorney General weighed in with a strongly worded letter, telling HUD that if they don’t understand the law, it doesn’t mean the Cherokees don’t get their money.  It might just mean that the folks at HUD are dumb.  Channel 6 posted Hammons’ letter, and for us was the part where she said: “If Congress wanted to deny funding to the Cherokee Nation, it would have done so…. Congress made a choice that did not side with a particular party, but instead maintained the status quo until the tribal courts decided the matter.”

So just to be clear to the folks at HUD:  Congress could’ve denied funding to the Cherokee people, but they didn’t.  So go ahead and make that check payable to Cherokee Nation, Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC), and don’t even think about back dating it.

Speaking of APCSJC, we heard from him on this issue, and both candidates as well, in a Smoot article in the Muskogee Phoenix.  Crittenden told us everything’s going to be all right, he’s got it under control, which is good to know.

Baker said it’s all Smith’s fault, saying he could’ve kept congress from choosing sides.  Of course, Hammons says that’s what the law says already, and Crittenden apparently thinks so too, because he says the Nation is complying with the law and he’ll get our funding.

Smith challenges Baker to fight for Cherokees-- and that the Freedmen, who publicly support Baker, are the only people actively seeking to cut services to the Cherokee Nation if they can’t win their legal arguments (or the constitutional votes of the Cherokee people). 

Congressman Barney Frank, (D) Mass.

And of course, this wouldn’t be the Barney Frank edition of the Cherokee Truth if the Massachusetts congressman didn’t weigh in, because, after all, this is a big issue up in Boston.   Frank, according to Indian Country Today, told HUD not to part with a penny for the Cherokee Nation.

Of course, Frank is an expert on the legal intricacies of this case because…?  If you are not familiar with Frank’s track record, google him up.  For instance, last year a tribal leader in California said one of Frank’s proposals was ‘the biggest threat to Indian gaming in 20 years.'

We’ve had a little fun with this, but it’s not really a laughing matter.  There’s $33 million that’s supposed to be heading to Tahlequah to pay employees and help Cherokees.  As much faith as we have in APCSJC, that’s a whole lot of rental assistance, so we hope that gets worked out soon.

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. 

22 Days Until the New Election: Pants on Fire!

Our evening did not go according to plan.  We had a blog ready to go, until we got a phone call and had to write a new blog.  Because if there is one thing you can’t do to us here at Cherokee Truth, its call us up on the phone, act surly, and lie to us.  And that’s what happened tonight.

We got phone call(s) that said, to the best of our note taking ability: “For 12 years Chad Smith has refused to audit the casino’s finances but Bill John Baker will order an independent audit to make sure that casino money goes for services to the Cherokee people and not to line the pockets of campaign contributors and vendors.  I hope that Bill John can earn your vote in the upcoming election.”

As readers of the Cherokee Truth know, this is a lie and worse-- Baker knows it is a lie!  As we showed everyone in May, 53 Days before the June election, the Cherokee Nation and its businesses are audited every year and win awards.  Mr. Baker knows this, because the audit is not only presented to the CNB Board (of which he is an advisory member,Resolution R-52-10) but also the council’s executive and finance committee just a few months ago.

Not only are the audits for the past 10 years available online, but video footage of Baker sitting and listening to the audit being presented is also available online!

The auditor even talks about the special audit of JUST THE CASINOS, which is sent to the feds every year for compliance purposes.

There’s also the Tulsa World story that cites a national rating company for praising Cherokee Nation for its "careful and conservative governmental financial management" and for its "ability to manage cash flow issues." It goes on to tout Cherokee Nation's creation and expansion of non-gaming businesses like health care and information technology. 

To sum up:  The casinos are audited every year.  They win awards for their clean audits.  Baker knows this and lies about it anyway.  Apparently he thinks no one will notice that he’s not telling the TRUTH. He must think we’re all stupid and can’t look up readily accessible public information that shows he’s lying.

We’re sure the Cherokee Nation isn’t perfect, and Baker can certainly point out all the flaws he wants, but if he has to lie to people to create problems with the Cherokee Nation, that says more about him than it does anyone else.

23 Days Until the New Election: Judge Not the Judges

More thoughts tonight on the recent Freedmen decision. We’ve seen a lot of comments from people online saying that the court which made the decision, did so to impact Chad Smith’s chances of re-election.  Like we mentioned yesterday, the perception seems to be that 1) the Supreme Court Justices knew that Freedmen were all Baker supporters; 2) that the Supreme Court wants to help Smith get re-elected; and 3) that the Court kicked the Freedmen out so that they couldn’t vote for Baker, thus making it easier for Smith to win.

This line of reasoning really does a HUGE injustice to our Supreme Court.  Whatever you think of them and their decisions, you do need to look at the public record.  Trivia time:  What is the only court in the whole United States to say that people who aren’t Indian at all (at least according to the Dawes Rolls) can be citizens of the Cherokee Nation?  

If you guessed the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, you are right!

Federal courts have upheld the right of Cherokee nation to decide who its citizens are.  And we have, through our courts in the Allen case and through our 2007 Constitutional amendment.

Whatever your stance on the Freedmen citizenship issue, it’s easy for any Cherokee to be a little upset by the idea that the Cherokee courts are brilliant, infallible, legal minds when they rule in your favor, like they did in 2006 and again in Cherokee Nation district court in January.  But when the court rules against you, they are political hatchetmen?  Neither of those things is the CHEROKEE TRUTH.

The TRUTH is that if the Supreme Court wanted to make it easy for Smith to be Chief, they could’ve made him Chief back in July.  He asked them to, after all.  They counted the votes with their own hands and saw that Smith had more than Baker.  Most times, the person with the most votes wins an election, but the court said there were too many irregularities on behalf of the election commission and ordered a new vote.

Our point is, if the Supreme Court were going to do everything in their power to make Smith the Chief, he would’ve been sworn in a couple of weeks ago and he’d be front and center at the Cherokee National Holiday this weekend. 

To say anything about our court besides the fact that they are qualified, accomplished Cherokee attorneys who can impartially adjudicate the law is a disservice to them, and to some degree the Cherokee Nation as a whole.