By ROBERT JUMPER
One Feather Editor
Newly selected, government-approved, delegates have been selected from various segments of the community, including the appointees from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Executive Office and elected officials from Tribal Council. In case you missed the announcement, the delegates include Tribal Council Delegates Chairman Mike Parker and Painttown Rep. Michael Stamper; Pam Straughan representing the Executive Office; Judges Brenda Pipestem and Barbara Sunshine Parker from the Judicial Office; Shannon Swimmer and Melvin Crowe from the Cherokee Community Club Council; Lloyd Arneach Jr. and Carmaleta Monteith from the pre-existing Constitution Committee; and a Young Adult Group selected Colby Taylor and Avery Maples.
Tommy Chekelelee for the Community Club Council, Peggy Hill for the Constitution Committee, and Jack Cooper for the Young Adult Group were selected as “alternates” which I presume is a position that will stand in should one of the delegates from those categories not be able to attend meetings and votes.
All were selected by Jan. 25.
At some point, this group will begin the process of making decisions about how to proceed in the quest for a tribal constitution. Some say it will begin anew. At this point, no one seems quite sure what the next steps are. Over the past few months since the sudden opposition of the tribal legal establishment to the constitutional draft approved by Tribal Council in 2023 to take to the people for a decision via referendum question derailed a six-year effort to replace the tribal charter. While the legal establishment likes the Charter because of the flexibility it affords them when negotiating business deals with other governments and in business ventures, it is void of basic civil rights with the exception of a right to equitable representation (which is supposed to be secured with a census) and a reference to the right to vote. The rest of the rights that you would normally find in a constitution are not there.
Proposed term questions were also removed from the ballot in 2023, right before the election. These questions had been in place for two years, introduced in 2020, and approved unanimously by Tribal Council that same year. At that time, members of the Council said it was way beyond time for this question (on terms) to be put to the people for their decision. One representative actually said that he was glad to see them being put forward. The questions were reworded early in 2021 to better clarify and to make it easier for the voters to understand the intent of the questions and again the sitting Tribal Council unanimously approved the questions for a referendum vote by the people, with no opposition to them until the opposition to the constitutional questions came up. And then, in one session, the Council eliminated all those governance questions from the ballot.
The struggle for a tribal constitution has been a thing for decades, not just the last six years. In a government where some or all of the representatives are up for election every two years, gaining consensus on an item like a tribal constitution is fraught with barriers. Well-meaning members of our tribe who know there is a need for a true constitution have been frustrated at every turn by government itself. Economic development suffers from a similar fate. It is the reason, in part, that the tribe opted for creating the Kituwah LLC Board to streamline the decision-making process to allow the tribe’s economic development to move at the speed of business instead of government.
For the years that the most recent Constitution Committee had been at work, requests for legal consultation on the constitution drafts went unanswered. And yet it was our legal division that came to the Constitution Committee and Community Club Council’ after the Tribal Council had approved the referendum questions and announced that the sky was falling. They introduced competing legislation to dissolve and replace the referendum on a constitution, which ultimately led to the sweeping withdrawal of the people’s opportunity to choose through referendum. Interestingly, the legal division is not represented in the new Constitutional Convention delegation.
I was and am an advocate for term reform for our tribal government. I believe our legislators are constrained by the system of representative musical chairs that they and we endure every two years. It forces an environment of perpetual campaign mode for those whose primary focus should be governance, not politicking. This is not an indictment of people, but the system. Our representatives make it work, but it could work better with longer terms, staggered terms, and reasonable term limits. The reasons have been hashed out over and over. This is something that should be a forefront discussion as the Constitutional Convention goes to work. Most of all, I am in favor of giving the people the right to make the choices on terms whether it is a stand-alone issue or as part of a constitutional question.
As I watched the last three years of the constitution creation process, I saw people putting heart and soul into creating a draft made by the people, for the people. I was there as they begged the community for input. I watched as they reached out for legal help in the language of the document. They went to community club meetings to educate and to solicit community input. They created forums for community members to participate in. They engaged the Cherokee Community Club Council to review, approve, and endorse the constitutional draft, section by section, article by article. And one cannot help but wonder what awaits this new iteration of a constitution planning committee.
So far, there hasn’t been public facing information coming from the Constitutional Convention. A couple of information sessions to probe for ideas from the community were held, one with an outside consultant from a tribe that had gone through the constitution creation process, although she admitted that our tribe’s situation and circumstances were very different from the tribe she worked with. Since the last delegates were selected and announced, no more information has been made public. Even the selection process for the delegates has been done out of the public eye. Transparency must be more than a buzzword in the formulation of a people’s governing document.
As I have said before, I enjoy reading the biography of Principal Chief Robert Youngdeer (“The Memoirs of Robert Youngdeer: Marine, Chief, and Proud American”, 2012, Museum of the Cherokee Indian Press). He had a straightforward approach to his writing, and I believe many of his assertions and conclusions hold true today. Concerning the process in the mid-1980s Chief Youngdeer said the following in a section titled Still No Constitution:
“It is very disturbing to me that we can’t come up with a constitution.”
Go read the reasons for yourself. Pages 398 to 400. We need a constitution more than we know.
I pray that the newly formed delegation, charged through Tribal Council resolution to develop a draft constitution will use wisdom and stay focused. I hope that our community engages like never before to build a governing document that will refer to us as citizens with sovereign rights and not members who have temporal privileges. This delegation may be one of the most important representative organizations in our tribe. They have the opportunity to make history and establish the blueprint for the tribe’s future.
