By CHEROKEE ONE FEATHER EDITORIAL BOARD
The community should craft the governing document for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Certainly, the community will want legal guidance for the process. That is just a reality of our times. We have become a society of vague language, with multiple meanings and motives attached to the words we write.
In the many iterations of proposed governing documents and particularly with the most recent failed effort, the government kept its distance from formulating a constitution for the tribe. Elected leaders recognized that, even though they themselves were and are community members, they also had real or perceived conflicts of interest when it comes to crafting a governing document. It is challenging to put personal goals aside for communal goals when talking about, for example, term limits for elected officials. That is one of many areas of impact that a constitution might have on our government leaders.
Because our election process runs on a two-year cycle, with Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) seats potentially being unseated and reseated with new members, the Constitution effort has now been subjected to the political environment. There is now potential for the effort to become a part of the loop that tribal projects and legislation get into as Dinilawigi members are not reelected and new ones take seats. Support and understanding for issues differ from one elected official to the next, and while a sitting Dinilawigi person might approve of content or language, the next person who takes the seat may not share or approve of the previous Dinilawigi member’s position. This may lead to re-educating, re-evaluating, and rewriting of the document. It may also force changes in leadership of the Constitutional Delegates because this committee is structured on governmental guidelines with elected officials and political appointees making up a significant portion of the committee.
Because the history of voter turnout makes it necessary for referendum questions to be put to the people during the Ugvwiyuhi (Principal Chief) election cycle, the stated goal of this committee is to have a draft constitution that may be approved for referendum questions to appear on the 2027 tribal ballot. We hope that the work will be able to continue and meet that goal, even with the 2025 mid-term election potentially changing the makeup of the Constitution Delegation.
We feel that many of the systematic challenges our tribe faces come from the lack of a bill or document of rights for the membership. Our community deserves for the Constitution to be a “front burner” issue and, as tribal members, we should fully engage in the discussion in any forum available to us so that the new document will truly be “by the people, for the people”.
