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Diné (Navajo) Local Governance Projects

Year

Formed in 1989 by the Navajo Nation Council, the Office of Navajo Government Development works with the Diné people and their elected leaders to conduct government reform, foster the incorporation of Navajo culture and tradition into the Navajo Nation Code, and facilitate the transference of responsibilities from the central Navajo government to the local or chapter level. As a body dedicated to improving government performance, the Office played a key role in the passage of the 1998 Local Governance Act and has developed and informed numerous legislative initiatives that expand tribal sovereignty and increase governmental accountability, transferability, and efficiency.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

"Government Reform, Diné Appropriate Government, Local Governance Projects". Honoring Nations: 2002 Honoree. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2003. Report.

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This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.  

Brenda Child: The Red Lake Nation: Laying a Solid Foundation for Constitutional Reform

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In this informative interview with NNI's Ian Record, Brenda Child, a member of the Red Lake Constitution Reform Initiative Committee, discusses how the Committee has worked methodically to set in place a solid foundation upon which to engage Red Lake citizens about the Red Lake constitution and whether and how they should strengthen it through reform. She also shares how the Committee began by educating itself about Indigenous constitutionalism in general and the origins of Red Lake's current constitution in particular.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Child, Brenda. "The Red Lake Nation: Laying a Solid Foundation for Constitutional Reform." Leading Native Nations interview series, Native Nations Insitute for Leadership, Management and Policy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, April 2, 2014. Interview.

Ian Record:

"We're here with Brenda Child who's from the Red Lake Nation, Red Lake Band of Chippewa, and we're here to talk a little bit about constitutionalism and constitutional reform. In addition to being an academic -- as we were just discussing -- a professor at the University of Minnesota, you also have the honor of being a member of Red Lake's newly formed or somewhat newly formed Constitutional Reform Committee. And I guess if you can just start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and how you came to be on...become a part of the committee and then we'll sort of delve into what the committee does as they move forward."

Brenda Child:

"So the committee that formed at Red Lake is a...it's a committee apart from the tribal council, but it was their...the tribe's economic development office was in charge of soliciting applications from tribal members to be part of the committee and so I applied as did everybody else and a dozen or so of us were selected to be on the committee. I was very happy about the way...when they asked me to kind of apply to the committee because they said, you...because I teach in the Twin Cities they said I could apply as the representative from Minneapolis or I could apply from my reservation district, my hometown, which is Redby, and that made me happy because I think we're trying to get away from that, ‘Those of you who work in the city or in urban areas...,' because there's so much fluidity now between people who live in urban areas and on the reservation. But at Red Lake maybe some of that might be particularly strong because we do...Red Lake is one of those places that, as you know having visited there, we didn't lose our land or our land wasn't allotted in the course of the late 19th and the early 20th century. So we have a very large homeland and there is some significant part of our population that does live on our homelands at Red Lake."

Ian Record:

"So can you give me a nutshell overview of what the charge of the committee is? So basically this committee is formed and then they're telling you, ‘Here's your job, here's your task, here's how we expect you to carry it out.'"

Brenda Child:

"The great thing about our charge for the constitution committee at Red Lake is that we were able to secure a really nice grant from the Bush Foundation, which allowed us to have a staff on the reservation to kind of organize a lot of our regular meetings and our community meetings, the first leg of which we've just passed in the last week or so where we've been attending public meetings with the community. But we...yeah, so the idea was...we didn't...because we have a staff and because we had this grant from the Bush Foundation, we were able to really focus and think about this as a long term project, not just something, ‘Let's get in and out, think about a new constitution, write it up and see if we can get a tribal referendum.' And so we've tried to be very thoughtful about how we've approached this work and in the first year...so our committee has been meeting for about a year. Fortunately, we're a very kind of congenial group of people who are very supportive of one another. We've been meeting twice a month over the last year. Usually we meet on the reservation and we meet usually for about four hours at a time. We tend to be very deliberate talkers and we listen very carefully to one another. So initially we thought of our charge as being to learn as much as we could about the history of our own constitutions at Red Lake, to learn more about constitutionalism and then to eventually write a new tribal constitution that will be put forward for tribal referendum."

Ian Record:

"You just mentioned one of the tasks, as you see it and as your fellow committee member sees it, is to understand the history of Red Lake's constitutionalism if you will."

Brenda Child:

"Yeah."

Ian Record:

"Let's talk a bit more about that. Why -- from your perspective and based upon what you've been learning from others and from the elected leadership who saw fit to create this committee -- why now for Red Lake? What is, I guess, in play that has prompted this conversation that, ‘We need to revisit our constitution. We need to make sure that it's going to be capable of supporting the direction that we want to take as a nation into the future.'"

Brenda Child:

"So at Red Lake it's sort of interesting, because we have a constitution that dates from 1918 was the year of our first written constitution. So as a committee we've spent time thinking about why...what was going on with our people in the early 20th century for them to decide to write a constitution at that particular moment in time? And when you look at that document, which isn't particularly long, you can see that people were very concerned about...the government was still trying to allot Indian reservations in the 1920s and even though we eventually escaped allotment at Red Lake, which is an amazing story in itself, that...you can sort of see that's what our ancestors were thinking about in those years and so the fear was very real and present that our reservation would be allotted. So I think that's maybe some of the reason why our people at that time decided at that time decided, ‘Let's commit to writing, think about governance on the reservation.'

And Red Lake has this history of hereditary chiefs and at that time there were seven hereditary chiefs who appointed a general council and so that was what governance was at Red Lake in the early 20th century. So the hereditary chiefs played a very important role. Our tribal constitution was revised in 1958 and this is like, for example, when the first mention of citizenship comes up because 1918 everybody knew everybody in the community, it was a very friendly time, there were probably fewer than 3,000 people that lived in all of our communities on the reservation, so times were changing in the late ‘50s. And at the same time, Red Lake has always been very independent of the other...politically very independent of the other Ojibwe people and other bands within the state. And so at that time they wanted to confirm again that they were a separate political entity and independent of the other Minnesota Ojibwes and so that was part of the 1958 constitution. But I think the feeling at Red Lake now among people on our council as well as in the community is that it's time for a new constitution because a lot has changed in Indian Country since 1958."

Ian Record:

"And obviously you're...I would assume along with that that your needs have changed, the challenges you face today have changed and is that part of the conversation to say, ‘We need to make sure that our governance...our foundational governance document is equipped to meet the times,' if you will?"

Brenda Child:

"Yeah. I think that people feel that the document isn't adequate. People feel that there are areas that need to be strengthened in our constitution. When I was mentioning our 1918 and '58 constitutions and how motivated people were at the time to think about the importance of preserving our land, I think that that sentiment is still very strong. We've just finished our first round of community meetings on the reservation and in urban areas in Minnesota as well. And so that concern is still there but maybe it's expressed a little differently than perhaps it was earlier in the 20th century. For example, people today use terms like, ‘Well, what about the sustainability of our forests?', ‘What about the quality of our water?', ‘What about preserving our lakes?' We were talking at our community meetings last week about because we have not only Upper and Lower Red Lake, but a lot of smaller lakes on the reservation, people were talking about the issue of invasive species. Some of those invasive species have been present in other bodies of water within our region in the Great Lakes, but not in Red Lake. And so these are...there are new ways of thinking about how we need to protect our land and a lot of that would be what you would call environmentalism, conservation, the desire to protect our resources. So I think our concerns are the same as our ancestors 100 years ago when they first wrote a constitution, but it's being expressed in new ways because we have new worries right now."

Ian Record:

"So let's delve a little bit more into these community meetings. I know they're fresh in your mind. I believe some of them happened as recently as last week."

Brenda Child:

"Right."

Ian Record:

"Paint a picture for what that environment, what that dynamic was like. I always use the analogy of Jay Leno when he was on "The Tonight Show." He'd do the 'Jaywalking,' where he'd walk around and ask the average citizen on the street about the U.S. Constitution or some other U.S. civics-type question and most people don't know a lot."

Brenda Child:

"True."

Ian Record:

"And I would imagine that that's part of the challenge you face in engaging the community on this and trying to first and foremost get them to care about this and educate them about the role that the constitution plays, good and bad, in their daily lives and how them contributing to a new constitution could actually improve their lives. Is that kind of where you guys are at in the process right now?"

Brenda Child:

"Yeah. So we just finished our first round of community meetings and we decided that we would...I think this was just a scheduling fluke, but we started in Minneapolis and so we had a large meeting in Minneapolis and then we went to the four reservation communities of Little Rock, Red Lake, Redby -- which is my hometown -- and then Ponemah and all of those communities are very different from one another. We ended up in Duluth on just last Saturday and we still have one more meeting that's going to take place in Bemidji, which is the town 30 miles off the reservation. So in some sense that kind of border town, there are a lot of our tribal members whose kids go to school in Bemidji and who work in Bemidji and live there so we're going to have another meeting there as well. And I guess what I saw with our first round of community meetings is that we as a committee work to be on the same page before we started any round of community meetings. I'm a college professor and so I talked a lot about how we organize discussions in the classroom, that we're...that means you don't just come in and show up. You're very well prepared to run a discussion. We talked about questions in common that we were going to pose. We really prepared ourselves and on the evenings of our community meetings on the reservation and in Minneapolis as well, we did everything the same way.

So we started out with a prayer by one of our elders who's on the committee. We started out with a meal, so everyone ate together. And then we showed a short film that the committee had put together, a short eight minute film called "Aangwaamas!," which is the story of our...kind of the history of our constitution. And so we wanted people to be kind of ready to go to get a little bit of history before we started asking any questions. And I think we...it was very important to kind of set the tone in a good way to establish, ‘We are here not to tell you our opinions, we're not here to be divisive in any sort of way. None of us are running for political office,' that kind of thing, ‘but we're here to really engage the community. We're here to listen. We're here to listen to your ideas and to write them down and we're going to bring them back to the committee.' So that's how we tried to set the tone.

It was really great because we have a member of our committee, Tom Cain, Jr., whose father was on the 1958 committee who last drafted our constitution at Red Lake and he talked about, in this little short film we made called 'Aangwaamas!,' he talked about what it was like to be a five-year-old boy and his father's work at that time when politics was mostly conducted in the Ojibwe language and he talked about, as most of us would be as a kid listening to adults. That was his view of our last constitution, but he said...he described it and it was really kind of a very beautiful political process that his father went to every home on...in his district because he was a representative for the Ponemah District at the time and talked about politics, what should be in the new constitution. And he said when his dad would leave the house he would say, ‘Aangwaamas,' like it's time, it's time. So that's kind of become our...that's become our sort of slogan for our constitution, that it was time for our ancestors in 1918 to write a constitution, it's time in '58, it was for them to revise it and times have changed so aangwaamas, it's time for us again."

Ian Record:

"It's interesting you mention that. In working with a lot of other nations we often hear that one of the strategies, one of the many strategies -- and I think the fact that a lot of the tribes we've worked with have succeeded when it comes to reform is because they've employed different strategies -- but one of the strategies they talk about is going to the people, that you can call a community meeting, you can advertise it, but particularly when you haven't built up that awareness of why this matters yet, that it may require you to go out and seek out the people, seek out the particular... the influential people in any community and make sure that they understand what's going on and they're onboard. Is that something that you guys have as part of your formula moving forward?"

Brenda Child:

"In the past year, even before our community meetings started, we...when we would have any kind of public gathering, we would give our surveys at those gatherings and from those initial surveys we learned the areas that were sort of most...areas of pressing concern to our tribal members and those ended up being land and natural resources, language and culture, jobs and environment and also citizenship enrollment and the blood quantum issue. And so when we started our community meetings, and we're going to have several rounds of them, I sort of suggested at the outset, ‘Let's start with land and resources and language and culture,' because I thought it would be important for us...again, this is setting the tone for community engagement...to start with issues that bring us together as a people. It's sometimes...we know we're going to get to difficult issues that people feel very passionate about, but it's important to really be very thoughtful about how you proceed with community meetings because you want to bring your community together and before...and sort of learn how to work together so that when it's time to deal with these more difficult issues, that we're there, we're ready to go, we feel united and we feel like we're ready to make...have those conversations when it's time to do that."

Ian Record:

"On issues I would assume like citizenship which is the..."

Brenda Child:

"Blood quantum."

Ian Record:

"Blood quantum."

Brenda Child:

"Yes, yeah, when we're going to hear a lot of stories from people who say, ‘This is how it should be' or ‘My grandchildren are enrolled' or ‘This is how we've always done it at Red Lake.' We want to be ready for that and also, even when we engage those topics that are difficult, we want to have already established that we're good listeners. We're not here to dictate, we're not here with a specific political agenda, but we're here to listen to the community."

Ian Record:

"So let's follow up on that political agenda question because often we see where reform fails is because whatever...if it's committee or whatever body is set up to essentially lead the nation on reform is either politicized or is perceived to be politicized. How...I guess how important is it and how freeing is it for you to be on firm ground when you say to a community member, ‘We have no political agenda here. Yes, the council established us. Yes, they created the process by which this committee was created, but we have independence, we have autonomy to lead this process in a deliberate fashion that we think is going to work well'?"

Brenda Child:

"Maybe I'm at a stage of things after just the first year where I still feel very optimistic, but I really do believe in maybe this term we use so much now in organizations, in the university and wherever and that's transparency and that's just to be very up front about what we're trying to do, how we're there as ordinary citizens just like all of you and we're here to listen and engage in thoughtful conversation. But I think behind that thoughtful conversation is just the preparedness, to show people that you know what you're talking about, to establish that you're very serious about this business, but also to kind of establish that you're ready, you're going to be ready with the community at some point to write a new constitution for the tribe."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned earlier that you intend to engage in several rounds of community engagement."

Brenda Child:

"Right."

Ian Record:

"And you mentioned I believe in your first response that getting the financial support you did to conduct this effort has given you the flexibility you feel you need as a committee to be very deliberate, to take however much time is needed. Is there a sort of drop dead date for this or is it sort of you're just going to let the organic process unfold and then when that crystallizing moment is there when there's sufficient agreement or consensus in place then you'll know you're ready?"

Brenda Child:

"We have a date for when the grant runs out, but we don't have a date for when we have to put this to tribal referendum. We know that we could do it in a couple of years from now, that would be probably the earliest opportunity, but none of us feel rushed. The committee feels like we needed...we had so much to learn and then we have to engage the community and that there are just many steps and I know when you're involved in a process like that where you're working with your own tribal community, the process is just as important as what we eventually come up with as a written document."

Ian Record:

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but has not a lot of the...some of the initial conversations of the committee and others at Red Lake focused on one particular aspect of your constitution and that's the clause there that says that whatever changes that you make to the constitution must be approved by the federal government, must be approved by the Department of Interior in the person of the Secretary [of the Interior]. Where is that conversation right now and do you expect action on that particular aspect of your constitution before perhaps the rest of the constitutional change that you foresee taking place?"

Brenda Child:

"Yeah. It's possible we could take action on that Secretary of the Interior clause before the final writing of the constitution and some of that we just need to kind of seek out legal expertise. Some people have advised us to ‘just take it out,' and we assuredly will not write that into our next constitution, that we need to have the approval of the Secretary of Interior, but whether we do it now and by special referendum because we'd heard that, some of us didn't even recall this, that during the ‘90s we voted on this at Red Lake and it was not a successful referendum and some of that has to do with I think people didn't understand what it meant. Did that mean, ‘Well, we're going to go without these federal resources if we do this,' and so we're also approaching that in...we're being...we're still taking under consideration the best way to get that message out to the community."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned a little earlier that...you mentioned a little earlier around this issue of the timetable and the timetable you have for reform and that it could be two years, it could be perhaps longer before you see the end of the path on this process and you mentioned one of the reasons for that is because you as a committee have so much to learn and is that...I would imagine that's not just from your own community, that you have a lot to learn from what other nations are doing in this area. For instance, on citizenship for example, that's a hotbed area of activity when it comes to constitutional reform among other nations. So is the committee actively sort of seeking out other tribes or is it..."

Brenda Child:

"Yeah, the committee has...in terms of thinking about learning about tribal constitutions, we've been able to watch what some of our neighbors are doing. The White Earth tribe, not very far from us, are undergoing constitutional reform and so we've been watching what's going on there. We have talked to other tribes who have been successful or not at writing a new constitution and having a tribal referendum. We've also just sought out legal experts and folks that we think would be interesting to speak with on these issues.

One of the people that we had in was my colleague John Borrows who teaches at the law school at the University of Minnesota and I think it was really great to bring him up to have a long conversation with the tribal council or not the tribal council, the committee. So John Borrows came up to really specifically engage with the Constitutional Reform Committee and he was very generous with his time and spent hours speaking with us. And I think it was interesting to our committee because when you say, ‘This is a law professor who teaches federal Indian law at the University of Minnesota,' they're not really expecting John Borrows who's deeply philosophical, who studies and is a student himself of the Ojibwe language and thinks about stories and Ojibwe concepts of law. And so we've wanted to think about those ideas too because at Red Lake, even on the Constitutional Reform Committee, we have people who speak the Ojibwe language and we're very aware of our kind of unique history at Red Lake, having held onto our land as we have over the generations and that this is kind of a stronghold of the Ojibwe language on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes. So all of those things are things that we talk about and...

So I wouldn't just say that we look at just what's going on with other tribes as they write their constitutions but we try to think about practical issues, community engagement, but we also have to think of who we are as Ojibwe people as we proceed through this path of meeting with our community and writing a new constitution because we really want what we ultimately do throughout this whole process to be a very positive work in our community and a positive reflection of who we are as Red Lake Ojibwe people."

Ian Record:

"From your vantage point, isn't that part of what you ideally would hope to see in the final document is something that evokes that unique identity, that unique language, that unique history and if it's not explicitly taking steps to preserve that it's at least acknowledging it and saying, ‘This is how we've gotten as far as we have'?"

Brenda Child:

"Right. It's great to see all the energy out there in Indian Country right now about tribal constitutions, but we kind of live in time where it's sort of a global Indigenous world at the same time. So when I read the constitution of Bolivia, I was just like really greatly appreciative of that amazing document and so we've been looking at that a little bit in Red Lake. So we're interested in what our colleagues are doing around Indian Country, but also what other Indigenous people are doing around the world as they think about constitutions."

Ian Record:

"Well, Brenda we really appreciate you taking some time to share your thoughts and experience and wisdom with us and good luck with the effort."

Brenda Child:

"Yeah. Miigwetch."

Terry Janis: Citizen Engagement and Constitutional Change at the White Earth Nation

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Terry Janis (Oglala Lakota), former Project Manager of the White Earth Nation Constitution Reform Project, provides participants with a detailed overview of the multi-faceted approach to citizen engagement that the White Earth Nation followed as it worked to educate the White Earth people about the nation's proposed constitution in advance of their November 2013 referendum vote on the new document. He also shares some lessons learned from his experience at White Earth, and stresses that those engaged in constitutional reform efforts always respect the opinions of all of those people who have a direct stake in the outcome of those efforts. 

People
Resource Type
Citation

Janis, Terry. "Citizen Engagement and Constitutional Change at the White Earth Nation." Tribal Constitutions Seminar, Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. April 2, 2014. Presentation.

"So my name is Terry Janis. I'm Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation and I worked for the last year at White Earth Nation, which is in northern Minnesota, which is an interesting thing because historically Sioux people, Lakotas, are enemies with Anishinaabe people, Ojibwe people. But they hired me, so what can you say? And it was a fun year. I'm a lawyer; I came to the University of Arizona for law school. I've known Rob Hershey forever and the other people that are here. And this kind of presentation for me here today is not so much going to focus on the White Earth Nation constitution per se, but on our educational process.

By the time I got on the scene, in the 1990s like a lot of places there was a huge governmental crisis, indictments, convictions, etc. In '97, very soon after that was resolved, they realized that it was the IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] constitution that was really at the core of those issues. Whenever you engage and bring together all the power and decision-making authority in one small body, the likelihood of abuse and corruption is fairly high and they very quickly turned to this idea of reforming their constitution. They tried it in '97, but because of that recent history there was still too much division like in a lot of situations. I'm from Pine Ridge, we have plenty of examples of this where you get into a fight like this and you get factions and you have a hard time letting it go. So they waited for 10 years and then in 2007 did a process for drafting a proposed constitution.

There's important issues -- and we can engage in a long conversation about their drafting process because there's a lot to learn from it -- but the idea of an open and free opportunity for input, transparent drafting and revision process, opportunity for compromising consensus, the question of whether all of that is there in your drafting process is critical and there's going to be plenty of chance...Red Lake is doing an amazing job of really trying to engage that in a very real sort of way and a number of tribes are as well that are right in the drafting process.

But when I came on the scene, they had already completed that process and they had a proposed constitution. It was completed in 2009 and when I came on, my job was to start a dialogue, start a conversation amongst the community about this proposed constitution and then move it to a referendum vote so that the people themselves would decide whether they wanted to accept or reject this proposed constitution. And the other caveat that I had is that they were not going to allow any more changes, that the document that they created from 2007 to 2009 is the document that they voted on in November of 2013.

And I was brought on about a year ago, so in April of 2013. We had from 2009 to April of 2013 not really much going on, not a lot of conversation about it, some publications in the newspaper, but that was the challenge that we had ahead of us of how to pick this thing up, communicate to folks about what the delegates at the convention as well as the current council decided to do in moving this proposed constitution to a vote. And so I came in, we pulled together a team and started thinking about how do you engage an educational process with the community, how do you do that so that the people themselves are informing themselves and have opportunity to inform themselves as much as possible.

And so we looked at these three kind of ideas as a starting point and we realized that you really have to have multiple venues in multiple formats. You can't just hold one big seminar and expect that to meet everybody's needs. You can't just hold community meetings and expect that to meet everybody's needs. You have to have a range of different things: going door to door, talking to people in their kitchen, organizing community meetings that are part of the infrastructure that's already there with whatever that is, community councils, church groups, elder groups, whatever that is, utilizing all of the infrastructure that's already there and holding meetings and informational sessions with them, working with that infrastructure to bring people together, utilizing their networks, utilizing their relationships, utilizing their own feelings about this.

Formats as well. You know how the educational process is. Some of us learn best by looking and by hearing and by talking. Some of us learn best by reading, others have to write things out. Oftentimes for me, it's a combination of things. When I'm talking to somebody, when I'm listening to somebody, when I'm writing notes, when I'm reading it, it's that combination of stuff that does it for me. And so we try to engage all of those different formats and try to create situations where whenever we brought people together, we had all those formats there as well, recognizing everybody learns in their own way, especially as adults. Most of you are adults. We learn in different ways and hopefully we know how we learn best so we can bring those resources to ourselves.

So we tried to do that, a lot of meetings and types of meeting, utilizing the infrastructure that was already there, having a lot of printed materials, having a lot of visuals, having a lot of opportunity for conversation and debate, putting together a workbook where they could draw out and write notes and make it their own. And so we tried to create all of that functionality, all of that process.

The other thing that we really tried to do...and actually was the good thing about me being a Lakota coming into Ojibwe country is I wasn't involved in the drafting process; historically, I'm their enemy. I could be neutral. I didn't have anything invested in this document that they created. I didn't really have a strong feeling one way or another and I could maintain that idea that I was coming in to help people get the information that they need in order to make up their own mind -- that idea of neutrality. It was also strengthened by the kind of career that I pursued as well, that I could say in a very clear and honest sort of way that my interest in this is that the people make up their own mind, that the people have the authority and the information and the tools that they need to come to their own decision. Because as a Lakota man from our traditions, the sovereignty of our nation resides with each individual man and woman and then it moves from there to the family and to the tiospayes and then to the nation. And in our tradition, our sovereignty rests with each individual. And so that was my focus, that was the base of my assertion of neutrality, and I told them that story over and over and over and over. And so there's value in that -- of having an educational and informational process that's not tied to one family or one political party or pro or con. It's a group of people that you bring together to provide the resources for information and education that emphasizes the fact that sovereignty in this decision lies with each individual person. That's what was important to us, not what they decided or which way they went. So that idea of neutrality.

And then we went into it just thinking like Indian people. How are Indian people, how do they decide stuff, the use of humor, the use of respect and integrity, respecting everybody's position, everybody's history, everybody's ideas, connecting the materials to their interests. For me as an Indian person, if I have a conflict with my tribal government or some other thing, I may oftentimes -- or any of us might oftentimes -- put off this idea that we don't really care, but just the opposite is true. We as Indian people care deeply, almost always. And so the trick in an educational process is how do you connect these resources to the things that we as Indian people care about and thinking about who the people are, what their history is, what they really care about, and how do you present the material and information to them in the way that lines up with the things that they care about. That is what any good teacher will do -- whether you're teaching math or science or history -- is how do you line up the information that you're teaching with what the students care about and then how do you engage it with them from that perspective? So that's basically all we were trying to do.

The final thing that we came in this with...with this idea of respecting the politics of the community. Any time you're dealing with a constitutional reform process, regardless of how narrow or broad, it's a political issue, it just is. And if you're going to engage your community to help that community, to learn about it, come to their own decision and respect their decision, and you're going to do it in a way that really has good educational pedagogy and groundwork, that's not going to be enough.

In any reservation community, you're going to have to deal with the politics of the situation. You just have to. You cannot avoid it. You cannot wish it away. If somebody's mad, one family is mad at another, you've got to deal with that. You've got to find a way of dealing with it. If one group hates the elected leader -- which in White Earth they really, really do -- you've got to deal with that. You've got to go into communities maintaining your neutrality, maintaining your emphasis on this idea that the people are the source of sovereignty and it's important that they make a decision and that's why I'm here and that their hatred of the chairperson, their hatred of the secretary-general...or secretary-treasurer or anybody else is important, it's valid. Not that I'll agree with them, yes or no, but that their feelings, their political base is valid, it has value.

It's not my place as an educator on these issues, on these highly political issues, to argue with them about the rightness or wrongness of their politically held positions. My job is to see them, to understand them and to respect them and to make room for them. In an educational process, if you're going to have a conversation about the content of a constitutional reform and help people to understand what that reform is, you're going to have to make space for those political issues.

So that was our starting point and we went through six months of almost 60 different community education sessions, hundreds of small-room conversations, thousands of phone conversations, an all-day seminar, eight radio interviews...there's a community radio station that we used a lot...internet and web-based streaming formats of all of the training sessions, all of the seminar materials and other stuff, everything available online. Even the ugly conversations, we put it up on the web. The whole world was able to see if they wanted to how intense and vibrant this thing was. And that was our goal. We put all of this stuff up and there's a few things that we learned. [I've got a few more minutes.] These are the things that we learned.

Politics and power in the community must be respected. I ended that previous slide with it and I began this final slide with that. This cannot be overstated. You have got to make room for the politics of that community. You've got to. A constitution is inherently a political document and people have got to see it and engage it. If they're not engaging it, if they don't have...and remember what I said earlier, we as Indian people, we care. There is not one of us that lacks for caring. Even if it's the only thing we care about is drugs or something, we as Indian people care deeply about a lot of different things. And whenever you combine that with a political issue, especially if you're dealing with membership and citizenship, which the White Earth constitution did and moved from a quarter-degree blood criteria to lineal descendancy; a hugely, hugely volatile issue for the entire community. And we realized that coming off the history of that community, coming off what this proposed constitution was proposing that politics and power in the community must be respected. And that process is not easy; it requires you to deal with sometimes very extreme emotions.

I can tell you, when somebody's really angry and you know how spit'll comes out of their mouth sometimes, I can tell you exactly how far it goes so I put myself right at this space so it doesn't hit me. That was the nature of it. You just...you've got to be okay with it and it may not come to that, you can do a number of things that try to engage it in a way that defuses it, but sometimes you're not going to be able to.

The truth for me, I found, that what I wanted was an escalating interest and that is going to show itself in a variety of ways. Sometimes people are going to get more excited and more positive about it. Other times people are going to get more excited and more negative about it. We want an escalating amount of interest in this thing because we had a timeframe moving to November 19th to a vote. We wanted an escalating amount of energy, an escalating amount of dialogue, people taking positions and arguing for their decisions. I said this over and over and over, "˜Don't be quiet. Talk to every family member, go to the tribal council meetings, talk about these things as much as you can.' I wasn't at the council meetings so I didn't care, but that was my job.

The second thing is the importance of emotion and passion, which we basically just talked about, but it really does work, this idea. And in some ways it was just happenstance, something that you stumble across, but it was something that my elders told me. Once I was deciding to go to law school and stuff like that, we started having these conversations about sovereignty and where it comes from and what's the traditional base of it amongst Oglala Lakota people, and those are the things that they taught me. And I used what they taught me from that traditional base to have these conversations in the White Earth community, that there's value and reality in the individual holding the base of that sovereignty and making those sovereign decisions for themselves, taking that responsibility, carrying that burden and making that decision. So that results in emotion and passion, that results in interest and care, that results in decision-making and advocacy, and I think that's what you want. You want your people to be interested and from that perspective, there's no win or lose. Whether the constitution passed or not, we created interest and care and passion about it.

Timing and place for building momentum. Do not put yourself in a situation where you complete a drafting process and then wait three or four years before you do anything with it. It's a tough deal, if you're going to actually go through the process of drafting it, and what I'm learning about Red Lake and other places that are engaging the drafting process, do that in a deliberate way where you have plenty of opportunity for feedback and compromise and engagement. Engage an educational process without a bunch of delay. I think it's fine to make a decision -- once you have to draft -- to move it to a vote without further change, I think there's value in that, but if you have a huge delay like this, like we had, it's kind of fishy, it's kind of weird. How important is this thing really if you're going to do that? So keep that in mind.

You really do want to build momentum. You want to build this process where there's participation and engagement in the drafting process, that there's time and debate on people...allowing people to come to a decision. This is a pretty important decision, whether it's a small constitutional amendment or a complete reform of their constitution. Each one of those is critical and if the people are going to vote, then it's important that they be a part of that or at least have an opportunity to participate in that drafting and then give them time to really come to a decision, fight with each other, engage with each other, debate. And then a process for a vote.

Maintaining a firm principle in neutrality -- and again, some of this is just fortuitous -- but not only was I given the opportunity to do this as a Lakota in Ojibwe country, but the elected leadership, the tribal council, the chairperson, the secretary-treasurer were consistently supportive of that idea as well. Not because of me -- and I'm sure they had their own political reasons as well -- but when the council also supported our educational efforts and our education team, gave us the space and the resources to engage, didn't interfere. They still had their own opinions, they were divided just like everybody else was, but they emphasized the desire that the people themselves would decide and that the educational process would engage in a neutral fashion, that we would not promote one direction or another. There is real value in that. If you engage in an educational process and you're pushing it one way constantly, it's just going to fail. I think it's going to push against you and I think you're going to end up with a bad result. And so there was real value in that.

The final thing that we really learned as much as anything else -- especially when you're engaging a very broad reform like we did and on very highly controversial issues like from blood quantum to lineal descendancy -- you're going to get some pretty intense opposition and some of you have experienced that. Almost every other tribe that I've talked with that have engaged this, they come up with words like "˜the local Taliban' or the kind of intense kind of argument and debate and opposition. It's really important to just do it, to maintain your focus, to stay your course, and that attitude of doing it has to be a commitment from your educational team that does it with respect, respecting all of those people that would give voice to the strength of their opinions regardless of what that opinion is. But also the elected leadership, the elected leadership cannot back away. They have to maintain a principled approach to this and that was the value of White Earth's elected leadership as well. Their position -- whether they supported it or opposed it -- consistently, "˜We want it to go to a vote, we want the people to decide and we'll respect the decision of the people.' So those kind of principles and those kind of ideas help you as a team to stick with it, to stay with it and bring it to a referendum vote or whatever the eventual process is.

So those are the key principles that we engaged in our educational process. They're very simple. There's a lot of other details. Whenever you start into it, you want to think about the educational process, what is a learning process for adults on your reservation? They're going to be fairly consistent. We learn through different formats. We have to learn by seeing it, by coloring it, by writing it, by hearing it, by arguing it, by watching a movie, by going to your grandma's house or whatever it is. That's how we learn. You're going to have passion with it. So the general educational process in the pedagogy of your people, adult education; this is not new stuff, none of this is new stuff. This is understood.

As Indian people, how do we learn? Humor, everything else, food, it's got to be there. And the passion. The passion is there. We as Indian people, we are passionate people. We just are. We care deeply. How are you going to connect these sometimes very technical things, constitutional reform? We're going to go over some of those technical stuff, the legal side of this this afternoon as well. How do you connect that to what people really care about and have those conversations and take the time. It takes time, evening, morning, whatever that timeframe is that people think the best. I've set up sessions at 5:00 in the morning because that's when that guy thought the best and we did it. This is what it takes and it's doable and it's fun in a lot of ways. If you care about education, this combination of education, grounded in tribal sovereignty. That's what we learned as the keys to having a successful education and information process."

Shawn Frank: Disenrollment: Considerations of Process

Producer
William Mitchell College of Law
Year

Attorney Shawn Frank stresses the importance of Native nations ensuring that they establish and operate processes for disenrolling their citizens that is fair and transparent. He also offers some strategies that a Native nation can follow in order to create that fairness and transparency -- and importantly due process -- for those who the nation seeks to disenroll. 

This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Bush Foundation.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Frank, Shawn. "Disenrollment: Considerations of Process." Tribal Citizenship Conference, Indian Law Program, William Mitchell College of Law, in conjunction with the Bush Foundation. St. Paul, Minnesota. November 13, 2013. Presentation.

"I'm Shawn Frank. I'm an attorney here in town and I've worked with a number of tribes on a variety of membership issues, one of them being disenrollment. And so I'm just kind of here to provide a legal perspective and kind of to talk a little bit about my experience in the area, but also to kind of talk about the process of disenrollment and if a tribe were to go down that road, kind of some of the things that I think are important for a tribe to consider in pursuing disenrollment.

As probably a lot of people have seen in the news recently and going back a good 10 years, the trend of disenrollments in tribes is on the increase. The first...one of the first big disenrollment efforts was in California with the Pechanga Band and there are tribes in California, Nevada, just recently Washington...at the Nooksack Tribe, began a series of disenrollments, Michigan, and those are ones that have had some prominence because of the number, but I think a lot of tribes have at various points undertaken some of these actions. When you start looking at some of the numbers and some of the statistics on there, some of the tribes in California have disenrolled almost about half of the membership and then the question arises is, what is driving the tribes to do this? And you usually hear one of two answers.

One is the tribe's perspective, that as a sovereign it has a responsibility to maintain a proper tribal roll and it has the authority to determine membership and it needs to enforce those requirements. On the member side, a lot of times it's seen as longstanding family animus or some sort of witch hunt against a family group or opposition or that if there are fewer members, especially if it's a profitable tribe, if there are fewer members, then everyone else's distributions go up and the membership numbers go down. And all of that aside, the Supreme Court has held fast that tribes determine their own membership and in determining that membership also comes the authority to revoke membership, to...you can grant membership, deny it, revoke it or put conditions on it.

So kind of from the legal perspective, the issue of can tribes disenroll is generally an emphatic, 'Yes, tribes can.' And so there's not a huge, I think, legal analysis that goes in there. Of course, every tribe has its own specific constitution and its own rules. There are tribes that...there was a tribe I think in California that before it even began its development of a casino project, it amended the constitution to prohibit the disenrollment of members so they had actually put in a safeguard even before it got to the stage where this issue could have arisen. There are a few other tribes that have some provisions or a tribe's ability to disenroll either by the constitution or the court's interpretation of the tribe's constitution limits it to cases of fraud or mistake. So there are certain limits that tribes do have, but it's limits that they have placed on themselves.

So what I'd like to kind of talk about is the process that I have seen that has worked I guess for some tribes and one of the things I was struck in Deb's [Deborah Locke's] presentation was when she was talking about the process that was due and I think that's such a fundamental issue. And I guess before I get into that, as an attorney representing tribes, the tribes are my client and it's a decision that the tribe makes to pursue these proceedings and it's a hot-button issue and there are a lot of strong feelings about it. So when I'm talking about having a fair process, it's not necessarily saying that a tribe's decision to do...to go down that road or not is something I would support, but representing the tribe, if they've asked me to help them enforce their constitution or to follow through on an action that they believe is lawful then I have an obligation to that client. So from my perspective it's kind of this...sometimes it's an uneasy practice, so when I talk about what things have worked for tribes, I mean what things tribes can do to provide members with enough opportunity to be part of the process before decisions are made.

So one of the things that I think tribes have grappled with is what is actually in their constitution, not only in terms of what is the membership criteria, but also who has the power or does the tribe even have the power to disenroll? I've seen arguments that have said the constitution doesn't include that so the council doesn't have that authority. And if it's a tribe where a lot of the power rests with either membership -- or sometimes it's called the general council -- or that...and it hasn't been delegated specifically to the council or the business committee, does the power of disenrolling or of disenrollment actually lie with the general membership? I haven't seen an instance where it lies with the general membership, but I'm not sure that that issue has been raised in some of these areas and generally it is the [tribal] council who has taken on the decision and the process to begin looking into these sorts of things.

One of the things that I think is really important is -- and some of this is my personal view -- is people have secured membership with the tribe and that has certain rights that come along with it and I think one of those rights is to be secure in that membership. And one of the things that I have seen on occasion is where members are not allowed the opportunity to have the evidence brought to them that what is the tribe's case, why is the tribe doing this, what documents does the tribe have? And sometimes there's an attempt to subvert whose burden it is to prove this. And one of the things, I think, if a tribe is going to establish a process is that the tribe needs to take the responsibility to A, make sure that it has its supporting documents.

There's been...I think there was...was it the Graton Rancheria in California, where literally one day people got a letter in the mail that said, 'You've been disenrolled.' So there was no...there was no warning, there was no opportunity. So what I've seen some tribes do is -- whether it's the council, an enrollment department, a separate board or panel -- will gather kind of the evidence and make a determination whether or not to begin a disenrollment proceeding. And so even at that really preliminary stage, they've shared that information with the member and given the member an opportunity to submit information that they have to kind of help clear that before they even begin the process. And sometimes some of these things are resolved at that stage, but occasionally the tribe will move forward and actually begin, in some instances, begin a disenrollment proceeding. Like I noted, sometimes the tribe just sit down and they just vote and say, 'You've been disenrolled.' So I think in terms of providing a process for the members to submit their evidence to really fight for their membership...because a lot of times the tribe's information could be wrong or it's incomplete, and so sometimes I think having that initial dialogue before the process or a proceeding begins is really helpful.

One thing I've also seen in some of these proceedings is if there is a hearing, I've seen instances where members are not allowed to have...be represented by counsel, where there were no outside people allowed in the proceeding, there was no recording of the proceeding, they weren't allowed to see the tribe's evidence, they weren't allowed to submit anything additional at the hearing. So there were a number of things, and I don't think you need to be a lawyer to realize that there's a big problem with having due process and meeting those sorts of requirements. So I think if a tribe has a process where it is going to conduct disenrollment proceedings that it should provide as many safeguards to the member as possible. I'm also aware of a tribe that -- in addition to being able to have a hearing where you get to submit evidence -- you get to call witnesses, you can ask the tribe for its evidence so you have some discovery rights, you can be represented -- I forgot where that was going -- but to have built in enough safeguards to allow the person to present their case so that it's not done in a vacuum and it creates a little more openness and transparency to the proceeding. And I think when you read a lot of media accounts of some of these things, that is usually the thrust of the article is that it's based on greed, they just want people off and nobody got a fair shake. The first two things I don't think lawyers or the tribes can deal with, but at least providing notice of a hearing and adequate safeguards at least prevents that perception from continuing that the tribe has not operated in an open manner.

And I think kind of one of the things when I was talking with Colette [Routel] about coming and doing this was from a legal perspective that's one issue, but then when you talk about the moral imperative that tribes have from a cultural component, it's kind of hard to, I think, kind of sit up here from a legal perspective and just kind of try to put disenrollment in a vacuum because there is such a human element. And one thing I also think that is critical is the more independent the fact finder can be, that it isn't the tribal council, that it's not the enrollment director, that it may be a panel of elders, it could be an independent person. I know one tribe that actually has an administrative process where they have law trained judges who evaluate the evidence based on the tribe's constitution and the membership criteria and they're the ones who make the decision, it ultimately goes back to the tribe but that has set in part an administrative record so when the court reviews it, there's actually a lot more information and a lot more process and I think that has allowed the tribe to document that to show that this isn't happening in a vacuum, this isn't a secret star chamber. These proceedings are open and although they may be...people may question why the tribe is doing them, at least the tribe has taken the steps it needs to kind of protect itself.

Kind of moving through the process, I guess one of the ultimate things is ultimately who is the decision maker and one of the things I've heard people talk about is, 'Well, if the council makes the decision, what recourse do I have?' And sometimes there is nowhere else to go, if the council has made its decision then that's the last step. And a lot of people have talked about, 'Well, there should be some sort of court review after that where the court actually will end up making the determination.' And one of the things I've always been struck by that is if the council is charged with ensuring a proper membership, but it's ultimately the judge or the judiciary who's making that decision, does that somehow run afoul of where the authorities in the constitution lie? And so sometimes I think the tribes' constitutions actually set up a process where there probably can't be judicial review because then ultimately the constitutional authority is being exercised by somebody that it wasn't intended to be and I've seen that a lot of times ultimately too in, especially in gaming regulation where you have licensing decisions being made by gaming commissions who are charged with regulating, but then they're challenged to the court and it's ultimately the court who's making the determination of license and eligibility, but they're not the regulator. So it kind of creates this strange dichotomy of, you want more review and you want process, but sometimes that's not possible.

And I think just in closing it's such a divisive issue and each tribe is unique and its history is unique and devising a process to review membership decisions...I think each tribe has the ability to craft whatever they would like, but at a minimum, I think that there'd need to be certain safeguards for the members and it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So I look forward to questions here when we have the time. I'm sure there will be a few and I would like to turn it over to Sharon [Day]."

Jim Gray and Patricia Riggs: Citizen Engagement: The Key to Establishing and Sustaining Good Governance (Q&A)

Producer
National Congress of American Indians
Year

Presenters Jim Gray and Patricia Riggs field questions from audience members about the approaches their nations took and are taking to engage their citizens and seed community-based, lasting change. In addition, session moderator Ian Record offers a quick overview of some effective citizen strategies that the Native Nations Institute has encountered in its work with Native nations across the country, and leaves audience members with some questions to consider as they assess how their nations are engaging their citizens. 

This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the National Congress of American Indians.

Resource Type
Citation

Gray, Jim. "Citizen Engagement: The Key to Establishing and Sustaining Good Governance (Q&A)." 70th Annual Convention & Marketplace, National Congress of American Indians. Tulsa, Oklahoma. October 15, 2013. Presentation.

Riggs, Patricia. "Citizen Engagement: The Key to Establishing and Sustaining Good Governance (Q&A)." 70th Annual Convention & Marketplace, National Congress of American Indians. Tulsa, Oklahoma. October 15, 2013. Presentation.

Ian Record:

“You know, one of the things that really sticks out for me having worked with the Pueblo over the last several years is this use of focus groups and I was honored to be part of one such focus group that they convened about three and a half years ago. It was real interesting. They brought in a mix of folks: tribal leaders, leaders of the Pueblo, employees of the Pueblo, and just your average Joe citizens. And I remember when we were doing this focus group, one of the citizens became very emotional because she said, ‘This is the first time my Pueblo has actually asked me what I think. They actually care about my opinion and my view on where we are and where we want to head.’ And basically what she was saying is, ‘I have a voice and I matter.’ And I think that’s really the theme that I hear out of both of these wonderful, ongoing success stories is about restoring the voice to the people and figuring out not just about hearing that voice but, 'How do we actually actualize that in the governance of the nation? How do we put that into practice?' And that’s really what she’s staying up here. It’s not just garnering the tribal information, the voice of the people, but actually using it. How do we actually use that, how do we actually put that into play, how do we actually make that real, not just today, but into the future?”

Mark Macarro:

“My question is for Jim. Glad to see you used a movie quote, by the way. My question’s about the…I guess in the process of trying to reach a consensus or actually maybe it wasn’t the consensus point, it was the point where you tried to get moving past the status quo. Was there a rationalization by the head rights people that we shouldn’t do this because this is our custom and tradition, this is what we do, this is all we know and it’s who we are? But this is really a question about planting the flag of custom and tradition and using that as a reason for resisting the change. Did you encounter that in particular?”

James R. Gray:

“Oh, yeah. We really did and I would say the biggest part of it was tied to…what I wanted to make sure came across very clear was that the form of government that in 1906 the federal government imposed on us was not one of our choosing. We had a constitutional government before that and we had a three-branch government. We had our court system, we had law enforcement, we had all the elements of jurisdiction in place, and because of other reasons, the United States government abolished that unilaterally, illegally, as a part of their effort to try to bring all the tribes under allotment for statehood and breaking up the tribal land holdings was very difficult for the Osages because the full-blood faction would not ever gonna go along with allotment and it’s a historical fact that there was a lot of Osages enrolled out of nowhere, just suddenly started showing up as Osages. Another election was held, the next thing you know we went from having 1,000 Osages to 2,229 Osages. The new council that got in tried to fight it. In 1911, I think, the unilateral authority of the Indian agent at the time obliterated the members and installed interim council people because they weren’t going along with what was expected of them by the Indian agent.

I think the Osages by that time, when the oil was discovered and the money started coming in and the Osages started getting murdered in large numbers, most of them were people with numerous head rights that in today’s dollar were valued at a million dollars a year, much like the per capita distribution for Pechanga citizens. No, I’m just kidding. What I was saying was that there was what they called the 'reign of terror.' It was one of the first cases the FBI actually investigated was the complete and utter wipeout of Osages to get their money. It’s a historical fact. My mom was an orphan in 1925. My dad was an orphan in 1928 and my dad and mom’s stories aren’t unique in the Osage storyline. And you hit the period of time when they weren’t even allowing Osage women to participate in Osage elections. So not only were you…had to be Osage to have a head right, but you also had to be an Osage man to be able to participate in elections. Osage women could get a head right, but they couldn’t vote. All those changes occurred after World War II, so there was a steady drumbeat of slow but sure progress, but at the same time knowing that if Osages pushed too hard, there was going to be consequences: wipeout of your tribal council, the complete indifference of the BIA while your own citizens’ homes were being blown up and murdered on the street. My great grandfather, Henry Run Horse, was taken out in the countryside and shot in the head. These are common stories. Every one of these stories as tragic as they were resulted in Osage losing another head right.

In 1978, the tribal council was able to get to the U.S. Congress to amend the 1906 Act to make sure that no more Osages would be able to, no more non-Osages would be able to inherit any part of an Osage mineral estate again. So we had to go 70 plus years into that period of time at which we probably lost maybe a fourth to a third of those head rights during that period of time to what are now defunct oil companies, non-Indian spouses who’ve moved on and married on and still collect a head right check. Jean Harlow, the famous actress, some Osage fell in love with her in Kansas City and he died unfortunately, willed his head right to her. Unfortunately for her, she died shortly after that, didn’t have any heirs. IIM maintained Jean Harlows’ estate for years. These kind of stories are just…the Catholic Church owns several dozen head rights. Non-Indian wealthy landowners in Osage County own many head rights. Businesses like Phillips Petroleum Company own head rights. If Osages were a little reluctant for any radical change even as late as 2004 and ‘05, I have to give them some credit, because living memory of many of these people seeing all these changes occur and it was just a matter of getting to a moment of crisis, and that crisis was that last original allottee mark. Nobody knew the answer to that question when the last allottee died and in 2004 when [President George W.] Bush signed the bill into law, we only had one left. So if there was anyway to kind of get past that point to go forward and really move it, it was that critical issue, in my opinion. There may have been other people with different opinions but that was one of my [observations].”

Ian Record:

“Next question. I think we had the lady in front. Minnie, did you want to…”

Lenora Hall:

“Hello. My name’s Lenora Hall, I’m from the Smith River Rancheria in Northern California where the redwoods are. I’m just wondering, you went from -- this question is for Patricia [Riggs] -- you went from 68 acres to 78,000 acres. Did you have any, how much of that 78,000 acres is in trust now? What have you done? Are you buying land and seeking trust status with it? Because I seen a lot of them had economic enterprises on them, which are real lucrative and stuff and so I’m wondering what the status of your land is.”

Patricia Riggs:

“Well, we went from 68 acres that was conveyed into trust to 75,000 acres. 70,000 of those acres are a ranch and it’s not in trust. We’re working for it to be put into trust, but from those 68 original acres in trust we have something like 3,700 acres in trust. So we’ve got quite a bit of land into trust. One of the places that we put back into trust is an area called Waco Tanks and it’s a mountain. It’s a mountain that is sacred to us and unfortunately we couldn’t get all that mountain, it’s a state park, but we were able to get the back side of the mountain and put that back into trust and all our residential areas are in trust as well. The ranch is a working ranch, but there is also some significance as far as traditional places and where we go to gather different plants and things and hunting as well.”

Ian Record:

“Other questions? Sherry, go ahead.”

Sherry Salway Black:

“So Pat, and this is for both, but Pat you talked specifically about measuring impact and evaluation, like how do you know you’ve been successful? So I would ask that in the sense of how much are people participating now? So you’ve done the education, you’ve done the focus groups. So for your citizens, do you have high percentage of citizens voting in elections? So just again, how are you measuring your citizen participation on an ongoing basis?”

Patricia Riggs:

“Well, one of the things that we don’t measure officially, but participation in cultural events and ceremonies, I would have to say it’s more than doubled. We used to maybe have 50 dancers, now the line is so long and getting really hard, because we actually jog kind of through the streets and it used to be a short little jog, but now it’s so long you can barely jog. But the other thing is we also measure impact as far as how much more revenues are coming to the tribe, how much more taxes are coming to the tribe, how many more people are enrolled in college and coming to tribal meetings and things like that. So I’ve just pretty much learned to count everything, even when I’m participating in ceremony, I’m counting.”

Jim Gray:

“Shortly after the constitution was passed we had that kind of deer-in-the-headlights look on ourselves after the election was over and we were all sworn in it’s like, ‘Okay, now what do we do? We’ve been fighting this battle for 100 years.’ We got together and I put my cabinet together, it was the first time a chief got to put a cabinet together in 100 years. So a lot of new stuff was occurring and I realized there was a sense of historical importance in all the little things that I was doing in establishing new protocols for the executive branch, little things mattered in terms of how we addressed ourselves and how we separated the political appointees from the career employees and started drawing those distinctions in HR [human resources] policies. But I think the thing that really I recall the most was a desire to go back into the communities again, and this time not for a constitution that would require a referendum vote, but for a general direction to give us a plan, a strategy plan, and Pat used the term master plan, but a plan nonetheless that everyone had some ownership in. And we kind of brought back the old bunch of government reform, we brought in a bunch of new people that had been left out of the process before and we went back out there with what we called the 'Team of Teams' and we asked for a million dollar budget. Congress gave us half of it with the conditions of seeing certain things happen within six months and we all had to be very careful, but very specific at how we did this. And so we generated a strategic plan that would last for 25 years generally combined into six areas; education, health care, economic development, mineral and natural resources, governance and justice, and cultural preservation. And in each one of them they had a set of projects, in each six of those categories. And each one of those six categories were bunched up into three different categories of short term, midterm, long term. So each one of them had about 50 different projects assigned to it, everything from going after your water rights to establishing citizen input, citizen rights like a bill of rights kind of process to establish stronger justice systems. We didn’t have an AG [Attorney General] office at the time so there was a lot of institution building that called for…that came out of that. Updating our entire master campus plan, which was going to be a huge undertaking, because that campus had been a hodgepodge of trailers and metal buildings that we got from CDBG grants 30 years ago that we’re still using them and they leak like a sieve and their constant care of maintenance is just draining the tribe’s properties budget. So it took us years to kind of draw these conclusions about revitalizing our language program, revitalizing all these different categories, compacting our health clinic, taking greater control of the mineral estate. There was just this…but we wouldn’t take on anything big unless we went back out and talked to the communities again. And that’s how this whole thing kind of became part of what I believe is a new expectation that our citizens have of their tribal government. ‘If you’re going to do anything big, you better come out and talk to us.’ That seems to be the attitude now and I think that’s stuck.”

Audience member:

“I was wondering, how do you…you have a significant part of your membership out in the world, you said there’s Osages everywhere. So how do you communicate with them? How do you get them involved? That’s part of your whole thing is involvement.”

Jim Gray:

“Well, there’s one thing that has happened in the last 10 years that I think we all to some degree have become more familiar with and it’s social media.”

Audience member:

“Yeah.”

Jim Gray:

“Obviously we have people’s addresses, they get the newspaper every month. That was the traditional way. The advent of our expansion of our tribal website, [we were] able to put archived audio of council meetings and videos of special events that the tribe would undertake that anybody who wanted to can participate. It was kind of a one-way communication to them.”

Audience member:

“And did you say that your meetings are open?”

Jim Gray:

“Yes.”

Audience member:

“Oh, okay. So anybody in the world, any Osage in the world or non…?”

Jim Gray:

“Anybody.”

Audience member:

“Anybody can tap in and listen to your meetings?”

Jim Gray:

“…which that 'anybody' part has been the subject of a lot of debate too but…”

Audience member:

“Yeah.”

Jim Gray:

“…The thing is that in this day and era where we live it’s impossible to live on an island. You’re just going to have to embrace the fact that everyone’s going to know your business eventually. There’s so many public records, public documents, there’s Freedom of Information Act laws in our tribe, anybody can apply for them. And the tribal newspaper being an independent body can go get things and disclose it in their newspaper, which everybody can get. They’re members of the AP [Associated Press], it could be picked up. There’s just…don’t fight it, just accept it and go on.”

Audience member:

“Do you have council members who live in different parts of the world that can be on the council or do you have to live within the service area of the Osage?”

Jim Gray:

“We have election of councilmen at large, so the top six in staggered terms get elected and then another six in another staggered term get elected. There’s been a lot of discussion about district voting. When I told you we had a referendum vote before the big vote, that was one of the questions and the people by a large margin voted for at-large votes.”

Shawn Bordeaux:

“Good dialogue. I hate to break it up here. Especially for Pat, but Chief Gray, please comment as well. I’m from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and I work at a tribal college, Sente Gleska University, and we have engaged with our 20 communities about 130 miles by about 50 miles. We have five counties that we have roughly a million acres in and when you look at a map it just shows one of the counties and a lot of the development happens in that county and my question is about priorities. We have 135 hours of comments from when we went out as a tribal college and filmed, as you’re doing, all the ideas that people have and now the question is it’s a tug-o-war. When you’re a very big community, do you take care of the neediest first or do you develop where the revenues will lead to other opportunities to go to the bank and to continue to develop? I’m just kind of curious. You did a really good job of taking the flyer failure, I had to say it, but we have that problem, where some people don’t show up and I like your strategy of going to the little groups, but how do we get this tug-o-war…? How do we get past there where we say, ‘Okay, you guys, you’re coming in 30 years. We know you’re farthest away from the tribe, but you’re not going to be developed first.’ So I’m struggling trying to figure out how to help our community to set a priority list.”

Patricia Riggs:

“Well, as far as housing is concerned, that’s a real priority for us, but we’ve determined different ways to bring housing to the community. Of course we have HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], but then it becomes very limited because we have this group of people that don’t qualify for HUD, but yet they can’t get affordable housing. So one of the things we did is we tried to diversify the way in which we brought housing to the community and we brought investors to do the low-income tax credits units. We also have housing, but then council is also, what they’re doing is some of the HUD housing that’s already paid off, they’re buying that back from tribal members who may be elders and then they’re reselling it to other tribal members. And we also have…we’ve started to…we’ve contacted the BIA and HUD to do the low income, not the low income, but the guaranteed loans. So we’re also looking at different ways to…maybe some of the elders, move them out of housing and bring in an elder center, but also bring in more housing around our ceremonial areas because what…so that’s one of our priorities is to rebuild our ceremonial areas in the places that were once villages around the ceremonial areas, because in order to protect our ceremonial places we need people there. So that’s one of the ways that we prioritize. Eventually what we want to do is rebuild some traditional houses around our ceremonial areas, bring the elders back there. But then we’re also thinking about, as far as priorities, the places that make the most sense for us are the places that are going to fill in those gaps where our original land base, in the core. We’re calling it the 'core' of our community. So we determined that that was going to be a priority for us. And then also to build either through commercial areas -- we know that it’s coming, so we’re just thinking, 'Why not do it ourselves?' And some of what you saw there was some of the boulevards that are closest to our community. So what our plan is is to invest and then be able to reinvest for more land acquisition, even if we have to lease to retail areas and things like that. So our priority for us is to protect those places that are most traditional and the core of our community and then to move outward and to fill those little gaps as well.”

Jim Gray:

“Real quick. One of the things that we were very blessed with at the time of our constitutional reformation was the fact that simultaneously, while that was going on, we were opening casinos at a very fast pace and getting a lot of people to work, creating a lot of jobs. In 2002, there was like 200 full-time employees at the Osage Nation. In 2006, there was about 900. In 2010, there was about 1,800. During that period of time, a lot of Osages came back because there was something to come back to -- there were jobs. Not just casino jobs because the money that was leaving the casinos and going to the tribe, the tribe would invest in expansion of a lot of programs, specifically the education program, scholarships. So the benefits of the tribe that spilled out into the communities, no matter where you were, you were an Osage, in New York City or California or Washington State, you were eligible to apply for a college scholarship program. If you met all the criteria of making the grades and getting yourself accepted into state-recognized schools, different types, private schools too, but couldn’t match the kind of funds that other tribes were giving because there was like 12 -- by the time I left office, I think we had 1,000 kids in college somewhere around the United States. Before we may have had a few hundred kids in college and they were getting like $300 a semester. Well, now we’re giving them like $5,000 a semester and that’s almost enough to cover all your expenses. Almost, depends on where you’re going, but it covers a big chunk of it. So the more we were able to bring the resources back out of the communities, simultaneously as their political rights were becoming more involved, questions of accountability and participation and eligibility became more part of the social media conversations. And I can promise you between that, the language program, which just blossomed in the last 10 years because the tribe was putting a million dollars a year into the program that we just invented on our own and the kids that got to take Osage language in the public school system were speaking it in the hallways and classes. There was one story in Skiatook where I’m from where the quarterback was Osage and he’d taken those classes and he convinced his linemen to take Osage that weren’t Osage. And his cadence in Osage was good for at least one to two offside penalties every game. All of a sudden people started getting the benefit and there was this swagger, this confidence that didn’t exist before that you had the political rights and the financial resources to actually exercise and were going on at the same time. And when that was going on we didn’t have any trouble filling up a room whenever we did something.”

Ian Record:

“Thank you panelists. One final round of applause. We only have a couple minutes left and I wanted to wrap up with just some food for thought as you leave. My colleague Minnie is handing out flash drives courtesy of NNI as a show of gratitude for your attending the session today. It’s got some really good information about some of NNIs current initiatives. I wanted to share with you some strategies we’ve seen have been effective and again you see a lot of these coming through the comprehensive and multi-faceted approaches that Osage and Ysleta del Sur have been pursuing there in citizen engagement.

And really what I want you to think about when I roll through these is really the challenge incumbent upon all of you is how do we re-instill a sense of tribal-specific civics in our community? How do we get our citizens to want to actively engage their governance in a constructive way where they feel like they’re contributing to the present and future of the nation? So things like high school classes, community college classes, community meetings to discuss tribal government, tribal history, tribal law, a series in the tribal newspaper, ongoing series conveying the messages and themes that you want to get across to begin to inspire your people to participate, youth councils. That’s a huge movement across Indian Country, where we’re seeing this emergence of youth councils to try to get the future generation of nation leaders oriented in the right way figuring out how they can contribute. Tribal government handbooks, history courses for tribal government employees -- Cherokee is a leader in this area -- focus groups, as Pat’s nation has used so effectively, and then one on one. I think the challenge facing everybody in this room is to think about how do I begin to move our citizen education and engagement work forward on my one on one interactions with my professional colleagues, with the citizens I run into at the grocery store to either start a new conversation or change the existing one to something that’s more productive that’s pointed towards moving the nation forward, to breaking through some of these barriers and sort of things that keep us in place. How do we keep that moving forward?

And then finally some things to think about. Think about citizen engagement not as an event, but as a process. I think what particularly Jim said and what you see from Pat’s visuals is that you really need to conceive of this as a permanent part of your governance challenge. This is not something you just do when you have a big referendum vote; it’s something you need to do all the time. You need to institutionalize it as a governmental priority and fund it accordingly. You need to pay people to help you do this work. It’s not just about the elective leadership going out and doing the messaging and getting citizens engaged. You need an actual governmental apparatus to carry this work out. Know all of your audiences. You saw that with Pat’s presentation. You have to know who you’re trying to reach. You need to know how they learn. Do you know how your young people learn? Do you know what sort of social media they’re using? Do you have a presence on that social media? Are you speaking to them through that mechanism? If not, you need to think about, 'How do we begin to do that?' And we’re seeing some tribes begin to develop social media policies because they realize, as Jim said, it’s a part of life; it’s a fact of life. You’ve got to figure out how do we take advantage of this. Develop a holistic approach to tribal civics that demands that everyone teach as well as learn. That’s why Indigenous societies were so vibrant traditionally is because everyone had a role in imparting the knowledge of the nation to carry it forward. It wasn’t just the job of government, it wasn’t just the job of formal education systems, it was the job of everybody. Keep up with and capitalize on new technology, just talked about that. And finally, track your citizen engagement activities and their effectiveness. Pat made that point crystal clear. So you’ve got to assess what you’re doing and figure out, 'Is there a way we can do it better?'"

Catalina Alvarez and Robert McGhee: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office (Q&A)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Tribal leaders Catalina Alvarez (Pascua Yaqui Tribe) and Robert McGhee (Poarch Band of Creek Indians) field questions from seminar participants on an array of topics ranging from codes of ethics to creating mechanisms for transparent governance.

Resource Type
Citation

Alvarez, Catalina. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 10, 2012. Q&A session.

McGhee, Robert. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 10, 2012. Q&A session.

Audience member:

"Robert, coming from a similar small tribe and situations I can relate a lot to what you brought up as far as what you're dealing with. I just had a question as far as the transparency. I agree with that and I know that it's...I'm sure it's a work in progress. What has worked and what hasn't as far as are there limitations as far as how transparent each governmental entity is for tribal members and do you get a lot of backlash when they ask for a document or want to see something that they're just not entitled to?"

Robert McGhee:

"They're entitled to every document that we have, able to see [them] as long as it's not employee related, if it's not involving certain employees or certain individual members themselves. What we do is...and one of the things, we do an annual report. We put money aside every year, we publish a book and the book goes out to every tribal member, it's talking about our current financial status and we put a letter in there asking them to keep it amongst themselves and this is for you and your household. And then two days before it goes out, well, about a week before it goes out we actually have a large community meeting that goes over the annual report and explains it page by page. So we go through all the funding issues, we go through ‘this is where all the money went, this is what's left, this is what we're we agree...' We'll tell them, ‘We wanted to build a capital reserve account to protect future assets and this is how much we're putting in there.' So that's the best way we handle it and if we have any documents that we're concerned, because we do have council members who do like to talk and they're social people. We have one council member, all he does, and this is not to be disrespectful but he's always at the funerals and someone who's going into the hospital, which I respect. But we tell him and it's like, ‘You need to tell them that you're coming on behalf of all of us because we can't all go to...' But he loves to talk and I don't think he means it disrespectfully, I really don't, but he just loves...so now we take any information that is valuable at the council meeting, if we want to have a private discussion, I actually take it back up from all the...they'll agree to me, 'You can have...I don't want mine.' Because if they have it in their hand they're more apt to share it and give it away and we'll be the first ones to say, ‘I don't want mine, you take mine back,' ‘cause then we'll just collect all the information from the tribal council, we'll have it destroyed and it's easier that way on some regards because it can be sensitive topics that they really shouldn't be discussing so we do take up some of those things. But the transparency is, it's difficult but it's a double-edged sword."

Audience member:

"But more positive than negative as far as being open to the community and there's no...because leaving that expectation or leaving people to their own ideas or what's going on behind closed doors. You're kind of alleviating that to an extent?"

Robert McGhee:

"I think so. They have the opportunity...every council member, we have...every council meeting, we have two a month, what we've done now though is our first council meeting is actually business and the second council meeting we have every director rotate in every entity come in and give financial updates and updates of who's been hired, who's been...like how many employees we have and things like that so that helps a little bit. If we can alleviate where they don't have to ask us a question or they don't have to...then we'll try to do it."

Audience member:

"Thank you. And just a final question for the two of you, as far as going forward as far as governance, economic development, sitting, being chairs and different committees, how important is it for leaders to be educated and be able to provide that additional information that if you just...all you know is the rez, all you know is that immediate community, you haven't lived off, you haven't experienced any other let's say tribal entities or network, how important is that to be able to move forward for the futures to come?"

Catalina Alvarez:

"Yeah, I think that's a...you have to be...where nowadays, we're not this small reservation, we're not this small tribe. We're running with a lot of and dealing with a lot of millions of dollars and you need educated people that are going to be making those right decisions for the tribe. A lot of times we would have...you still have those mindsets of the older generation that feel that they don't need those kind of people or sometimes they're like in his case as well -- I'm going to pick on Marcelino [Flores] over there -- we have some people that are very educated and that know a whole lot and we have a tendency not to...I think we have to have a balance of where we get the educated people but also having the previous council, the old founders of the tribe also respect and embrace the knowledge that he does bring because I know that a lot of times like I've talked to Herminia [Frias], at least have the sense that if you don't know where you're at as a council to know and to ask that you need to find the right people for those positions because otherwise, like with us, I know I've told some of the council, we are still in the process of trying to get back the gaming board, because a lot of us feel we are not capable of running a gaming institution by any means and that's where it becomes difficult, that you have a council that still wants to be in charge of everything. And is it beneficial for us? Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. We were burned also with the gaming board and finding the right people because sometimes you get burned by those same individuals on the gaming board. There's a balance that you have to find educated people, also people that are practical in knowing what needs to be done."

Robert McGhee:

"I think the key is if you're not...if they don't have the say...we educate as much as we can across all areas. It doesn't necessarily have to be college educated. It could be business education, tribal law, business literacy. We've actually had people just come in even to the council and teach debits and credits so they can have a better understanding if tribal gaming...because there was a distrust issue too amongst...you have a board over here and we have a top management staff and they're presenting this and it's overwhelming what they're presenting to you. And now though they have to go through it step by step by step and it's an easier process but I encourage if you can put any type of, in place, training and education at your council level, please do, I would recommend that you do it. But also do it for...what we've just started doing for all of our directors and program directors and executive directors is we have sent them through intensive leadership training and they have really...they said that was the best thing that the council has ever done. We felt that they were a part of the organization, that we were listening to them and now they're going to offer it, we're going to offer it to even all the employees because it wasn't fair we felt when I said, ‘we went through this,' and let... It's called 'Lead by Greatness.' We went through this training and it wasn't really fair for us to have the training and not the people who run our programs. And so we've actually...that just started this past year and they're enjoying it and now it's getting down to all the employees. And all the boards and committees like I pointed out before, they're all...all tribal members have the opportunity to serve on those but they have to submit an application and the application actually has to say, ‘Why do you want to serve on this board?' If it's the Cultural Authority, ‘Why do you want to serve here? Is it because you have something to give or do you just want to learn more? Why do you want to serve on PCI Gaming?' Because we realize, like she said, we don't have the expertise to run all of these economic development properties that we have. But you've got to make sure that your job descriptions and you've got to make sure that your...are strong job descriptions and things that get people in the right places to do that for you. We have mentoring programs for our tribal members so they can serve under leadership positions, to learn that way."

Audience member:

"This is in regards to how you deal with or listen to tribal members. There's kind of a two-part question that I heard and I don't know what your responses are, maybe your suggestions on how. The first thing here is congratulations and I think we all know it's a blessing in disguise to be an elected official. So how do you kind of keep a happy about hearing that, ‘Congratulations, you're on council.' And then the second part seems to be, ‘Well, I think you guys should be doing this or you need to do that and I voted you in.' And how do you listen to the community, how do you respond to those questions?"

Catalina Alvarez:

"I'm not sure, like, how do you...the first one that you said, that people just congratulate you and still smile after you know what you got yourself into? Yeah. You have to at least...you're always going to be in that position I think either way, no matter where you're at. We all put up a front even though we're not...maybe we're not happy inside but at least we...we'll just...we portray a different image by saying we're fine and we're good and everything, but I think when tribal members come and expect things of you and are asking you to do things differently, usually when I get asked a lot of things and mostly complaints of things are not doing or I was left out of the process, before I would normally, being a first-year council [member] I would automatically just get it and run with it and not really hear the other side of the story. Now, usually I would ask them, ‘Well, what would you do in these positions? Give me some feedback on what it is that you want accomplished and we'll see what we can do,' but I'm not going to...I always tell them, ‘I'm not going to promise you that it can be done because of course I'm only one voice of other 11.' So it's very important for the community to know that it might not happen and it's okay to tell a community member no. But you've got to watch out that you don't say 'no' too close to elections! [Laughter]"

Robert McGhee:

"One thing she did say was right on that it is okay to tell a community member 'no.' But what happened is that I think the way I handle it is...I wanted to serve. I've wanted to serve as a council member since I was a child. That was...I wanted to come back and do that. I think now though it's when...when someone looks at you, ‘Well, I want this,' I'm like, ‘Well, you tell...why, why do you want that? Does it benefit just you, is it benefiting the family or does it benefit all of us as a whole?' Because I'll let them know in a heartbeat that if that program costs $2 million to fix or a million dollars to fix, you're taking away $2 million or something from another program that we need to look at. So it's almost, you provide me the solution. If that's a problem then, okay, how do we fix it? I think if you throw it back on them that way, because sometimes they have a tendency to put you here and they remind you that, ‘Oh, you think you're up here?' Well, I throw it back down on them and it's like, ‘No, I'm here with you and I do not know how to fix that problem. So how do we fix that problem together? Or why don't you come to a meeting and present solutions.' And they actually...some of them like that because then it gives them...they're involved again and they can make those...be a part of the decision-making process or at least come up with some great ideas that we actually have considered and moved forward with. I'm with nine people but you have 3,000 other people out there, they have some great ideas and I think if you take the opportunity just to challenge them though to say, ‘Well, why do you want that and does it benefit everybody? Because our job as nine is to benefit everyone and it takes a majority first to support it. And have you talked to the other nine? And if the other nine believe in it then that's actually something we could probably do.'"

Audience member:

"My question or thing is when I got in office I ran for chairwoman last term and I didn't make it but I had all these ideas and now that I'm here, how...because a lot of people aren't educated as...when they get on council. They finished high school but they did other things and there was no really like ethical issues that occur, understanding and following policy and procedure within the business frame and then the constitutional issues. How do we follow our constitution yet do our ordinances and all those? But my main thing, my main question is -- and you said you go to, you have training and stuff like that -- is the ethical issue is that when we know there's a relative, a friend, somebody that we have a conflict with we're not really up front to say, ‘I'm not going to be in this discussion, I'm going to step away.' How do you get those values across to your council members so that there is transparency, because the people out there know who's related to who and who's friends with who and all that stuff."

Robert McGhee:

"I know that sometimes what we have to do is you have to remind council members that there is actually a possible conflict and impropriety, there's a...what's the terms that actually gets...an appearance of an impropriety. So as long as we feel that there's an appearance, we will actually let the other council member know. We challenge, it's like, ‘I don't know if you should really be involved in this. You may not know this but this actually impacts so and so,' and we provide them the relation. We tell them the relationship. So maybe some of them do know it but they just needed someone to challenge them to say, ‘I think it's best that you step out, do we all agree that so and so needs to step out,' and they do. What happens is the majority of them will do, once you've just shown where the relationship is and usually you're doing it because of...and don't do it attack-tive. You do it, say, ‘I think...isn't so-and-so in that program or isn't...did so-and-so apply for that job, isn't that your sister-in-law...,' because you are related but there are so many things sometimes you do get confused on even what is a nepotism. Is sister-in-law, is my aunt, is my sister? We know some of them are but then you have, well, your grandparents but they take care of that child. So there could be the possibility of that. So I think if you point it out, we've done that in the past, we just did it or you have your legal department if they're in the room, too. Our legal department's always with us. We'll lean over and say, ‘I think there's a...' and we'll, ‘Hey, that's why that person gets paid the big bucks, you need to go tell that there's an appearance here and maybe it's best to not be...you can be here and maybe just not be a part of the decision.'"

Catalina Alvarez:

"For us, I think the first time that I got into council we actually passed an ethical ordinance and I believe with the new council you're given all the ordinances that have like a fiscal ordinance and the ethical ordinance so you can go back and read them. And it's a way also to challenge, for council to hold each other accountable. That's kind of worked a little bit. I laugh because Herminia used to be our chairwoman the first time that I got into council and of course there was a...it was used against her. She brought the issue into us as ethical ordinance and it's just...the council saw it as a way, ‘Okay, this is how we're going to use it against her now.' But it in essence the...why we decided to do an ethical ordinance was really just to hold each other accountable and making sure that the community knows that we are not going to be in those situations where nepotism does occur and that we're all on the same playing field."

Audience member:

"This question kind of piggy backs off of the last question, but as elected officials and members of council how are you able to effective work against factionalism in council? I think that in a lot of tribal communities relationships ties, family ties run really deep. And so in spite of council and elected officials assuming integrity in their positions, they're always subject to sway. And I think that you see that in a lot of council where many times members will kind of group together on certain decisions and push legislation, ordinance or policy a certain direction when maybe it's kind of not based on the content but more on maybe who they're talking to and who they're being influenced by. As leaders, how are you able to combat that or at least address it within your councils and your communities?"

Robert McGhee:

"I've pictured...I've painted this like perfect council up here and we are not...by no means perfect. We do have our issues but with 3,000 there's definitely a difference between 3,000 members and say a 10,000 member tribe where factions can change elections. There's no doubt. One of the things that we have done is...it's funny, when we know certain people are getting together on a vote, we'll be like, ‘Well, I really don't care.' We won't be a part of it because it depends on what the issue is. If it's something about, oh, we're going to...it's like if we want to spend money here for this program, well, if I don't have a say or a personal attachment to it or something like that, we'll be like...but they've worked up this whole, us five support it or...’Well, have at it and if it works that's great and if it fails, I'll be the first one to let you know that failed,' but I won't be...but we won't do it...we don't air it to the rest of them. I think that if it comes to stuff that is...we have a strong and hopefully a lot of you do have an ethics code and the ethics code was the hardest thing to get passed. That was the hardest. It went to a vote five different times over a year because...and we kept...when we would challenge our tribal council members at the table, ‘Why are you not supporting the ethics code? Are you unethical?' But what happened was even our general council members who are looking, who are at these meetings and seeing so and so quit, he's not or she's not supporting the ethics code, not supporting the ethics code. It all came about though, the reason that individual was not supporting because the appearance of the impropriety. He was so scared of that word because of like you said factions or your council member's brother on another side of the family would be like, ‘Well, hey, he was a part of that decision that...' And so there's an appearance there and he was terrified of that ‘cause he was involved in business himself. And so we were like...so we made it stronger where the appearance, we gave it a little bit more teeth into that document to help him support it. But I think when it just comes to the factions I would...we don't have strong factions, we know that board and committee...it's funny it's only on board and committee appointments because they want Johnny in that position and they'll go meet and we'll say, ‘Well, which ones did you guys...who do you think you're going to choose today.' ‘No, we didn't do that yet.' Call them out on it. We do. But we've got a pretty good close relationship because we've spent so much time together in retreats and workshops and I do not...we do not have a problem calling each other out and one of the things that we had learned from one of these retreats that we went to, they pretty much told us, ‘Call them out. If they are not being the leader that they're supposed to be or if they're not supporting something...say it. Why are you not supporting this initiative? I need an answer.' And we couldn't have them flip-flop anymore either, that was the other thing too. We'd be in a workshop and we'd go around and just do a roll call. It was like, ‘You support it, you support it, you...' and then we'd get to a meeting and, ‘I don't support that.' Made us look like...that only happened a few times. So then we had another leadership, together, Kumbaya saying, ‘I get angry when you do that.' It was almost like a social therapy session. ‘I get angry when you do this. That's not appropriate ‘cause you're giving me your word and all that I feel that you have is your word. That's what makes you a credible person to me is your word and your actions and your actions are going against your words.' So now they actually will tell us, ‘Okay, I'm just going to be honest. I'm not supporting that.' Or if they're about to flip, because they've done it, we'll have another workshop, ‘I want to change my vote.' ‘What? Why?' And then I said, ‘Well, you told us before that from now on you're going to stick to your vote or stick to your decision,' and I called him out. He's like, ‘Yes, but I did tell you that if I changed I would let you know beforehand.' I'm like, ‘You've got me, you're right.' And he changed. He went in that council meeting and his vote changed and I'm like, ‘Well, at least you let me know beforehand.' I was leaning over to another council member, it was like, ‘We lost that one.'"

Catalina Alvarez:

"I think we're still trying to figure that out. You're always going to have I think, at least since I've been in council we have not had like this kind of council that can just sit down and talk, but we always had those kind of factions and we know that they're, sometimes they're influenced. The last...we haven't, this council since it's barely starting, we haven't gotten to that point but the previous council, we knew something was up and the committee knew what was going on and council members would pull in of course all their family so you were kind of pressured to vote in that direction. One of the things that took years and it still has been an issue was like that in the [Adam] Walsh Act, I couldn't believe how difficult it was for council to say that we want to first have the same kind of stuff...that we were going to opt into it and then where we were going to put our note...to notify the community, in which methods. It became so...I'm not even sure, well, I'm assuming that a lot of...in council you would have a sexual pedophile as a family member, that's the only reason why I thought that they could...they thought that I thought that they would be so hesitant in securing our community, but not until we actually had a switch in council that that...we were able to figure out where we were going to post the sexual pedophiles and what kind of notice was going to be given out to the community. But I think a lot of times that [faction], it's always going to exist because we're a tribe of 16,000 or 17,000 and we're always going to have that [faction]. We have council members that are related to each other and you know that they're going to pass ordinances and policies that are going to benefit their families or friends and it's very difficult to find out, at least for us right now. We're still....we're in the stage of trying to figure out how we can...how to resolve that."

Audience member:

"Just a couple of questions here. I'm busy scribbling things down. In today's world of course we live...we all live in two worlds and that is we live in America but at the same time we live within our tribal nations. And quite often, we have a clash in cultures and cultural values and we need somewhat to reconcile some of the things that we do. And was mentioned earlier the idea of nepotism. In the white world of course, that's a no-no. You don't do that, that's unethical behavior. At the same time, as a tribal member, we're taught form a very early age that our responsibility is to our family. Our responsibility is to our relatives, our responsibility is to our community. That's where our citizenship is, that's where our allegiance and where we should be focused. And we also understand that when someone close to you, a relative or whatever, comes for your assistance, you are not supposed to refuse because they're the ones who are going to support you when the chips are down, when you have a tragedy, when you have a sorrow, when you have a great need, you depend upon your family, yet and this job as tribal council is going to be gone in four years, but you still have to face that family member. And that's a difficult thing because you want the betterment of your nation, but at the same time when you're close relatives or clan members, clan fathers, whatever it is comes to you and needs something, how do you reconcile that? I know that's a challenge, ‘cause we have to keep our cultural values alive but we still have to work and thrive in the modern day era. So that's one of the things I think that has to be reconciled.

Another is with our traditional ways as you've mentioned earlier, to call them out. I think from a traditional mindset we're taught not to do that ‘cause we choose avoidance over confrontation whenever we can. And when we have a conflict with somebody, that's when we give direct eye contact, that's when we have that confrontation with them and we go full force. But we don't like to do that but rather we avoid confrontation whenever we can. If that means going on the other side of the street or not returning a phone call or not showing up for a meeting, for many of us, that's the proper thing to do rather than call them out. That's more of a modern day, white man kind of a thinking, at least I think. Utilizing our elders is another traditional way where we as tribal leaders or whatever we are think we're all it and leave out that segment of decision making or reliance upon our tribal elders to utilize them.

And I think what I'm gathering as part of what's happening here is to rebuilding nations is really about going back, going back. It's not building the tribal nation, it's rebuilding and it's remembrance and keeping a lot of our cultural values alive, of the form of governance that was thrust upon us. And if we look at those things, I do have a question specifically for you guys or anyone can answer this and that is, what would happen if salaries were not paid to elected council members and only expenses were paid, what kind of people would we have in there? What would we gain, what would we lose, what would it look like if we went back to that traditional sense of governance where these were not paid positions? Looking forward to your responses."

Robert McGhee:

"Just want to touch on a couple things there that you stated before. Yes, I have an allegiance to my family but I was raised to have, mostly from my mother, my father was a military man and things, but my mom, there was something about honesty, there was something about humility. And what bothers me is say when I have a larger family, not the nucleus but the extended family come up and ask me to do something that is inappropriate. I don't have a problem asking them, ‘Why are you asking me to do this? This is not...' because right now when you sign, when you run for council it's no longer mom, dad and my brother and my nephews and my grandparents, it's my...it's the 3,000 other members. Now every council member in here may have a different idea of that. That's mine. I represent all of them, the ones that you don't want to represent, the ones that still will call you by not your real name, any other name, the ones that still have some varied problems that we need to address. So I always know that I can go back to my family once I'm done serving my terms if I choose not to get elected because my dad doesn't allow us to speak tribal politics in our house either whenever we have an event or anything like that because he used to serve there. So he's like, ‘No one's allowed to come up to each other and talk to me about this or that or why did you do that?' He posted it on...he actually has a sign, he writes and he puts it on the door, ‘No politics are going to be discussed today,' which is helpful because sometimes you do...all of us here, you do get tired of going to certain events because you know someone's going to come up and ask a question or question you about this so at least I know it's...in the house, dad's house, it's off limits even at my brother's house ‘cause he served too. So he's like, ‘We don't talk about that.' To get back to your calling out question, I think I put that, yes, when I said calling out but keep in mind that we do it respectfully. It's one of those things of when I know...I don't necessarily have to call you always out in front. If I know you're upset, what I'm going to do though is have a conversation with you somewhere to ask why because I don't think me personally that we can move forward until I know what your issues are.

The full-time council...I agree with you on the...our part-time members...about four years ago we only got paid a stipend of $50 a meeting, five years ago. However, though, I would say the difference between that was there was also a different leadership at that time, too, so the council wasn't involved...a lot of them were involved but they just didn't feel that they had the time because there were some things going on where, ‘We're going to have a meeting today at 10:00.' ‘Well, I can't make a meeting today at 10:00. I'm working.' And until you got this...until you can change where you know that the leadership or whoever, the chairman, is going to respect if it's either a part-time council or a full-time one to know that we'll work around various schedules. I meant they do it for us now. We ask them, because like I said, two of us are part-time so we only have workshops on one day a month, all day. I actually use vacation time to do that. But the rest, they're welcome to attend their committee meetings. The committee meetings that I serve on, I'm allowed to determine when those meetings are so I think it could work as a part-time, but I don't think you would have the problems that you do. But keep in mind when you're full-time too, I think there are added pressures where a lot of the general council members now are looking at qualifications of putting somebody in office because they're paying them this much money. So that's actually a good, I would say a good side to it. Now, individuals are having to run on their qualifications because they're making salaries that are...that the program director or so and so, I make this and I have to have a master's in this or I make... So what are you bringing to the table as a council member that you're worth that much money? And so I think that's a good thing to it. It's stepping up to get other individuals involved that have qualifications or whatever those qualifications are it just could be not necessarily educational, it just could be serving on various committees or boards or things like that. And we have a cell center, just so you know, and that's where all our seniors hang out, all our elders hang out and I'm there probably...I eat lunch with them once a week to twice...to hear what they have to say. And we play bingo with them in the area and that's the best time to do it is when they're all gathered and just, ‘Well, what do you guys want us to see or where did I screw up today,' and they'll let you know quickly where."

Catalina Alvarez:

"I think as...and you're right, as individuals we're taught from the beginning our roles, our female roles and male roles and where you stand and even how we should address our elders. I think one of the things with the previous councils and when I first came on to council is we have our cultural leave availability for employees to do their cultural participants and participate in their culture activities. And I think as I talk to elders as a council, when we would get into discussions and I had one of the councilmen go, ‘You're supposed to respect your elders all the time.' It's true, but as a council, you guys are all equal, we are all equal at least my response to them because you were all elected by the people and they expect you to have a voice like any other individual on council. That was my response to him. And I think that more and more the council understands that we all should have a voice in how we do things and even elders in our council, they're always constantly...and I point out to Mary Jane [Buenamea], ‘They'll keep us in line as well,' but I think they're open to know that we all can share our own ideas and still try to move forward on some of our activities. I know that the last council since I was the only female, they would not include me in some of the discussions on cultural and even like on stipends that we give for our festivities, which I would get upset because I'm like, ‘as a council, male, female, I'm here as a voice to the people that voted me in. So you can't hold that against me that I can't give my input on what's going on.' But I think as we move into a full-time council I think if they weren't...if we wouldn't receive a stipend, it would be very difficult to move as fast as we have I think. As a council it allowed us to pass a lot of and meet more frequently to get things done within the tribe."

Audience member:

"I had my question for Robert and I wanted to know...you talked about the three sides that have to be heard. Could you just tell us very quickly what those three sides of any issue?"

Robert McGhee:

"Your side, the other side and the opinion. There's always this side, this side, but then there's also just what's the opinion out there of this problem. There's a lot more of those than there are the opinions themselves.

Robert Yazzie: Traditional Principles of Leadership

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Former Chief Justice Robert Yazzie of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court provides an overview of the traditional Diné governance system and specifically the leadership principles that Diné leaders relied upon to make sound, informed, strategic decisions in consultation with and on behalf of their people. He offers a convincing argument for Native nations to consult their traditional governance systems in order to meet the challenges they face today.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Yazzie, Robert. "Traditional Principles of Leadership." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. November 6, 2013. Presentation.

Ian Record:

"I have the great pleasure of introducing Robert Yazzie, who is...who I've known for many years through his affiliation with the Native Nations Institute. He's been one of our longest serving members of our International Advisory Council. He's a real major figure in the area of tribal justice systems, and in fact I think Rae Nell [Vaughn] and Eldena [Bear Don't Walk] may reference the Navajo Nation Justice System tomorrow because they're really viewed...that system is really viewed as a leader in the process that many Native nations are engaging in in terms of reclaiming the function of justice in their own communities and returning it to a position where it's culturally appropriate and culturally relevant and reflective of culture. And Robert was one of the main architects of that movement, to make that justice system work for the Navajo people in a Navajo way. And we have the great honor...it was interesting, we see Robert a couple times a year and after the last time we saw him he mentioned a desire to come and speak to leaders such as yourself about what he calls the ‘traditional principles of leadership' and basically how you work to instill your own core values in the actions and decisions that you make as leaders, again, whether you're an elected official or just a decision maker within your own community, within your own family, within your own nation. So with that I'll turn the floor over to Robert. He's going to present for about 20 minutes or so and then we want to leave a little time at the end of his session for some questions."

Robert Yazzie:

"[Navajo language]. Anybody here? I have a humor to share with you just as an opener. When we say '[Navajo language],' we always say, ‘Goodness be unto you.' And so I had a solicitor when I was the sitting chief justice, he used to -- he's a white guy, used to see his Navajo wife every weekend. They would go to drive three hours to Albuquerque and when they meet they'll say [Navajo language], hugs and kisses and everything. So around 8:00, she would tell him, ‘Hit the hay.' And then over the weekend when she gets mad at him, she'll say, ‘What the hay?' I know that would get you going. Thank you for the cake. Good for my sugar level.

I would like to talk about the principles of Diné leadership and I want to talk about the definition of how Diné leadership can be understood in terms of its definition, in terms of its qualities, and also the challenges and experience of Diné leadership yesterday and today. So for purposes of achieving a better government, the question is, ‘Can the modern day leadership incorporate the traditional principles of governance from the past?' I think that's a very important question on our table.

So what is leadership? Studies of political systems show a scale of differing patterns, from absolute authoritarian leadership to leadership that's only persuasive. Some leaders exercise command with force and others only persuade. Most form of western leadership are based on the notion of power, to back up a command. In other words, leadership in that respect usually means power, control, authority and coercion. Diné, traditional Diné leadership is not about power, it's not about control or coercion, but a recognition that words are powerful through influence and persuasion. Persuasive leadership is based on compliance with the command or advice of a leader such as a wise uncle or other relative out of respect.

The Navajo word for leadership is '[Navajo language].' I think the concepts really teach us a lot, so I'm going to be talking about concept as a way to understand something about leadership, traditional leadership. So the Navajo word for leadership is '[Navajo language],' which in essence means 'a planner' and it comes from a word base means ‘speaking' [Navajo language]. The word for ‘planning' is '[Navajo language],' refers to talking things out to make a plan. The Navajo word for ‘leader,' '[Navajo language]' arises from power as a speaker and the word for ‘planning,' '[Navajo language]' is about problem solving and discussing plans. An elder would say '[Navajo language],' that it is about learning how to think, '[Navajo language],' learning how to use your thinking when the [Navajo language]. The [Navajo language], the leader uses those elements of thinking and planning as tools for leadership.

We generally understand that traditional leadership is based on possessing wisdom and the ability to speak, create plans for successful outcomes and results, create respect that compels people to follow. It's something like his or her word is law. So given that brief definition, we can ask the question, ‘Well, what are the qualities, what are the characteristics or traits of leadership and how does one get the qualities of leadership and earn respect?' So when we look at the thinking of the leader or for anybody for that matter, we look at two things that are opposites. The simplest way of saying it is you have something good, you have something bad. That's the centerpiece to your thought...to your thinking. So in that respect, our old system of government last seen in operation 1859. '[Navajo language]' means ‘the peaceful chief.' '[Navajo language]' is more of the opposite of a good peaceful chief. '[Navajo language]' means ‘firm.' It could mean something very rough as well. So looking at those concepts helps us to understand the Navajo leadership definitions and qualities according to the early style of leadership we call '[Navajo language].' So if you can imagine a circle, imagine that you have 12 leaders sitting toward each other, one representing the peace, one representing the war. So as I said, that was last observed in 1859.

So the two kinds of leaders traditionally, '[Navajo language]' or 'war leaders,' and the '[Navajo language]' or 'peace leaders,' the word '[Navajo language]' relates to decisions that are prompt, powerful and aggressive. That's the person's characteristics. The speaking done is for...the speaking to that...for that quality is for war. So the ability to immediately evaluate a situation and to speak to a plan to...and speak to a plan of immediate and aggressive action is necessary. Individuals get a reputation of being successful warriors. The word '[Navajo language]' comes from the word '[Navajo language]' basically means 'understanding of something good.' Understand [Navajo language] as a state of perfection. One definition is that [Navajo language] is that state of being where everyone and everything are in proper place relating and functioning well with everything to achieve a state of harmony or perfection. That requires a kind of speaking to achieve a perfect state that is wise and successful.

So Justice Austin who I used to sit with, Raymond D. Austin, who was Associate Justice when I was Chief Justice and after he retired he went to...went back to school. He was a law school graduate and he was a member of the Arizona Bar. He went back to the University of Arizona to earn a...to do his dissertation in Navajo common law. So he has come up with a book called The Navajo Nation Courts: The Common Law and in his book he talks a lot about the duty of a [Navajo language], the duty of a leader, which is to maintain [Navajo language] as a perfect state of condition and he said that could be the theory, but in terms of practice, the leader would identify a problem, a [Navajo language], and that leader has the obligation to engage himself or herself in what we call '[Navajo language].' In English is to say, ‘Think for the people to find the problem.' Identify the causes of the disruption of the state of [Navajo language] and once you have done that, then the challenge in one is to restore [Navajo language].

Individuals who want to be leaders do not appoint themselves. The status is earned. The western notion of advancing one's own name for political office by election makes no sense. Election in a traditional sense is spontaneous and based on necessities. For example, there may be plans for spring planting over a winter fire. So there would be talk of when to plant, who could read the stars to know when that is done and other matters that call for leadership guidance. So people who talk about what would be the best...who would be the best person to guide the planting season; that is a way leaders were chosen.

I served as the Navajo Nation court judge and the chief justice for the Navajo Nation Supreme Court for 19 years. As Navajo judges, we are considered as successors of the traditional [Navajo language], peace chief, because we are chosen for our individual qualities. Traits that make a difference in being a good leader include adherence to the duty of promoting harmony and order and treating people with fairness and humility. [Navajo language] of the past and today are looked upon as role models and the respect for our decision depends upon our personal integrity. Humility is a personal value, which prompts people to respect us judges for our decision not for our position.

One of the traditional terms for leader is that person is slightly higher than others and it reflects the view that leadership and the acceptance of its authority comes from those who conduct themselves well. It comes from individuals who speak well, plan well, show success in community planning or those who can talk the goods in for the people. Humility is not simply self-effacing behavior, but behavior that is consistent with competent leadership that is tempered with humility. Leadership is not for the self, but for the people. The people [are] the source of that power.

What is the traditional Navajo process for planning and decision making for leaders? The way of achieving [Navajo language], the good things, is by talking things out. As I said, the Navajo word '[Navajo language]' means 'to talk,' is related to leadership because of the common expression, as I said, words are powerful. Words of great leaders are powerful because they speak solution into reality. Navajos believe thoughts become action in words and that words create action or reality when they are spoken. Thinking becomes speech become action. That is the thought system where thinking and intuition drive words and speaking. Speaking in groups is planning and action is the result of thinking and planning. The Navajo word for leader '[Navajo language],' which arises from power as a speaker and the word for planning '[Navajo language]' is about problem solving and discussing plans. And there's a word, I'm sure that you have your own word for this concept, called '[Navajo language].' It's a very important concept in the past traditional practice of leadership. '[Navajo language],' which is 'talk things out.' It involves having free discussion among the leader with his people, with the community to clarify relationships, to identify problems and disputes and provides for a method of planning and making decisions. [Navajo language], talking things out process requires that reciprocity, doing things for each other in return, is about his or her obligation to what we call '[Navajo language]' and [Navajo language] is a concept that really can't be translated into English and I believe you have the same...the same experience is true with your language. That one word cannot be said, while '[Navajo  language]' means respect. '[Navajo language]' can mean many, many different things, even a book won't satisfy a good explanation of what that word means, but at best '[Navajo language]' is something like treating people with respect, compassion, reverence. So [Navajo language] or talking things out requires that reciprocity be practiced to ensure there's equal and equitable treatment for the people.

And there's another word that is very important as well, '[Navajo language].'Can you all say that? [Navajo language]. Not today? [Navajo language] is one of the practices for [Navajo language] and as I said, it's understood as knowing how to treat people with dignity and respect. The [Navajo language] as a [Navajo language] is always expected to act as though you have relatives. If you walk around, talk around, walk around and talk as if you have no relatives and the people would always say, ‘That person is forgetting about his or her obligation through [Navajo language].' A [Navajo language], a leader is always expected to honor his obligation through the concept of [Navajo language]. Talking things out with the people helps a leader to learn about ideas, expectation and recommendation of the community. An important aspect of making effective decisions by a leader is being well informed of the issues and concerns of the people. To be informed is to know what the people want. I think that is probably your experience as well when you observe Navajo Nation tribal council in session. Not everybody is there to know...to fully know what the people want, because the more you observe sometimes the more you find out the leader really needs to understand what the people are thinking and what is it that they're concerned about.

The other part, the other issue that was discussed is transparency and it's something that is really difficult to translate from English to Navajo, but at best you can say in Navajo, we say '[Navajo language],' means you can't hide your plans. '[Navajo language],' it means to make clear your plans. [Navajo language] requires transparency, a free flow of information, a duty to communicate, to make known the issues at hand. Planning for action can be transparent except for war way planning so that everyone who is affected can see what is going on and have an opportunity to have a say. Navajo tradition requires energy and good will when putting plans into action so that good intentions reflect positive energy [and] will produce a good result.

What are the challenges and experience of leadership in Navajo country? In 1989, we had a major crisis. The Navajo Nation government was, were nearly as a whole was nearly put on its knees. The Navajo Nation Chairman Peter MacDonald was accused [of] bribery and kickbacks and the Navajo Nation Council proceeded to put him on administrative leave for accusation and for other serious criminal allegations. He refused. He told the Navajo Nation Council, ‘You have no legal basis.' And he was right, but the matter was put before the Navajo Nation Council on a certified question and the Navajo Nation Supreme Court came back with a response and said that...he says, ‘under traditional method of selection of leaders, people choose their leaders [Navajo language] based on trust and confidence. If a leader breeches the trust by wrongful acts, the people would simply walk away.' This practice was what justified the council action to remove Chairman Peter MacDonald from office.

I think one of the questions that really bothers a lot of us is that when it comes to decision-making, how effective are the leaders in making a good decision? I think here's where we can involve the question, ‘Does traditional Diné leadership make a difference in the modern day?' And we talk about the problems we have on the...in Indian Country, that at times the atmosphere towards leadership can be very negative. And you look at the situation in Indian Country, people are living the hard life, frustrated, overwhelmed with trying to make things...trying to make ends meet and because there are no jobs, no money, no educational opportunities people are suffering from domestic violence. People cannot help but feel that leadership is inefficient, ineffective. So here's where we are asked the question, ‘If we were to do something a little different,' for example, look at the question, ‘Do the principles of Navajo traditional governance have a role in this scenario?' That is to say, does the traditional Diné leadership make a difference in the modern day? And sometimes when we need to respond to that kind of question we always talk about journey narratives, we always talk about Twin Heroes.

Twin Heroes were out to help save the people when the bad energy, the bad monsters began to take its toll on human lives. People really struggle, people were suffering, people were living with chaos and disharmony and so when we look at these narratives we can say that there was...that the Twin Heroes came and helped the people in many, many ways. They destroyed almost everything, all of what we called '[Navajo language],' the bad energy. But there were some who say, ‘Please save us. We can help the human race to live a quality of life.' But there are certain type of [Navajo language] that have no mercy on humans and so when the Twin Heroes, before killing the monster, the father, the Sun said, gave instruction and said to carefully study and observe the movement and behavior of the monster. Before you make the attack, thinking before you make the attack is a value that advises leaders today to carefully observe the problem before taking any sort of action. So it's telling us that where there's chaos is to really study the problem, understand the problem before you proceed to say, ‘What are the alternatives?'

So one of the things that we're trying to do within the Navajo Nation is to make some changes. I have a proposed legislation here before the Navajo Nation Council and it's about creating a uranium commission that would help to clean up the abandoned mines. We have so many... so much abandoned mines that it's causing a big risk. It's already causing a lot of health problems and people have died from it. And I was told, ‘Well, could you help us? Could you design a legislation that touches upon the fundamental law of the Diné?' And so it took me a long time to think that when we look at our tribal code, we see a lot of incorporation of state law, federal law and I think the emphasis should be, now that most of our kids are going to law school and are coming back to establish their practice, I think the emphasis is to take seriously and to say, ‘How do we develop our Indian thinking and use it as a tool to craft legislation?' So when I thought about this in terms of creating a commission and I thought about the leadership of that commission, that this leadership should be guided by the fundamental law of the Diné, and also the leadership also should be informed about the laws that we have, the laws from the time of creation. The laws from the time of creation is telling us about what is the natural law, '[Navajo Language]'? Natural law means laws that come from the earth and the universe and that itself, the natural law was like planting the seeds, planting the seeds to develop other forms of law.

For example, we have what we call traditional law, custom law and common law. So the medicine people sat down and said, ‘Well, the natural law should be something that is coming from the water, from the air, from the fire, from things that grow on earth. They have their own independent existence. We are...we come from those elements and then as such we should observe a relationship that is one of respect.' Everything that we learn from those elements we say that '[Navajo language],' means everything is related, we're all related in one way or another and as such we are the elements of nature and the elements of nature is us. So in that respect, we can't dominate those elements and the only thing we can do is to clearly understand that from the time those things were put in place and the time we were created is what the holy people did and said to us, ‘This is the law and I put it in your hand. [Navajo language] in the holy way I put it in your hands. Now you shall become the stewards to take care of these elements. These elements, you take care of them, they'll take care of you.'

So those were the thoughts in terms of creating a commission. I know that a lot of us are concerned that what is it that we should recover from our past? There are sources already that we can learn about, that we can apply, that we can work with and if we proceed to do that, it's amazing how much that can be done, it's amazing how much of an influence it has on the kind of thinking we have. It'll change the paradigm. Like you said, this is the way Navajos handle it, this is the way the Mohawks handle it, this is the way the Blackfeet handle it, is what we will be saying if we were to proceed down this path. And I think a lot of us learn, know our language. And this legislation is talking about a story as an approach to develop a law, but it's not a matter of talking about the story. The story should be to say, ‘How do I use this material to develop something for this modern day? How can I develop this as law so my kids in the future can say, this is the law of our grandfather and our grandmother.' A lot of us are up in age, we are the grandmothers, we are the grandfathers, and a lot of grandmothers and grandfathers say, ‘I have no idea, I have no clue about the creation story.' When the grandkids are asking questions, the response is, ‘I don't know.' But it's not simply that we can't just say, ‘I don't know,' because I know that a lot of us Indian people know a lot about our past and if we take the time to share that and say, ‘How can we revive those? How can we learn to articulate those teachings so that they sound like law in the statutes, in case laws?' Thank you."

 

LeRoy Staples Fairbanks III: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Leroy Staples Fairbanks III, who serves on the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Council, discusses some of the hard stances he had to take in order to do his job well and also shares an overview of some of the major steps thatthe leech Lake Band has taken in order to govern more effectively and use its resources more wisely and efficiently.  

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Fairbanks III, LeRoy Staples. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. November 6, 2013. Presentation.

"Good morning. I introduced myself this morning. Like I said, I'm Leroy Staples Fairbanks III and I'm the District 3 Representative from Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, which is in north central Minnesota. Normally how...I've seen others introduce themselves in their language and so kind of how we would say it is I would say Boozhoo, which means hello, [Ojibwe language] is I'm Fox and I'm from the Bear Clan. Our tribe is located in like I said north central Minnesota. We have roughly 9,200 band members or band citizens. This is my first term and I was elected last year in July of 2012 and I wasn't going to say my age, but I'm actually older than this young fellow here. I was elected before I was 30 so I'll just say that, I won't say my age. We have a five-person council with four-year staggered terms. I would just like to say, I would like to thank the NNI staff for inviting me to be here today to share my experiences. I don't consider this much of teaching you guys but just sharing my experiences here with you and I would also like to say Miigwetch to the tribal leaders from this reservation here for welcoming us here to this reservation, this beautiful casino and hotel.

What I'm going to start with is campaign promises. I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach to the previous presentation, which was...it was an awesome presentation, very informative, and something I wish I could have sat through before I was elected into office. But I'll start off with campaign promises. When I ran my campaign to getting into office, it was based on honesty, ethical decision making, transparency, and you have a lot of people that support that, they support you. They say, "˜Yeah, this is what we want you to do. This is who we want you to be in office.' And you get in office and things just kind of switch. Those same people are asking, "˜Well, I did help you. Can I get a job? Can I get a raise? Can I get a house? Can I get a transfer? Can you appoint me to a certain position?' And it's difficult that the people that did help you, but you just kind of return the message back to them and you ask them, "˜Why would you put me in a situation like that when all that we talked about was maintaining integrity in a position?' So during my time in office I've had to have that conversation many, many, many times of telling people, "˜You wanted us to change the way that we do the hiring and the firing and the personnel matters with the tribe. We have an HR department, we have policies and procedures that outline how all the decisions are being made and how the hiring is...how it happens and employees rights as far as being a part of the organization,' but yet they want to jump straight to the council. And so we started to change those methods on how we handled it, but still the employees will say, "˜Well...' They'll try to get you back in your office and say, "˜Well, I gave you this many votes or I helped you in this way and you're obligated to help me,' and the easy answer is, no, you're not. I won by 30 votes. I had 919 votes and the other guy had about 890 and so everybody wanted to be a part of that 29 or 30 votes that actually got me into office. The easy answer for me is that 920 people voted me into office, but I still represent the rest of the band membership and that's the decisions that I have to make. I have to make it for the band membership and I don't make it to who voted me into office. That's just a process on how you get to that position.

And I would say that I didn't dream of running for office or I didn't dream of being a council member growing up. I had a little bit of a different type of experiences growing up. And so I've had quite a few experiences, but in my experiences of understanding what tribal politics and tribal government was on Leech Lake, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth about it. I didn't have a good outlook on it. So I didn't really envision myself as this prestigious position and, "˜That's what I want to do, I want to get into tribal office so I can help my people.' It was more or less you see some of the negative outlooks and the negative aspects of what the office was looked at as, and so that wasn't my dream. My background is in human service. I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, and so in that field you aren't really involved as much in governmental operations. A lot of the things that he was talking about, you're not privvy to that information. You focus on helping the people that you help, your client list and that's your focus and so you put so much energy towards that, but it kind of becomes burnt out. And so when you carry yourself in a certain way in the community, people say those individuals that do carry themselves in a respectful manner, they kind of gravitate and people see those traits, they see the character, they see the behaviors and they kind of look to those people. And so I would just say that I think I was blessed that people seen some traits in me that they wanted me to start moving into leadership positions.

And so I managed a halfway house for a while and the tribal council asked me to come be a part of the administrative team as a deputy director, chief administrator basically, and I did that for a few years and that was my eye opener to what was going on with our reservation. There was a lot of things that I wasn't aware of on so many different levels because tribal government encompasses everything from top to bottom, it really does. I'm not so much hands on with all the little things like this gentleman has because we have...we employ 2,500 people. We have three casinos and we have departments that kind of handle a lot of that stuff and so we aren't so hands on with everything, but there's a great understanding and a learning curve that happened as a part of that position. But it's about training and helping people job shadowing and trying to train future leaders to take over those positions. My understanding of getting in this position was I wasn't going to be here forever. It's a four-year term. I'm hoping that there's enough movement in four years that if I choose not to re-run in four years that I've done enough to try to mobilize and prepare future leaders to take over these positions, because there's some bold things happening at home and we want that to continue.

I'll say one thing though is that I went through the [Native Nation] Rebuilders program. NNI partners with Bush Foundation out of St. Paul, Minnesota and there's a Rebuilders program that focuses on tribes in a three-state area: Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. And I was a part of the first cohort and I would say that I would attribute me running for office as being a part of that program because if I didn't go through that program, it probably wouldn't have motivated me enough to see some of the success stories outside of Leech Lake that gave me a big enough push to tell me that things can work, this is how tribes are working, because when you're in the middle of the mess sometimes it's hard to see out, and so you have to kind of step back and you have to take a look at how are other tribes doing it, what are other tribes doing, can we apply that here, how can we apply it here? And that's the most of what I got out of that program is seeing...they talked about some of the reservations and economic development up here this morning and those are the things that inspired me to, 'Yeah, there is opportunity and I'm going to bring that to my reservation,' and so that's kind of what got me to wanting to run for office.

I don't have a four-year degree and a lot of elders in the community, they told me, "˜Maybe you should just wait to run for office until you have that degree on your wall because that's going to validate your work in office and people can't question that,' but there were too many signs that were coming before me. There were signs that things just were happening the way they were supposed to be happening and I even told myself when I was working for the council, "˜I don't want to be in one of those positions.' I seen the mentality and I seen the behavior and I was kind of taken aback. I was like, "˜Ah, I don't want to be in that position. I can't do some of the things that they're doing because it's not right.' And so I told myself I wasn't going to do it. I went through the program, frustrations were building because of how things were going, and I said, "˜You know what, if I'm not going to do it, I don't know who's going to.' So I decided to take that step and it was a very big step. Tribal politics on Leech Lake is...can grow...I don't know how to put it kindly, but it can get kind of messy. And so it has been kind of messy. And I would say in the last year and a half things have stabilized, things are...they're progressing. I'll touch on how important nation building is to me.

I used to fly quite a bit when I was a little bit younger in airplanes and it didn't really bother me and for some reason that flying in airplanes bothers me now. I don't know if it's because I have a Twitter account and every...twice a day you hear about plane crashes or terminals being attacked, but I have a fear of flying. The last time I flew, I flew with the Bush Foundation up to go visit Salish Kootenai last year -- it's the last time I've flown out of state, otherwise I try to drive and it's just something that I have to overcome. Bush offered me an opportunity to speak down here in March on...I don't remember exactly what the title was about...I was going to be speaking about, but I ended up skyping in the presentation and we had a little bit of connectivity issues and I felt kind of bad about that and so this is...nation building and nation rebuilding is...it's the basis of everything that I'm trying to do back home and it's that important to me that I wanted to get on a plane. And it wasn't just a direct flight, I had a layover in Phoenix, and so that's two takeoffs and two landings. I get nervous about speaking sometimes too, but my hands aren't nearly as clammy today as they were when I was on the plane. It was tough.

I had some conversations with people on the airplane about...they were asking about, "˜What is your take on the Redskins issue?' And I said, "˜I don't know. It's not something that I necessarily think about day to day.' And she's like, "˜Well, what do you think the inception of the name was? It wasn't intended to be disrespectful, do you think?' And I was like, "˜Well, I don't really know the history behind the name. I would say that it's not one of the biggest things that bothers me, but I can understand how it gets under people's skin. I understand why there's a movement to change the name because it's not necessarily the owner of the Redskins is out depicting Native Americans in a certain way, it's how the fans, how the people...you get the people doing the...with the headdress and the tomahawk chops in the arenas and that's not very respectful and there's a lot of things down that line that I don't agree with.' It's just...it's something I didn't...I was kind of taken aback by and she's like, "˜Well, I live in San Francisco and there's not a lot of Natives so I don't really get to talk to a lot of Natives and ask them this question so I just wanted to know.' That was on one flight.

On another flight, they're asking about how gaming came to be. "˜Did the Indians want it or did the federal government want to give it to the Indians? Who regulates it?' I said, "˜Well, there's a commission.' "˜Okay. Well, are you guys represented nationally?' I'm like, "˜Yeah, there's national organizations that represent gaming.' There was another lady who was kind of sitting by me and she was like, "˜I feel so bad about Indians and their addiction.' I'm like, "˜Well, what do you mean?' These are just some of those things and she asked me, "˜Well, how much money do you guys get in per capita payments at your tribe?' And I'm like, "˜We don't get anything in per capita payments because we have 9,200 band members, we live in a very remote area, and we don't generate enough to do per capita payments and I'm not even in favor really of per capita payments because it kind of promotes...it promotes dependency and there's a few tribes in Minnesota that have big per capita payments like Shakopee Mdewakanton [Sioux Community]. They have less...around 500 band members. They're located very closely to Minneapolis, the Twin Cities area and they have a lot of money and they do give money back out to other communities, which is...it's very good on their part.

I would say that in getting into office you're challenged. You're challenged by naysayers; you're challenged by people who don't agree with your viewpoints. I was challenged on my knowledge of history of Leech Lake and my knowledge of history of the Ojibwe people and Native history in general and I would say...I kind of revert that back to...because these are supposed to be the experts in the community and they say, "˜Well, what do you know about this, what do you know about this?' And I say, "˜Well, I'm still learning. I probably don't know as much as I should yet. I will though.' But I revert that back to those experts and I just wrote a column in our newspaper last month and that's basically kind of what I said to them. I said, "˜I challenge all of you history experts in the community to ask yourself what are you doing to ensure that the younger generation in our communities are learning this stuff instead of being hoarders of information.' And that's what we have. We have a lot of hoarders, because people are scared because information is power and so you have to kind of go and find all the cracks and crevices of information to empower yourself and that's basically what I've done. I'm a quarter way through the room, through the house. There's plenty and many more things that I have to learn, but I'm not going to stop. But that's what I challenged all the experts on. I challenged them to ask themselves what are they doing. And there was this one guy who one time told me, "˜Well, I went and spoke to this one class and they liked it.' I said, "˜One class, one time. We have many more band members in this area that need learning. There needs to be system changes, there needs to be systems set up so we are preparing our kids and our next generation to understand who we are, how we've become to where we're at today and how we're going to be moving forward.'

I'll talk a little bit about my first days in office. I worked with the council for two years and I thought I had an understanding of what it was going to be like on council and I guess I didn't know because my first days in office there was probably 45 people to see me...45 to 50 people to see me every single day the first couple of weeks in office and I was like, "˜Whoa!' And the basis of what they wanted to come and see me for was assistance and sometimes I feel...I'm not embarrassed to say it, but I feel bad that the state of my tribe was so dependent on...and basically it's kind of exploiting the band members about assistance, that it's their money, that I need to give you this money. That's not the case. It's not equitable distribution of resources if 10 percent of the membership are getting 90 percent of the resources. There's other percentage of band members who deserve equal access to those and so I was very taken aback. I thought it was going to be like, "˜Oh, okay, I'm going to get in there, we're going to start addressing some of the deficiencies programmatically,' that we were going to get into office, we were going to start tackling a lot of that stuff and it took time. It took a whole year to make some drastic changes as far as assistance methods go and I would tip my hat to the Salish Kootenai Tribe on their human [resource] development program, because when I flew up there last year I got to see a small snapshot of what that program is about and that is kind of something that I tried to apply back home is consolidation of assistance programs, that it's more easily accessed, for band members to be able to access services and it's not scattered all about and people are luckily enough if they catch a program who might be able to help them.

I guess...I wrote down in my notes that it might seem far-fetched to some tribes about the mentality of assistance, but we all know the power of the dollar and so it's, 'What can you do for me?' is very powerful sometimes and it's very powerful during those elections. And we have an election coming up next year and I keep talking to our council and talking to the membership that just because there's an election doesn't necessarily mean that there's an overhaul. We need to conduct business in a different way. The train doesn't necessarily need to stop and turn back and go the opposite direction because there's new council or new council members who are elected. Take what the successes are and how can you build upon those? But the communities are so split that sometimes it is drastic measures that they want to see done all the way from left to the right and right to the left and that's how progress fails. If you aren't able to capitalize on movement, you're not going to progress and that's why I would say that we are a little bit behind in development at Leech Lake. But like Ian [Record] talked about this morning, it's...you have four years and it might seem like a long time. It's not a long time. I've been in office a year and a half and it seems like a couple of months and so you want to make drastic change and people want to hit those home runs, but it's about institutions, it's about the system changes and starting with your foundation and that's a lot of what the first year, year and a half has been and I didn't think it would take that long. And so that's something that I came to terms with in being in office that government is slow; it's very, very slow. I guess in the size of government it makes the difference.

We had NNI and Bush facilitate a GANN process. They do a GANN, it's a Governance Analysis of Native Nations that we brought to Leech Lake and we focused on three things. We focused on changing our assistance methods and that's what it took -- a whole year. We changed those on July 1st so the tribal council doesn't have direct assistance. We had...prior to getting in office we had a budget, I won't necessarily say how much, but we had a budget. Each council member had their own line-item budget for assistance that was never adhered to. And so we have an emergency assistance program that basically was doing some of the same things that the council were doing, but it's very convenient if you have that money at your fingertips to try to help people. And you want to help people, but is it really helping people by giving direct assistance? Are we spending our time effectively by handing our assistance? Yeah, we're speaking with our band members, we're getting in touch with what the issues are, but we sure aren't putting enough energy towards a real solution and just providing assistance. And so that's something, that it took a little bit of change and it was very tough because there's a high percentage of band members in the communities who had that expectation of that's what tribal council does. And it's trying to change that mentality, it's been very difficult, but it's a work in progress and it's moving forward.

The second thing that we had was bylaw revision and I'm not sure of the political makeup of a lot of tribes, but in Minnesota there's seven Ojibwe tribes and one of them is Red Lake and they're kind of separate and they have their own constitution and whatnot, but the other six Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota are part of a Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It's kind of an organization that has oversight of all the tribes constitutionally, and that's something that I would say I'm not in favor of because it's not self-determination if you have a tribal council member who is representing 1,000 people in one of the tribes and you have another tribal council member who is representing 20,000 members on the other end of the spectrum and they both have equal access and authority in the decision making of this tribal executive committee. And so it's not fair representation. And so that was the basis of what I was trying to do is revise and reform. And there is movement and through that GANN process that was one of the things that we identified is reform, but we can't reform what we can't change so there's systems that we have to make changes to first.

The other thing was you see economic development talked about this morning. And so my point on economic development in government is that they don't necessarily mix together -- he talked about it -- but there has to be a separation because at Leech Lake the tribal council is supposed, the government is supposed to be providing service and how are you supposed to be providing service or how are you supposed to be building a business and letting it invest in itself and grow the business and start more business development if your services are depleting your economic resources. And so there is a separation that needs to be made and I think you guys will talk a little bit about that here today and tomorrow, but that's another, that's the three steps that we moved on.

I will talk a little bit about accomplishments that have been there that necessarily might not have been there before getting in office: community center, a bike path. There's a bike path on a road where there's been about three deaths in the last couple of years and there's been other kids who are hit because it's kind of on a road by our casino and there's a lot of traffic that's on the road. And so we had a bike path that was put into place to try to alleviate the traffic actually being on the road and we partnered up with the county to get that going. We broke ground with an assisted living facility this fall for our elders, we secured funding for a treatment center on our reservation because a lot of the band members felt that a barrier to their success was going off the reservation for their treatment and they wanted to try to get their treatment or they wanted to heal at home. We broke ground with a $3 million library and archive center at our tribal college. We started an athletics program. This is the first year for our basketball teams at our tribal college. We broke ground with a government center last fall, a $4 million government center.

I'll say a little bit about transparency because that was basically what I was about in getting in office. With the assistance, the council had so many different ways of giving assistance, it's kind of crazy, but when I got into office I started to publish all expenses that I had authority to give, is I published those in our newspaper for them to see. It was how many...it was basically how much was being...how much was going out in resources, but it was also how many people were accessing those resources. So it could kind of give people a picture of who is really getting the assistance or who is this really benefiting and it's a small percentage of the actual membership that was accessing it though, so it kind of gives them a picture about that. I had open forums monthly. And the full council, they didn't want to do it monthly. We have quarterly meetings that we have to put on in the communities every quarter and there's a small open forum session for that and in those open forum sessions the band members kind of get riled up, they kind of...they like to build the fire prior to the open forum session so they can kind of vent and release during that time. And so I thought, "˜Well, if we do them every single month, maybe that'll kind of keep the fire from building so big and it'll allow people to say what they've got to say, it'll allow them to be heard, it'll allow them to ask the questions they really want to ask,' to alleviate from like rumors and whatnot that are building in the community that...they spread like wildfire too. So it gives them that opportunity to voice their concerns and then be heard. And so I did that as well.

The other thing that I'll say that I didn't know I was -- well, I didn't know the outcome of it -- but prior to getting into office I talked about giving back. And so that's kind of one of the things I was supposed to talk about in March when I was supposed to be down here is an endowment that I set up at our tribal college. People thought it was a political ploy and it necessarily wasn't because it came to fruition, but I basically said I was going to give 12-and-a-half percent of my gross salary to an endowment for scholarships and education at our tribal college. I got into office, I did the first installment in December, I got another installment going in December and I have people that ask me, "˜What was the intent?' I said, "˜Well, it was to challenge the other council members to see...to ask themselves what were they doing to give back in the communities.' They asked if I felt like...do I feel bad about doing it now because none of the other council members gave back. I'm like, "˜No, I don't feel bad at all.' When I first gave the first installment of the...for the endowment, there was...the act of giving I guess, it kind of...it'll multiply. And so after that, there was other community members in the community that donated either to my endowment or to other scholarship programs at our tribal college and so there was a lot that came out of it, but I think long term the success of what the act will do is...it's not necessarily to show our tribal council members to one-up them, but it's basically to show our kids and our younger generation in the community that in order to grow, everybody needs to be invested and everybody needs to give back and that was a good way of me showing that I wanted to give back because I believe education is empowering and it allows a person to not be so dependent on somebody else. Dependency doesn't breed productivity.

I got the stop sign. I could keep going, but I'll stop there because I think we're opening up for questions and answers. Thank you for allowing me to present to you guys. [Ojibwe language]."

NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: John Petoskey (Part 1)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In the first of two interviews conducted in conjunction with his tenure as NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow, John Petoskey, citizen and long-time General Counsel of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB), discusses how GTB has worked and continues to work to build and maintain a strong, independent system of justice that is viewed as legitimate by GTB citizens. He also discusses GTB's integration of peacemaking and peacemaker courts into its justice systems as a culturally appropriate way of resolving disputes and bringing healing to the community. 

People
Resource Type
Citation

Petoskey, John. "NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: John Petoskey (Part 1)." Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 1, 2013. Interview.

Ian Record:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host, Ian Record. On today's program, we are honored to have with us John Petoskey. John is a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and has spent much of the past 30 years serving as his nation's general counsel. As general counsel, he participates in all federal, state and tribal litigation and administrative hearings where his nation is a plaintiff or defendant. In addition, John wrote the majority of Grand Traverse Band's statutes, published as the Grand Traverse Band Code. He also currently serves as partner with Fredericks, Peebles and Morgan LLP and is spending this week at the University of Arizona serving as Indigenous Leadership Fellow with the University's Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy. John, welcome, and good to have you with us today."

John Petoskey:

"Thank you."

Ian Record:

"I've shared a few highlights of your very impressive personal biography, but why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself. What did I leave out?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, I have been with the Grand Traverse Band for, as you said, a long time. Prior to that I did work for Legal Services...Indian Legal Services in Michigan and importantly, I worked on one of the leading cases on off-reservation treaty fishing and on-reservation treaty fishing that was called U.S. v. Michigan, which followed the same genesis of the United States v. Washington. And when I originally got out of law school in 1979, I was lucky to participate in the trial portion of that case as a first-year law student that had not yet gone to a federal district court opinion. So that was very gratifying and enlightening to me to see how the United States' trust responsibility is implemented for tribes. At the same time, I'm a product of my history in Michigan. My father is from Little Traverse Bay Band[s of Odawa Indians]; my mother is from Grand Traverse Bay Band. And through circumstances of history, the Ottawa tribes of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were not federally recognized under the 1855 treaty, which was a misinterpretation where the Secretary of Interior took federal recognition away in 1871. As a consequence of that act, the state of Indian tribes in Michigan, the Ottawa tribes were desolate, and U.S. v. Michigan was the first spark of hope, if you will, by reversing that decline that the tribes had been in for so long.

After U.S. v. Michigan, I went to work at Indian Pueblo Legal Services in Northern New Mexico and I worked for, in one capacity or the other, for most of the pueblos as a legal services attorney representing poor Indians in the tribal justice systems of the Pueblos and in state and federal court. Those were largely jurisdictional cases at that time in the early "˜80s. There was a lot of assertion of state authority and state court jurisdiction for on-reservation activities. So I litigated a lot of cross motions for summary judgment of no subject matter jurisdiction and I also got to participate in some unique Pueblo-initiated procedures to resolve justice questions that the Pueblos had on their reservations, which were unique because the Pueblos have a unique system of justice that is still largely indigenously driven, if you will, from their historical experience.

After Indian Pueblo Legal Services, I went to Alaska Legal Services, which does have a totally different legal history under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. I was in a place called Nome, Alaska and I went out to villages in an area that was probably 500 miles in diameter surrounding Nome and provided legal services to remote isolated villages. And there you could see the coalescence of all federal Indian policy in a community of 150 people where you would have a traditional government and Indian Reorganization Act government and a local government and an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporation board. So you'd have four layers of government for people, for a total population of 150 people. It was designed for failure, which that's a separate question, but those are items that are left out.

After Alaska Legal Services I went to work for National Indian Youth Council, where I worked on voting rights cases in the southwest turning at-large voting structures into single member districts, largely in New Mexico, in Cibola County and McKinley County. Then I also worked on First Amendment cases in which tribes were alleging that they had a right under the First Amendment to access to federal public domain law that was under the control of the federal government, but for historical reasons the tribes had ceremonial relationships with the land and their ceremonial relationships with the land were being impaired by the Federal Public Land Policies that prohibited their access in some cases or in other cases prohibited their access on an exclusive basis for some of their ceremonies that they needed to conduct."

Ian Record:

"We here at NNI know quite a bit about the Grand Traverse Band. A number of our staff have worked with the Band over the years. You and some of my colleagues for instance go way back to the late "˜80s, early "˜90s and the Band has also received three awards from our partner organization the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and its Honoring Nations Award Program, but share with our audience a bit more about your nation, just who is the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians?"

John Petoskey:

"The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians are Indians that lived in and around the Grand Traverse Bay of Northern Michigan. Michigan is shaped like a hand. If you're from Michigan, people always say to each other, "˜Where are you from?' and they'll hold up a hand and they'll say, "˜Well, I'm from Lansing, I'm from Detroit or I'm from Gaylord.' In this case, using the hand as the analogy, Grand Traverse Band is located on the little finger. That's where the peninsula is. The historical area was a reservation that was created in 1855. Just immediately north to us is the Little Traverse Bay Band, which is located in Petoskey, Michigan. South to us is the Little River Band, which is located in and around Manistee, which is right there.

The Grand Traverse Band achieved federal recognition under the Administrative Procedures Process in 1980. It was the first tribe to go through the federal acknowledgement process under the then-developing federal regulations that go all the way back to the Policy Review Commission back to the "˜70s. When it achieved federal recognition, it had to engage in building all of the governance institutions that were necessary to establish a tribal government. Incident to that, I had met Steve Cornell when I had worked at National Indian Youth Council because he was a personal friend of Gerald Wilkinson and Vine Deloria and Dr. Cornell or Steve Cornell used to come and visit with Gerald Wilkinson and I met him initially in that time period that I was working at National Indian Youth Council.

And then after I started working as general counsel for the tribe in the "˜80s, we were engaged in the process of building these governmental institutions as a new federally recognized tribe and we had to look around for models of how to establish our tribal organization, how to establish our tribal constitution and go forward from there. And so we'd have constitutional committees drafting the constitution and we also were engaged in a fight at that time with James Watt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Interior. And the position under the Reagan administration was that federal acknowledgement was limited to a discrete number of people on the original petition that was submitted, and our argument was that federal acknowledgement covered everybody that was eligible as a descendent from Grand Traverse Band from the last annuity treaty payment that took place in 1910. And obviously, our category that we said were eligible was much larger than the category that the feds wanted to recognize.

As a consequence, we were engaged in litigation with the federal government over the terms of our recognition, which impaired the development of some of our governance institutions, particularly our constitution, which the Interior did not ratify until after that litigation was resolved in 1986 and then the constitution was ratified in 1988, I believe. But at that time, once the constitution was ratified, we really had to come up with the procedures, if you will, for our justice institutions, for our legislative process and for our executive process. And doing research of what models to follow, I came across the Harvard Project on Economic Development and at that time, this was before the internet was widely available, we had to send away for these series of memorandums that students had written on a number of different aspects of Indian economic development and Indian governance issues. And so I basically sent away for all the memorandums and went through the memorandums and cut and paste what I thought was the best in those memorandums for GTB's situation and then went through the process of having the executive-legislature enact those provisions for Grand Traverse Band. Incident to that, I then reinitiated my friendship with Steve Cornell and Steve came up to Grand Traverse Band on two different occasions to visit and to present information and points of views on how he developed tribal institutions. Also, Vine Deloria came up a couple times because I had met and known him at National Indian Youth Council and gave brief talks to our tribal council on the historical relationship of tribal governance and the Department of the Interior and the United States. And Vine had at that time and always did have a very focused analysis of how tribal governments had been overpowered by the federal government. And so in all senses of the word, he was an advocate for strong tribal governance and he promoted that when he was speaking with our tribal council and providing advice on which way to go. So that's, in a quick thumbnail I think that's what the relationship was."

Ian Record:

"Following up on this issue of constitutional development, you said that you were one of the people charged with going out and learning what other tribes had been doing to develop governments that made sense for them and that you sort of worked to integrate the best of what you had learned from others. Was there at some point in the process a customization of some of those governing institutions to the particular circumstances, cultural values of Grand Traverse in trying to make it their own?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, yes. The process of writing a constitution is not...doesn't rise to the level of the Federalist Papers, where you have advocates writing arguments for and against different propositions that are in the constitution. In the Indian community, what that comes down to, if you will, the "Federalist Paper" analogy is a group of people sitting around working their way through the constitution occasion after occasion after occasion after occasion and bringing out their own personal experience from the community as to what will work and what will not work, and so that's what the Grand Traverse Band community did."

Ian Record:

"And how has the...in your estimation how has the constitution worked in the 25 years it's been in place? Do you feel like it's beginning to gain...it has gained widespread cultural and community acceptance?"

John Petoskey:

"Yes. The one unique aspect of our constitution that is different from other constitutions is most entities elect a tripartite system of governance where they have executive, legislature and judiciary. At the time, when we were developing our constitution, the concept of consensus through council discussion was the primary value that people brought to the table of communication of trading off what would work and what would not work. The concept of separating the executive and legislature was not high on anybody's list, and so the GTB constitution has a combined executive-legislative function, so the council meets as a group and acts by motion, ordinance or resolution and it's the majority vote of the seven on the council. There are itemized activities that the executive power has -- and the vice chair and the treasurer and secretary -- but that is still in the context of the council acting as the executive-legislative combined branch of government. So we don't have, if you will, effectively, three coordinate branches of government. We have two branches of government, the executive-legislature as one and the judiciary as the other."

Ian Record:

"Let's talk about the judiciary. I plan to cover a number of topics with you today, but first and foremost is the issue of the judiciary or justice systems comprehensively and I'd like to start big picture, and based on your vast experience in this area, what role do you feel justice systems play in a tribe's ability to exercise its sovereignty effectively, to achieve its priorities, to create a healthier more culturally vibrant community?"

John Petoskey:

"Oh, that's kind of an open-ended question. I would like to just go directly to Grand Traverse Band. In our constitution we have the judiciary as an independent branch of government with independent authority and it's recognized in the constitution to have that. The judiciary serves the function as a check on the executive and legislative actions and it also provides a forum for dispute resolution between the community and community members over behavior that is not acceptable or behavior that comes to the court to resolve disputes between two individuals.

For example, I'm thinking of family law matters, dissolution of marriages or abuse and neglect on children or cases like that, so you need a third party to resolve disputes where the question of who is right and who is wrong is an open question subject to the advocacy of the parties. I don't see the judiciary in a larger, big-picture sense that you outlined. I see it in a little-picture sense of resolving disputes and if an individual, a tribal member, has a dispute with the tribal council over the enactment of legislation or the administration of that legislation by the delegated entities that the council has set up, then that tribal council member under our system, if our constitution has the right to go into tribal court because our constitution waives the immunity of the executive and the legislature and to assert that the application of that rule to that particular person is wrong for whatever reason.

And the Section 10 of our constitution incorporates almost word for word the Indian Civil Rights Act, which is almost...with notable exception leaves out certain elements from the Bill of Rights. The Indian Civil Rights Act is modeled on the Bill of Rights and those are the, if you will, the constitutional values that the federal system has, that the state system has, and by force of this overpowering values of constitutional law from our coordinate sovereign governments, the federal government and the state government, most tribal members are familiar with the U.S. federal constitutional rights and state constitutional rights; therefore, if they have a complaint with the United...with the tribe, they frame their complaint in that context and what is not unique about our constitution, but other constitutions, also have this, is that the constitution recognizes that there's an automatic waiver for that type of cause of action by a tribal member to sue the executive and legislature alleging a violation of Chapter 10 of our constitution, which effectively is the Indian Civil Rights Act. And our constitutional members have done that a number of times.

And then we also have disputes between...we have had disputes between the executive and the judicial...the executive and legislative branch and the judicial branch and the constitution does provide a methodology for the resolution of those disputes. We have had judicial removals and it's a process of the executive-legislature filing a claim in the judiciary unit, a panel of judicial appointees are appointed to determine whether or not a judge should be removed for cause, that are established in the constitution. So when you say big picture, it's too big for me to grasp because everything that I...for myself at least, I'm not a big-picture person and look at concrete problems and how to solve concrete problems, and those concrete problems I guess do have big picture implications, but it's solving the concrete problems that I focus on at least."

Ian Record:

"Well, and that's one of the reasons we thought of you as a good pick to be one of our fellows is that in our vast experience working with tribes on the ground in tribal communities is the fact that nation building is not a top-down proposition. It really starts at the grassroots and it works from the bottom up with the problems that every day...that come up every day that tribal members face. For instance, seeking redress against the government when they feel that they've been wronged. You mentioned that Grand Traverse Band's justice system is strong and independent and NNI and Harvard Project have done a lot of research in this area and it's been pretty conclusive in terms of finding that having a strong and independent justice system is really vital to a nation's efforts to achieve its goals. And I'm curious to get your take on that finding based upon your own experience and obviously the strength and independence of the justice system was not an accident. This was a purposeful process that the tribe has engaged in over a very long period of time to build that strength, to build that independence, and I guess my question to you would be how do you see that research finding in the context of what Grand Traverse has done?"

John Petoskey:

"In the context of...well, I would support it first of all. Having a strong and independent justice system is very important. And I think Grand Traverse Band has been lucky in some of the initial judges that it had that were tribal members that served for a long time on the judicial system and the fact that they were tribal citizens gave greater legitimacy for their decisions and for the conflicts that were resolved by judicial action. When we have had problems with the Grand Traverse Band is when we have...our constitution was written in the early "˜80s and actually implemented in 1988 and the provision that we have for judicial appointments does have a proviso of appointing attorneys who are non-members, and so on occasion we have had to appoint non-member attorneys to act as tribal judges. And the argument there is, "˜Well, an attorney has training in procedural due process, dispute resolution, the framing of legal arguments for the resolution of complex disputes and is familiar with the substantive law that comes forward that regulates human relationships and governmental relationships and so therefore the attorney, even though not a member, would bring value in that position as a tribal judge,' and that argument I accept.

Nevertheless, the proviso in my experience has been that when a non-Indian, non-citizen of the tribe is appointed, there are problems that inevitably arise because the legitimacy of that judicial officer is questioned by the community. I would propose a thought experiment that people would see this analogy or this problem in another manner. For example, I don't think any tribal constitution provides a provision in which you can elect to their tribal council non-members so long as they're attorneys or that they're engineers or something else, and that's just unheard of. And so the executive and legislative branch that are made up of members has greater legitimacy for implementing a decision even if the decision is wrong because it's coming from that citizen group in that community. Conversely, when a judge who is not a member is trying to implement a decision, even if that decision is right, it has less legitimacy.

So the cautionary tale that I would have on building strong judicial departments is that you keep in mind, and I know this is somewhat of a touchy subject, but you keep in mind that those should be citizen members that are filling those positions and it lends greater legitimacy to the resolution of the problems, and maybe this is a problem just uniquely to some tribes that have that provision in their constitution for the appointment of non-Indians, but if you look at the Indian law world, all of the Indian law professors -- you could tick them off on your hand that are the big stars -- also serve on tribal courts. And so they're not bringing their membership as a member of a tribe, they're coming to serve on those courts as people that are profoundly sympathetic to Indians and profoundly conversant with the principles of federal Indian law and the principles of substantive law, but nevertheless, they are bringing the same baggage of their cultural tradition to an Indian forum for resolving disputes involving principally Indians. There's variations on that too because some of those...some people argue that tribal courts are courts of general jurisdiction so they can resolve disputes involving Indians and non-Indians and I accept that, but what I'm saying is that a citizen/member of the tribe lends greater legitimacy to the resolution of the dispute."

Ian Record:

"To me what you're really talking about are what I see as two challenges. One is there needs to be a thoughtful, strategic discussion about. 'What should the qualifications of judges be?' So for instance, obviously should they have passed the bar in the state in which the tribe resides? That's often a criteria. I think what the Navajo example and a growing number of other tribal examples teach us is that tribes really placing an emphasis on their judges having understanding of that tribe's common cultural law and being in a position to apply that. And from what you're saying that non-Indian outsiders are just not equipped with that because they haven't grown up in that environment."

John Petoskey:

"Yes. In fact there should be, and I think Navajo does this and I confess my ignorance in this, but there should be a Navajo bar exam and tribes should implement their own bar exams for the practice within their own courts. Certainly all tribes now implement admission to their bar for their court but really all that is...and I'm not saying this in a negative or pejorative sense, but all that is is motioning yourself in for admission, paying the admission fee and being admitted to the bar of that particular tribe. But, if a tribe were to develop a bar exam and it's not...doesn't necessarily have to be on the substantive elements of what constitutes a tort crime, but it would have to be on something, in the case of Grand Traverse Band, it would have to be on the substantive elements of what is the fundamental value of Algonquians or Ottawas on how you lead a good life and what is the balance in life and the aim of life that you're supposed to be doing. And there is a set of concepts interrelated that are from the tradition of Ottawas and Ojibwes that define what is a good life and what is a bad life. And being sensitive to that in the position of judging disputes in which people are arguing over and sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly over those received values, is important to resolving issues that come before the court."

Ian Record:

"I want to turn back to Grand Traverse Band and the strength and independence that you and others have worked so hard to instill within that justice system that you currently operate. What do you feel -- based on the Grand Traverse experience -- that tribal justice systems need to have in place in order to be strong and independent?"

John Petoskey:

"I know the appropriate answer would probably be an institutional structure that non-Indians are familiar with, but the realistic answer, if you...is you need people that are really bright and focused and from that tradition and that are committed to that tradition. They are people that are...that grew up in the tradition, that bring the intelligence of the tradition to the position and that are committed to that tradition, that is an answer that is sort of off-center, but you need an Indian jurisprudence of values that reflect the community that you're from and the way that those values evolve are from growing up in that community, and that's an ongoing constant process. There's no one set of values that control the evolution of the community. In my own life for example and my wife's life, our parents had a totally different experience from what it was to be Indian in the...they were both born in 1915 and grew up in a period from 1915, died in the "˜80s, their life experience was fundamentally different and their grandparents or their parent's life experience was fundamentally different and they were born in the 1870s and you stretch back. This may be a little far afield, but if you stretch back to my grandparents, who were in the 1870s, and you stretch to my children now who were born in the 1990s, you have 120 years of change that is constantly taking place, but all of them have the same common denominator of coming from the same group of people and going through that change together."

Ian Record:

"So basically what you're saying is that the folks that lead that justice system, if you will, need to be culturally grounded, right?"

John Petoskey:

"Yes."

Ian Record:

"They need to have roots in the community that are not sort of put down overnight, but come from long, sustained involvement in the community, whether it's residence or participation in cultural ceremonies, etc. But just to sort of throw out a scenario to you, so presume for a second that you have all that on the judicial side of the equation and then there's somebody, in your case the executive-legislative side of governance equation that doesn't...is not acting from those values, if you will, and places perhaps unhealthy pressure on the judiciary to act in a certain way, to sort of test that strength and independence of the judicial system. What sort of mechanisms are in place to -- at Grand Traverse -- to ensure the insulation of the judiciary from that sort of unhealthy interference and ensure that it can in fact enact the cultural values, it can actually judge cases based on their merits and mete out justice in a fair and a consistent fashion?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, this is not something that is in place in terms of institutions, but on the executive-legislature side, there are seven councilors and the councilors don't always agree with each other, but they're all from the community and they all have...they all bring their common experience from the community to their positions on the council and they disagree amongst themselves and they recognize that some of those disagreements have to be resolved by the judiciary. And if Councilor A has a position against Councilor B and Councilor A is going to try to influence the judiciary to impermissibly or in some manner that is not straightforward in the procedural process, then Councilor B is going to object to that and Councilor B is going to then use Councilor B's authority within the context of the executive-legislative branch to bring that objection forward. And so it is a self-policing method of checks and balances, of different policy positions on the combined executive-legislative council. And so in that sense, even though the value is consensus of trying to get to a consensus and once the council does arrive at a consensus, it generally goes forward from that position. Arriving at that consensus involves very heated arguments between the individual councilors as to what is the appropriate course of action and if that heated argument or those differences manifest themselves in a dispute in the judiciary then Councilor A's attempt to determine the outcome in the judiciary is going to violate the rights of Councilor B and Councilor B is not going to acquiesce to that and is going to take action against A in the context of the executive-legislative process. That's realistically the way that works. I don't know if you formalize that process in some other method."

Ian Record:

"I guess what about for instance if it's not...if it doesn't involve a difference of opinion with two council members, but say, for instance, I'm a citizen and I feel that for whatever reason that the case before the court needs to be decided in my favor and I call up one of these councilors and say, "˜You need to do what I ask and I voted for you,' kind of thing and this may not be something you're familiar with because it doesn't sound like this is a common occurrence at Grand Traverse. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence in a lot of other tribes that we've worked with. I guess is it sort of values and sort of community norms that prevents a lot of that from taking place or is there something formal within the constitutional framework that Grand Traverse has developed that prevents that sort of thing?"

John Petoskey:

"Within the constitutional framework the judiciary is independent. That's a categorical statement. The hypothetical that you posited has occurred and I am familiar with cases in which tribal members have called up councilors and say, "˜I don't agree with this court's decision because it's wrong,' and the councilors have come back to the council and said, "˜Judge is wrong in this basis, what should we do?' and other councilors say, "˜Well, it's a independent judiciary,' and you get back into the methodology that I was talking about earlier where A and B are arguing over the proper policy. We're lucky in one sense that one of our councilors is a former chief judge on our court and chief judge on other courts in Michigan. So that particular councilor is...has been in the shoes of a judiciary and has been involved in inter-branch fights between the judiciary and the executive-legislature. But we have not had extreme cases at Grand Traverse Band. I can...I don't want to...there have been cases in Michigan in which one where the executive branch and the judicial branch got into such an extreme dispute that the judicial branch ordered the arrest and incarceration of the executive branch, and typically it's the other way around. All of the hypotheticals that you've been positing involve the executive pressuring the judiciary, but in this particular case it was the judiciary that ordered the arrest of the executive over an election dispute where the holdover council was not vacating office and the executive branch was actually arrested and then the petition for habeas corpus was filed in federal district court to release the executive branch, that the judicial order was invalid. So it goes both ways I'm saying."

Ian Record:

"It sounds like at Grand Traverse there's a controlling dynamic within the executive-legislative function where if there is an individual council member who's being pressured by a constituent to interfere in the judicial function that the other council members remind that individual on the council of their role, what their role is and what their role is not. Speaking more broadly, what do you feel is the role of elected leadership in supporting the strength and independence and supporting the growth of justice systems, because for instance at Grand Traverse, your justice system has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years and won an award from Honoring Nations for the incredible work it's been doing and not just building a strong and independent court system, but also making sure that that system is culturally appropriate and reflecting and enacting the values of the people. What do you feel the role of leaders are in supporting the justice function?"

John Petoskey:

"At Grand Traverse Band or in general?"

Ian Record:

"Just in general I think."

John Petoskey:

"Well, my response would be if you look at other systems -- the federal system, the state system -- there have always been disputes over the scope of judicial power in the...in federal court, in federal jurisdiction, what is the appropriate scope of federal jurisdictional power and what is the scope of its ability to resolve disputes. Justice Breyer makes a big point of this if you look at the election dispute between Bush v. Gore, it was a decision that was by the Supreme Court that was widely recognized as invalid in terms of its substantive analysis of the law, but nevertheless the whole country said, once the decision came out, "˜Well, game over,' because there's a strong judicial system and once the decision was rendered, good, bad or indifferent, that's it. Everybody folded their respective tents and went home and George Bush became president when he probably should not have been president on the substantive law basis, but a wrong decision on the merits is still a final decision and the parties respect that. And so you would hope that tribal court systems would evolve to that level of behavior where people would see that finality even for a bad decision. Of course Bush probably didn't think it was a bad decision, but they would evolve to that level of behavior that even for a bad decision, it's the final decision and you go forward. Nobody brought out the Army or guns or anything to enforce Bush v. Gore. The only thing that was done was Scalia saying, "˜Well, this case shouldn't be cited for any other precedent, just for the unique circumstances in George Bush as president.'

And the other cases, Justice Stephens and the other Justices, Stephens in particular, forcefully argued that it was a sad day for the judiciary, but they were arguing on the merits of what the decision was. Nobody was saying, "˜Well, are people going to abide by this? Are they going to follow this decision?' and ultimately that didn't even come up. The values were so engrained that everybody just followed that decision, but that was a hard-fought value because you go back to Brown v. Board of Education. When that came out, you had George Wallace standing at the entrance of a public university screaming, "˜Segregation now! Segregation forever!' saying, "˜I will not move and allow black people into this university,' and tremendous fights, killings, murders, just tremendous pain and suffering for the implementation of the Civil Rights decisions. So when you look at Indian Country, Indian Country is not something that is any different because we're all humans trying to resolve complex disputes and we're using different methodologies to resolve those disputes."

Ian Record:

"And I think it would be important for folks to keep in mind that while a lot of these justice systems are working...tribal justice systems are working to integrate, enact longstanding cultural values, the systems themselves are relatively new in many cases in that these were justice systems that were established in the "˜50s, "˜60s, "˜70s, "˜80s many of them, and it takes a long time in many of those communities for those systems to gain the legitimacy that you're talking about. Your colleague Frank Pommersheim, I had opportunity to interview him and he made the exact same point that the true test of a strong independent judiciary is, 'Do people respect the decision even though they disagree with it, particularly elected leadership?'"

John Petoskey:

"Yes."

Ian Record:

"That's the true test. They may not like the decision, they may not like the outcome but they're not going to blow the place up over the fact that they disagree with it."

John Petoskey:

"Right. That is a good test. And that...and nobody arrives at that without some pain and suffering, and that's why I brought out Brown v. Board of Education. Here you had the Supreme Court saying, "˜Segregation in education is constitutionally impermissible,' and you certainly had southern states saying, "˜It is not and we're not going to allow the decision to be implemented. Impeach Earl Warren.'"

Ian Record:

"So one of the things that in terms of how Native nations and governments and the other branches or functions of government can support tribal judiciaries...one of the things you and I were talking about yesterday was this issue of funding and what we've often heard tribal judges lament about is the fact that, "˜In our tribe the elected leadership treat us like we're just another department when really we serve a fundamental function of any society, which is to resolve disputes, which is to in many instances serve as a check on the abuse of power, the abuse of authority by the other functions of government. How important is it for leaders of nations...of tribal nations to have that mindset that the judicial system is more than just another department of government and fund it accordingly and really place an emphasis on putting the judicial system sort of at the top when it comes to allocating budgetary resources for instance?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, obviously my point is that judicial systems should be funded and the de-funding of judicial systems for political purposes should be categorically impermissible, because today's decision may be something that you support but tomorrow's decision may be something that you oppose and so the funding of judicial decisions based upon past precedent of the courts or decisions that they made shouldn't be in the equation of how you fund the judicial system. The conversation that we had was that I haven't seen any information on the relationship of how you...what the ratio is of the federal government's funding of its judicial system over its total budget, and I'm sure it could be easy to figure out, but I just haven't seen that in print someplace. At Grand Traverse Band, we have a revenue allocation ordinance and we did set up a system of funding the judicial system by a percentage of our income, our net income that we receive from various enterprises, largely gaming. At the time that we passed the RAO [revenue allocation ordinance] it was, I forget the exact number, but it was something like four percent or seven percent is going to go to the judicial system. And just through circumstances of gaming, like a lot of tribes over the last 20 years, the net income of gaming has risen dramatically like a jet taking off into the stratosphere. Those are numbers out there that everybody is family with. So we had this RAO number of four to seven percent that the judicial system received as a direct level of funding that was not to be...it was enacted by the statute and so once our enterprises took off, the amount of money that the judicial system was receiving was extraordinary. It got very high very quickly and because our enterprises were successful."

Ian Record:

"But I would imagine that as your enterprise got successful you're engaged in more commercial dealings, there's more disputes, there's the case load of the court system grows."

John Petoskey:

"Yes, yes, there is that argument, but my point is I haven't seen any good research on how you arrive at the appropriate level of funding for a judicial system. You do have the method of GPRA, of performance-based funding for projected future funding on outcomes with present resources and that's how you do programmatic funding for activities and then you have federal funding where federal priorities come into smaller communities and those are competitive grants that we look at and then you have what are called the self-governance BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs], AFA, annual funding agreements through self-governance taking over certain sections of what is known as the 'green book,' which is the budget book of the Department of Interior for funding and they have a number of formulas that are in that book based on the appropriate level of funding for different activities that the BIA is engaged in in administering an Indian reservation and just in a thumbnail in self governance is a tribe has shown that it can administer those programs just as well as the BIA through no audit exceptions, therefore they get control of that line item in the green book to administer the program or to reallocate to any other function. My point that I was getting to is that I don't see the formula for tribal court funding. Clearly funding should not be a political animal in terms of past decisions or future decisions, but there should be some formula methodology to determine what the appropriate level of funding is."

Ian Record:

"So Grand Traverse, by all accounts, has operated this strong and independent court system for quite a while that it consistently and fairly dispenses justice. What sort of messages do you feel that that sends to outsiders that interact with Grand Traverse in terms of how it does business, how it governs? Do you feel that there's been a positive ripple effect of the way that Grand Traverse dispenses justice that supersedes the reservation boundaries?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, yes. These sound like leading softball questions, but yes. Some of the things that we do at Grand Traverse is what other tribes do and some tribes do it much better than we do. I haven't looked at their site recently, but I know Ho Chunk had a very good site on their judicial opinions and we try to model our site on our judicial opinions. We set up all of our opinions into VersusLaw and into WesLaw and so they're categorized into the WesKey number system. They're available... we try to make them available... before the internet came online we did create a... all of our opinions available in the local law libraries when everybody was using hard copies to do research. We made arrangements with the county law libraries that they would have copies of our code, that they would have copies of all of our opinions that were issued. And then several years ago, it hasn't been updated, but Matthew Fletcher, who a lot of people know in the Indian law world, is a member of Grand Traverse Band and used to work at Grand Traverse Band as an attorney, assistant general counsel for about four years, and after he left he wrote a restatement of Grand Traverse Band's common law based upon all of the opinions published up until that point. And so we direct people to that on a regular basis to tell them, "˜This is the restatement of the common law as of X date. It hasn't been updated, but these are the opinions on a chronological basis that you can find that are available.' Our statutes are published online. We do have a qualified, when I say qualified, it's not as detailed as the Administrative Procedures Act, but we do have a process of legislative enactment in which we publish proposed bills for comment by our tribal members and before enactment and comments come in and the tribal council reacts to those comments either accepting or rejecting, and making appropriate decisions based on the comments and some bills as a result of that comment process have taken a long time to get through to enactment because some of the issues are extremely contentious internally with the tribe over the appropriate standard that the bill is implementing on the standard of behavior.

So I think the common denominator of what I just said is transparency throughout the whole process. Transparency throughout the judicial process in terms of the court publishing its opinions, making them widely available to individuals, the transparency of legislative acts being widely apparent to individuals. Grand Traverse Band is now going for its executive-legislative function to publish their proceedings online so that people who are tribal members...and this is an open question on whether non-members would be able to access it, but clearly tribal members would be able to, citizen members would be able to access council meetings to review what took place in the meeting and the process and procedures that were utilized in the meetings. There's discussions right now of doing the same thing for court proceedings that... of tribal court TV, if you will, to make transparency as the same value. So I think the value of transparency is something that is accepted by the majority of the participants in the political process and that has enormous benefits in a cultural norm of checks and balances, if you will, because everybody knows that everything is subject to review and all arguments are...can be developed after the fact, too, because you can look at something or you can be involved in this conversation that we're having right now, it's being recorded and later on I may be sitting at home thinking, "˜God, I should have said that or I should have said this,' and other people will have that same reaction."

Ian Record:

"Doesn't it all boil down to, when it comes down to transparency and the different ways that Grand Traverse is seeking to achieve that, is people who interface with the government, whether it's citizens of the Band or outsiders who may be dealing with the tribe commercially or may live within the community on allotment land or whatever it might be, that they understand not only the decisions that have been made, they're aware of the decisions that are being contemplated, but most importantly they're...they understand the rationale underlying the decision-making process. What is the common law that's driving this or what are the values that's driving this? Is that really at the crux of the whole thing?"

John Petoskey:

"The crux of the whole thing is not to have an indeterminate process; it's to have a determinate process that participants can enter the process at various points and figure out what happened, why it happened, what the future decision is going to be, what the arguments for and against it can be and an indeterminate process, what I see is a situation where the participants and the people who have to suffer the consequences of the decision don't know why something happened or what's going to happen in the future because there's no agreed upon procedure statutorily or there's no agreed upon cultural norm of transparency. And so it makes for an indeterminate future and an indeterminate past because the rationale for some of the decisions in the past were arbitrary, and these are words that are used in administrative law, but are arbitrary and capricious and they're not subject to analysis because they're indeterminate. And so I think the value that Grand Traverse Band is trying to achieve is a process of determinate decision making in its executive-legislative and judicial process, where participants in the process and the people who are subject to the process either as citizens or non-citizens can understand what occurred, why it occurred, and what will occur in the future."

Ian Record:

"So I wanted to wrap up with a few questions that get into a little bit more detail about Grand Traverse Band's approach to jurisprudence. We've been touching again and again on this issue of cultural values, common law, common tribal law and I'm curious, several years ago the Grand Traverse Band formally integrated the peacemaking approach to dispute resolution into its justice system. Can you talk about how that came about, what was the impetus, what does it look like, how does it work?"

John Petoskey:

"Well, the value of the peacemaking court...first of all, I want to acknowledge that Navajo Nation started with peacemaking court and I'm not familiar with the full scope of that, but I know that they had a peacemaking court long before other tribes did and brought in their values and cultural tradition to the resolutions of disputes that were involved on family relations. And at that time, our chief judge, his name is Mike Petoskey, he's not my brother, we're often confused because we're close in age and look alike. He is my first cousin. He was our tribal judge and had been our tribal chief judge for about 15 years and he was familiar with a lot of Navajo judges because he went to law school at the University of New Mexico and he had a common experience with some of these judges based upon their military experience in Vietnam and similar life experience even though these people were from the interior of Navajo, Lukachukai. So it was Ray Austin that he was a good friend with. I think Ray has published a book on the Navajo judicial systems. And Mike and Ray had been friends for many years, well, going to law school and had a common denominator even though they were widely geographically dispersed and culturally dispersed, one being Ottawa and one being Navajo. And so Mike was dealing with the types of problems that come up in Indian communities that are families-in-crisis problems and part of the way of resolving those problems in the non-Indian society under child abuse and neglect and families in need of supervision under the state model, if you look at their codes, are very destructive to the individual family unit because the resolution is, "˜This is not going to work so we're going to terminate the parental rights. We want to take the child away. We're going to sanction the parent and the family is dispersed.' I'm not saying that across the board, but that is one model that the family law in non-Indian society uses to resolve families in crisis and that may work if you have a larger group that you're...of people that you're dealing with and larger resources. But the tribe didn't have the larger resources and the group that it's dealing with is a common core of people that are related to each other across time and terminating and dispersing the family is not something that is...that the tribe wants to do, because a lot of the historical experience of the tribal members is suffering the state system of termination and dispersal of the family and then slowly finding your way back to the community. And so an alternative is to try to fix the destructive family patterns that exist within the family in question or whatever family it is. I don't have any family in question, I'm just saying this is how or what the situations that came up and the way to do that is to bring in other members of the extended family into a whole process of saying, "˜Well, what is the problem and why are you behaving in this manner that creates destructive consequences for your children or destructive consequences for your husband or wife or for your mother or father or for your aunts and uncles?' The behavior of one individual has a ripple effect like the stone in the pond that goes out into the whole community. And so the concept of peacemaking is to recognize that and to bring all of the people in the pond, if you will, that feel that ripple effect into the process to resolve that stone and to engage in dialogue, and there is a value within the Ottawa and Ojibwe tradition that all of our inter-family relationships are really community-based relationships and extend out to everybody and that a resolution of those community-based relationships of necessity involves all of these people that it extends out to because your actions today do not just impact your nuclear family, your husband, wife, mother, daughter. They also impact your aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and so bringing that whole group together or the principles within that group to work on the solution for that behavior is better than viewing it as a nuclear unit of a family, husband, wife, children and that's it and that as the scope of what the community was that had to be fixed. And the peacemaking court was to say, if you look at the larger community which everybody is impacted by this behavior and you try to bring the larger community into that process with the individual that is misbehaving, if you will, and saying, "˜This is what your behavior is causing to the whole community and we are here to help you to resolve that behavior,' and to bring the person back into the community by explaining what the impacts of their behavior has on the whole community. That's the fundamental concept. There's a long Indian word that I can't pronounce that my wife [Eva Petoskey] can, and so you might bring that up with her, and she has a better grasp of the language than I do."

Ian Record:

"So how in your estimation has it worked out so far, the use of peacemaking for Grand Traverse?"

John Petoskey:

"It's worked out well because it...there are a lot of people in Indian Country that are in pain and suffering for a variety of...this is sort of a leftist orientation, but of historical trauma, of what your parents and grandparents went through and so that has an impact on your present life and when I was talking about just looking at my own life, I'm 61 years old and I can look back to see my grandparents who I knew were born in the 1870s and there's been tremendous change from where my children are right now who were born in the 1990s and are in graduate school in college and going through different changes of their own, but we're all connected to this one place and we're all from this one place and we all grew up there. But the change is constant and for Grand Traverse Band since 1980 in the scale of things change has been positive for the community. The community has reasserted its traditions and reasserted its control over its community and when it lost its control over its community it lost control over its traditions because we weren't directing our lives, we were being directed by other people and so directing our lives even if it's in an impaired and fractured community is a process of healing that community and so that peacemaking court in the method that I just described is a process of resolving a lot of disputes that are very, very difficult and very difficult to resolve and that take a lot of time. It's not ever going to be perfect and it's not ever going to be over, it's always going to change."

Ian Record:

"As a final question, what I'm struck by in hearing you and others talk about the peacemaking approach is that often the western adversarial system, which is focused on punitive measures tends to focus on the symptom, which is the misbehavior whereas, peacemaking really seeks to get at the root cause of what's driving this behavior and sort of...and attacking that root cause to prevent that from happening again rather than punishing someone for what has already happened. Is that basically how it works?"

John Petoskey:

"I would say yes, but again I would say my wife has a better handle on that, but it's bringing in the community and the impacts on the community and saying to the individual, "˜You should have empathy and compassion for the acts that you're doing and the impacts on people that you have relationships with, long-term relationships with.' Sometimes they're loving relationships, sometimes they're not loving relationships, they're stressful relationships, but the point is everybody has a consequence for their behavior and those consequences are felt by the whole community and it's trying to say to the individual, "˜Your behavior affects the whole community and the whole community is here to try to tell you that to change your behavior so those consequences don't impact us,' because they do."

Ian Record:

"Well, John, we really appreciate you agreeing to serve as a fellow with the Native Nations Institute and agreeing to sit down with us today and sharing your thoughts, experience and wisdom with us. And this is part one of a two-part interview. We'll be interviewing you again this week in more detail about some of the work you've done in terms of developing Grand Traverse's legal infrastructure and I'd like to thank you for your time today. And that's all the time we have on today's program of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us. Copyright 2013 Arizona Board of Regents."

NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: Rae Nell Vaughn (Part 1)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Rae Nell Vaughn, former Chief Justice of the Mississippi Choctaw Supreme Court, discusses the critical role that justice systems play in the rebuilding of Native nations and shares how the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has worked to develop its justice system to reflect and promote its culture and meeting the evolving challenges that it faces.

Resource Type
Citation

Vaughn, Rae Nell. "NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow (Part 1)." Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. September 15, 2009. Interview.

Ian Record:

"What role do tribal justice systems play in rebuilding Native nations?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"It's been my experience that it plays a significant role in regards to tribal government. One thing that I have found within the 11 years of my judicial experience is the fact that tribal governments as a whole have had to play a role of catch-up, fast tracked. In regards to Mississippi Choctaw, we established our constitution in 1945 at a point in time where we were living in very oppressed conditions. Of course, as you know, historically the tribe was removed to Oklahoma and we're the descendants of the members that chose to stay. No federal or state recognition at that point up until the time of recognition and the development of our constitution, and it was a building process. You had a number of leaders who would step up and were wanting to form a strong government. Of course, the justice system itself came in years later, but overall they've had to try to fast track a government in order to provide the people with services, and it was a struggle, it was a definite struggle. And of course ultimately, a justice system was developed under the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs], a court of regulations, a CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] court, and that had its challenges all on its own because you have the mechanisms but not the resources to provide law and order. And your reliance was on the BIA and it was a definite struggle during the early years of this system. You had a membership maybe at that time of close to 3,000 possibly.

Now going back historically, the membership dwindled down in the early 1900s to less than 1,000 because of the influenza epidemic and here we are in 2009 and have a membership of 10,000. And you talk about a flourishing economy at some point with the successes of this tribe, but you also talk about the population growth and with it coming the social ills and influences that impact a community. And so I've seen this system evolve, even prior to my interaction with it, becoming a judge. It's grown by leaps and bounds. They started off with a staff of maybe three: a tribal member judge -- when it was under the control of BIA -- and maybe one or two folks that also participated. And to this point, once...during my tenure as a judge, we were up to 32 employees. You had 11 members on the judiciary, which is so unheard of, but for me it was a signal from the government [that], 'This is important. A justice system for this government is important and we are investing in our government and in our people to provide them a fair form of justice.' Knowing where we're at, we're located in Mississippi, and the struggles that minorities have faced, Native people have faced, has always been there, an underlying issue. And so being able to have our people be in a forum that's fair for them, being judged by their peers was the most important thing. But also it was the fundamental exercise of sovereignty, operating a system, a judicial system, which not many tribes have had the ability to do and maybe not to the degree that we've been able to do it. That's not to say that there haven't been any challenges. There are, just like there are with any system, whether it's a tribal system or non-Native system, but it's a work in progress. Codes are forever changing and you have to keep your hand on...keep on the pulse of what's happening nationally because what happens nationally will ultimately affect you locally.

And so cases such as Nevada v. Hicks, issues of jurisdiction, those have far-reaching ramifications. So having a stable, consistent, and well-educated and well-trained judiciary is very important, and those are the things that I think tribal governments really have to take a look at and recognize the investment that you're making."

Ian Record:

"And I would assume that in that understanding of what's going on nationally, it's not just the judiciary that has to understand, it's elected leadership and particularly the legislators, the ones that are making those laws to say, "˜We've got to be out front on these issues so we're not stuck in a corner one day in the near future having to react defensively to something we're not prepared for.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Exactly. We have to be proactive. It hits every area of government: economic development, education, healthcare. We have to be very diligent and we have to go the extra mile in making sure that we're protecting our sovereignty and at the same time being aware of what the landscape is looking like politically. There have been times in previous [U.S. presidential] administrations where they haven't been quite so favorable to Native Americans. And we may be here at a time of renaissance where there's going to be more participation, more of us as Native people at the table speaking on our behalves, on our own behalf. As a Native person, this is where I've been, this is what we've gone through and this is what we can do and this is what we want to provide for the people, because at times Native people get lost in the shuffle of all the social programs and issues that the federal government itself is dealing with. There are some tribes that are very fortunate to have the additional revenues to provide for their tribes and some aren't. How do we all work together to make sure that each of these tribes are able to have the type of support to be able to function and exercise as a government?"

Ian Record:

"Mississippi Choctaw's court system was recognized by the Honoring Nations program at the Harvard Project in American Indian Economic Development just a few years ago. And in large part it was recognized because of its ability to exercise or to be a vehicle for sovereignty for the nation. Based on your experience in that system, in that court system, I was wondering if you could speak to this issue of strong independent court systems and what those look like, what do those systems require to be effective?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"That's a very good question, because it's a challenge that all tribal court systems face. And let me say that the Honoring Nations program was such an excellent exercise for us, because as a system you're in the trenches every day and you don't realize the things that you're doing have such far-reaching impact. And so when we began this process of going through the rigors of the Honoring Nations project program, I was just so amazed. "˜We're doing so much here, we're looking at alternative resources and programs, we're trying to look at things more holistically versus using the American jurisprudence of dropping the gavel and that's it,' because we recognize that within Native communities we're going to be among one another. I'm not moving anywhere, you're not moving anywhere, we're staying in this community, and it's trying to ensure that we have healthy communities and using the justice system and possibly not just going before formal court, using our peacemaker court, using teen court, using our healing-to-wellness court, are other alternatives that are available to the membership and it goes back to our own Native teaching of who we are. We were never a people -- as with other tribes -- that all we wanted to do was fight amongst one another, but of course all of this takes place based on social influences and evolution of things and prosperity. And so going back to your question, it requires due diligence among both sides of the aisle, the legislative body, the executive as well as the judiciary. And it's a really hard balance because I'm a member of the community, I have children who attend the schools, I'm a voting member, I see people at the post office or at the grocery store, I attend ceremonies, I'm involved just as all the other judges are; simply because we put on a robe during the day doesn't mean that that robe ever really comes off, but we also have to be able to be participatory in our communities. And it is, it's a hard balance, even with your legislative body because we all know each other, we've all grown up with one another possibly or they've seen you grow up and know your mother and there's this tendency of picking up the phone and saying, "˜Hey, what's going on and do you know da da da da da?' And it is, it's a really hard balance because of the close ties and the close knitness of the community and it's that community mentality that you have. But we work diligently to ensure that the people recognize that this is a very independent justice system. Now granted, in the case of Mississippi Choctaw, we're a two-branch government. The court system is developed by statute and is controlled, maybe that's not a good word, but is under the oversight of the tribal council as well as the executive. There've been times where it's been challenging because you wear two hats. Not only are you a member of the judiciary, but you have to be an advocate for the system, and so there's that give and take, development of codes. How can I not be somewhat participatory in the development when I'm the one who uses that code in order to...we're creating law basically, and there are several instances where it's almost a gray area that you enter, but knowing what the spirit of the law is and where we are as a judiciary and what we're trying to accomplish I think speaks volumes because the people see the separation. And it's something that you have to work at every day. You just, you have to."

Ian Record:

"So in your role as advocate for the system in strengthening the system, do you find yourself compelled at certain points to say to the legislature, "˜Look, there's...I'm dealing with these...this area of jurisprudence, these types of cases are becoming more prevalent. There's nothing on the books that tells me how to interpret these cases. It's up to you to get out in front of this,' as you mentioned, "˜and develop law that I can then enforce in the court system?'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Exactly. One case in point is the Tribal Notice Act and that's very important, especially if you have two parties coming in and there's an issue that could possibly have a detrimental impact on the tribe, maybe possibly in regards to jurisdiction. And the tribe needs to know; the tribe needs to be noticed. And so we worked towards getting that on the books and we were successful. And it's a mechanism or a code that's been used a number of times. And so things of that sort, because you recognize or the people recognize the legislative body and executive body, they're dealing with so many different issues from economic development, healthcare, education, housing. There's not one person or one area that they're focusing in on. So I would not be doing my duty if I didn't bring things to their attention that I think could provide betterment for the system and also protecting the people as well."

Ian Record:

"So you're also, in addition to your experience, your 11 years as you mention serving on the Choctaw judiciary, you've since...you left that, your tenure with the judiciary, and you've been working to evaluate other tribal court systems. And I was wondering if you could speak to this issue. We discussed this recently about some tribes, some tribal leadership not really treating the judicial function of their nation as an independent...as an independent function, as a true arm of the government, whether you want to call it a 'branch' or what have you, but rather treating it as a program. And we hear this a lot from particularly tribal judges who lament that fact that, "˜We're just considered another program.' I was wondering if you could speak to that issue and what you're seeing on the ground."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Oh, yeah. And it's not so much with the work that I'm doing, but additionally with my participation with the national organization, the judges association, as well as my own experiences with Mississippi Choctaw. There's the thinking that tribal court systems are more situated or in the organizational things as a program, and either we fund you or we don't or...there's not that understanding of the importance of justice systems and how in regards to economic development, justice systems are key. And a lot...I've heard so many war stories about how we are treated as -- I hate to use the term -- as stepchildren. We get the hand-me-down equipment, we get the little bits of whatever is additional that we can get in our budget, but what I found throughout my work and my experiences with the judiciary is the fact that there are so many good people out there in Indian Country, members of their own tribe who want to provide a forum, a fair forum for their people and they work diligently with what resources they have. Now if it was a perfect world and we were able to get all that we want, that would be ideal, but it's not and a number of tribes who don't have the additional resources struggle, and for some of these tribes it's a really challenging thing because you're also not only at the mercy of the government, but at the community as well and there...if you don't feel that support from your government, then obviously the community's not going to support you as well and those are some key things that have to happen is to have that support. 'Now you and I may argue here, but when we step out as a judiciary and as a government, we need to be unified, because each of us as a legislative body and as an executive body and whether we're a judicial branch or a statutory court, we still have to work and maintain as a stable government,' because if your leadership is bad mouthing your judicial system, what does that say of the leadership?"

Ian Record:

"What does that say to the outside world?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Exactly."

Ian Record:

"So this issue of treatment by the leadership, by the community of the justice system as a program versus something more, among those tribes that tend to treat them as the latter -- just as a program -- aren't they missing the boat essentially on the importance of justice systems as a vehicle for not only advancing sovereignty, but also creating viable economies on the reservations and pretty much all around?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Exactly, because a lender who is thinking about doing business with the tribe is going to ask, "˜I need to know about your court system. I need to know where litigation is going to take place,' and if they can't see a system that is stable and consistent, you're possibly missing an opportunity to bring strong economic development to your area and that's key. I think a lot that has to happen is education. Now again, I go back -- I recognize there's so much that tribal government has to do. They're overloaded, they're understaffed in some instances, and they're trying to do the best they can do, but at the end of the day it's important to make sure that each of your areas of government are strong and are working together and that's where your checks and balances are. It's basic civics."

Ian Record:

"One other issue we discussed recently was this issue of...this treatment of tribal justice systems as nothing more than programs may emanate in part from this sense of, "˜Well, that's where the bad things happen.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Oh, yes."

Ian Record:

"...That's where, kind of the social ills bubble up, that's where the kind of the underbelly of the community, the negative parts. "˜We don't want to deal with that. It's too painful,' or 'We don't...we're at a loss as to how to resolve these issues.' How do you get beyond that mentality? How do you get to a point where -- as you've told me -- where the people, the community, that the leadership will treat the justice system as a vehicle for not only restoring, as you say restoring health to the community, but also as a way to, for instance, teach the values of the people to say, "˜This is how we operate, this is how we resolve disputes.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"One of the bad things or the negative side of the judicial system is the fact that a lot of things happen in the well of that court and at the end of it all, "˜It's the court,' "˜It's the court's fault,' or whatever it may be because it's surfaced, it has bubbled up as you said, it's surfaced and there it is black and white, right there in the well of that court. And ultimately it's the judge and their discretion as how they rule or decide or what it is that they end up doing for that particular case, whether it be a habitual offender, whether it be a family in need, a juvenile delinquent, a vulnerable adult. All of the social ills of your community hits right there and it is challenging more so again for your legislative body and your executive because what do they do, what can they do? We've developed so many different social programs, but we're not going to cure every ill, and unfortunately a lot of those things surface through court. And as I shared with you earlier, that's why we were looking at, in regards to Mississippi Choctaw, of other alternatives. We recognize these are social illnesses. This is not working, going through formal court. Something has to happen and it also has to happen not only with the individual, but with the family: accountability, responsibility, bringing in the people who matter the most to you and who you value, who are your mentors or your grandparents, your minister, your family to sit down and talk with you, help you in a peacemaking-type situation, a circle of sorts. Healing to Wellness [Court] is set up in that very same way, that we have there at Choctaw where the offender comes in, meets with a group of multi-disciplinary team and there's a check, there's this constant check, and we've had so many success stories come through there. Is it 100 percent? No, it's not, and it probably will never be, but there is an alternative, and with the one case that you have a success in, [it] ripples out to the family, to the community, to the nation in regards to the offenses, health issues that may have come from it, all the different things. And that success just can only breed more success because if you have this individual whose gone through this process, you see the community, see that individual being successful and others who are coming before the court say, "˜I want to try that because I'm ready to make that change,' then there's that vehicle."

Ian Record:

"So I would assume under the CFR system, there's no way that you guys could have developed these restorative functions."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"There is no way, no."

Ian Record:

"So essentially by developing your own court system, by taking ownership of that critical function, you provided yourself the freedom to say, "˜What's going to benefit our community in the long run? What's the best way of doing things, because the status quo is simply not working.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"No, it's not working and it doesn't work in Indian Country. And what may work for Choctaw, what may work for the tribes in the east may not work for tribes in the southwest or in the west or in the northwest or in the midwest or northeast. It works for us and looking at the different models you can see things that will work. There's this term I use, "˜Choctaw-izing it' -- making it your own, bringing in Choctaw values, culture, customary law into this model and it works, and it works, and the people understand it. That's the thing, the people say, "˜Hmmmm, yes, I know what you're talking about.'"

Ian Record:

"So can you give me just a...you mentioned this term 'Choctaw-izing' it. Can you give me one example, maybe one case of how the court system applied a core value of the Choctaw people to essentially try to bring that restoration to the community?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"As I shared with you earlier, we have a teen court process and in that process the individual, the juvenile delinquent goes through the formal youth court system. Teen court is more of a sentencing type court, but the uniqueness of it is they are judged, are sentenced by their peers, other teenagers in the community. We had a particular instance where there was this child who of course offended, committed a crime against the tribe, was found delinquent. The case wasn't or the offense wasn't to the level of the judge issuing the sentence so he transferred it to teen court and it went through the process, but the uniqueness is -- and this is where the cultural aspect came in -- is we had the judge bring the mother and the grandmother and auntie because we are a matrilineal society. And before the sentence was rendered by the peers, by the jury, the women stood up and they talked and they talked with both sides of the parties who were there -- because this was a boyfriend-girlfriend, teenager-type thing -- and how it was important to respect your family, respect your parents, to listen, and if that wasn't the most empowering thing along with their peers giving them the sentencing, I don't know what would be. It was so powerful and moving. And let me tell you, people sat up and took notice and you gave respect, you listened. And that's one instance where that...we were able to have that and that was just such a learning tool for our young people to sit there and go through that and to listen. Even though they weren't the offenders, but they knew exactly, they knew exactly. It was almost like a reawakening. "˜I know this, but we don't do it all the time,' and like, "˜Whoa!'"

Ian Record:

"So in that instance, the court was not even an intermediary between the community, the culture, and the issue at hand. They were actually just a mechanism for connecting those two."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Facilitating just basically, just putting those people and things together. And it's...one thing of...and when I first entered the court system I served as a youth court judge. And the one thing I would tell our kids, when they'd come before the bench and with that attitude, being rebellious, and "˜You can't tell me what to do,' is, "˜The offense you've committed, you think maybe committed against this particular individual or this particular family or to the school, vandalism, whatever.' I said, "˜But you're not hurting those particular individuals, you're hurting the tribe, and in essence you're hurting yourself. So what has to happen here is you have to make this right and you're making it right at the end of the day for yourself.' And for some kids it didn't click, of course being rebellious and angry and everything, but for some it did. They understood. And again, you never really had a lot of successes. You had some successes and statistically Native American Country and as well as in dominant society you knew that there were higher chances of your young people moving into the adult system, but we tried very hard and that's why we were looking at all these other alternatives. Many Native communities have such small memberships, and so when you have a lot of delinquency going on, number-wise it may not appear to be a lot, but there on the ground it's epidemic and that's one of the things governments need to recognize and why it's such an important thing to make sure that you're supporting and investing in all of these types of things that keep your system, your justice system strong, consistent and stable."

Ian Record:

"So what do you see as the major challenges facing tribal jurisdiction today?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Oh, my goodness. That's something that tribes are facing all the time and it's amazing to me how we do have the jurisdiction that we do have. There have been challenges locally, and as I'm trying to think back here, we've had a number of cases that we've dealt with ourselves at Mississippi Choctaw where you have a civil matter that came before the court and they were running concurrently with the circuit court, the federal court. And it was an issue concerning a, it wasn't a loan company, a bank, it was a bank and a big problem with a salesperson going into the community and of the lender reneging of sorts -- just a really basic background of that case. And tribal members who had signed up for this service, which I believe was a satellite case, then did a class action against the lender. The party then went to the federal court, the federal court in turn sent the case back telling the parties that, "˜You have to exhaust tribal jurisdiction before you can even attempt to make it here,' which I think said a lot for not only our tribe, but for tribes in Indian Country to have a federal court say, "˜You have to exhaust all remedies before you even make it here.' Now you and I both know that that's not commonplace and I think that sent a very, very big message. Why would that have ever been decided? I think a lot of it had to do with the court itself because it was a functional court, it is a functional court, renders opinions, clear decisions and it's consistent. And I think that had a lot to do with why we were able or the federal court made the decision it made.

Now Indian Country, tribes in Indian Country are constantly faced with issues of jurisdictions and I can't speak so much for these other tribes, but just from the readings I've seen and in the issues that I've heard about, it's constant. For example, I know that there was a tribe in California that had the state come in wanting to look at employment records. If that wasn't a clear crossing of the line, a failure of respect of another sovereign, I don't know what is and that's clearly overstepping jurisdictional lines. But those types of things happen and that's where you really have to, as a government, make sure that you have the type of legal representation for yourself to protect you as a tribe because you have it coming from every angle, from every area of wanting to chip away at what jurisdiction you do have. It's bad enough that we don't have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians and as a gaming tribe there's a lot of issues that we have to deal with and we're at the mercy of the county or we're at the mercy of the federal government and its system. It makes no sense to me. Logically, we know when, I know when I cross the boundary and I go into Philadelphia, if I commit a crime, I'm going to be dealt with in Philadelphia court. It's a no-brainer. And this is an issue that's been talked about time and time again. I know I'm not going to change it, but I'm going to give you my two cents. It sucks, it's not productive and there are people who agree. There are people on the outside who do agree that you should have the ability to incarcerate, to judge any individual who commits a crime, an offense against the tribe or this jurisdiction. And we don't have that ability. And then you have the civil jurisdiction, which is always being tested and it's just so important that when we have issues that come up through tribal court systems that as a judiciary you're giving well-thought-out opinions and it's iron-clad so that you can't...it won't be unraveled and then there you go, you've lost more jurisdiction."

Ian Record:

"And it's not just making the decisions, it's actually documenting those decisions and having those ready in an accessible fashion, and that's where it's important to build the system of justice not just have judges making decisions."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Yes, exactly. You're exactly right because you have a lot of these systems that are in varying degrees of development and I am a big believer of having tribal members sitting on the court. Unfortunately, you don't have enough people who come to the court, come to the bench with a legal background. I'm not law trained. And so it's challenging and it's a struggle. Fortunately, our tribe made investments of having individuals on the bench with the juris doctorate providing us with legal technical consultation so that we're not standing there twisting in the wind, "˜Well, what do we do?' And so we're able to have this body of law, opinions that come from this court, that are guiding tools for not only us as a tribe, but also for other tribes should they wish to use it. I know that there are different companies or organizations who collect all of these opinions across Indian Country, which is good so that there is a body of law for other tribes to go in and take a look at and look at precedent and things of that sort. And we need more of that, but what we also need to do is be able to reach out and get this information to people. As I said earlier, you have a number of people whose systems are at varying degrees, tribes whose systems are at varying degrees and there are times where I think we do a disservice. Again, I am a big proponent for having tribal members on the bench, but you also have to be able to have someone there who is knowledgeable and can understand law, the analysis, the logic and to be able to generate really good opinions and good decisions. Are we right all the time? No, not necessarily, even those who have the jurisprudence isn't right all the time, but it's based on interpretation."

Ian Record:

"So it's really important then for tribes to invest in capacity in not only of people...tribal members who eventually will be judges, but also those clerks and other people in law enforcement."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Because let me tell you, those clerks are down on the ground doing all the work and there have been instances where I have seen they have ultimately become judges and they come in with all the knowledge of working every facet of that system in the sense of dealing with attorneys, looking at orders. It's amazing to me. Some of these clerks that I've talked with in my travels would say, "˜Yeah, I knew that wasn't what needed to happen.' It's just amazing the knowledge, the experience they gain and I have seen many instances where some of these clerks did step up or were appointed to serve as a judge and made excellent judges because they had the hands-on training and going through the process of the documentation, the order development and things of that sort. So it's key, it's very key in regards to having strong judges training and education."

Ian Record:

"So backing up a bit to what you were discussing a few minutes ago and this issue of...essentially, what you were talking about was transparency and jurisprudence, that it's not enough just to make decisions. You have to make sure that those decisions are clear, that they're open to not only the citizens of the nation, but to the outside world and that they're understandable and that they're accessible. Is that what Mississippi Choctaw has done? Is that what you're seeing other tribes starting to do? Are more nations really beginning to understand the importance of transparency in jurisprudence?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"For Mississippi Choctaw, yes, it's something that we strive for; it's not cloak and dagger, it's no big secret. Whatever decision is rendered and the opinion is generated, we had a procedure where we informed all arms of government, especially if it was something that was very critical, maybe a jurisdictional issue, something that would affect the tribe. They received notice, they received a copy of the opinion, and then in general opinions that were generated from the Supreme Court, that's 101. You need to get them to see this and also there may be messages in these opinions that say, "˜Look, this is how we ruled, but if we don't make changes to the body of the law that we have, we're going to hit this time and time again. You might want to think about it, but we're not telling you...we're not changing the law, we're not going to change this piece of legislation, but we want you to think about it.' And so it is, transparency is important. Again, going back to the issue of where tribal courts are and the varying degrees they are, those more established courts such as Navajo Nation have a large body of opinions and a body of law there that you can...I tap into it. I've tapped into that as well as Eastern Band of Cherokee -- your bigger, more established systems. And so you have that transparency there, but again it goes back to where the systems are in development."

Ian Record:

"I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about an ever-present dynamic in tribal jurisprudence and that is tribal politics and there's a reason why you're laughing. I assume you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"It's the bullseye right there."

Ian Record:

"But I wanted to get your sense of what you've seen in terms of the impacts of political interference in tribal jurisprudence and dispute resolution and essentially how far-reaching those things can be."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"There are many tribes that face this very question of political interference. And it's a hard line to walk, it really is. I think a lot of it has to do with who you are as a person and your integrity and what you yourself are willing to allow and not allow. And at the end of the day, just like I tell my children, "˜If it's an issue that you're really passionate about and you know this is what you need to do, sometimes you're standing by yourself,' and as judges that's ultimately what we end up doing is end up there standing by ourselves and telling whomever it may be, "˜No, you cannot cross this line.' Are there ramifications for those choices? Yes, in some instances there are. And that's unfortunate because of the messages that it sends not only to your community, but -- again as we talked about earlier -- to the outside world. If an individual makes a decision and in the eyes of the government it's perceived as a bad decision and it possibly wasn't in favor of what they wanted and they make sweeping change, who is going to want to step up and serve if there's the possibility of failing to comply or abide by what they're wanting. When you step up and become a judge, all of what you may have supported or your political views all fall by the wayside. Your primary concern is the interpretation of law, dealing with that case that's before you, that's it -- not what the politics are because they cannot be influential, they cannot be influential to what you're doing because if that's the case, then why have a court? Why not let the tribal council run the court? They want to, I know they do, but it's again checks and balances and the maintaining of independence. And I see it time and time again. I've heard so many war stories."

Ian Record:

"Yeah, we see some tribes that still have, particularly with those tribes that have Indian Reorganization Act systems of government where the standard constitution said, "˜The council can create a court system as it sees fit,' essentially and..."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Oh, in our code it does state that. It says, "˜If funds are available,' and I thought, "˜Well, what does this mean?' But for the time that that code was developed, that's again going back to, "˜Well, is this is a system or is this a program?' It's clear even in our general provisions, "˜If funds are available, we will operate this court.'"

Ian Record:

"Yeah, some of those IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] systems you still see to this day where the root of appeal of a tribal court decision is back to the council."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"And we do have that in Choctaw in some instances. Example, if there's an election challenge the court has no...there's no venue in our area. It goes directly to the tribal council once it goes through the election committee. And there is a valid challenge then it's ultimately the tribal council which makes the decision whether to say, "˜Yes, this is a void election or no, it's not.'"

Ian Record:

"You mentioned a few minutes back the messages that are...the very clear messages that are sent when there is political interference and tribal jurisprudence and I was wondering if you'd maybe perhaps talk about that a little bit more specifically because you mentioned messages not only to the community but to the outside world. What kind of messages do those send when you do see that political interference? And perhaps how does that impact the tribe in the long run?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Oh, yes. It does not put tribal government in a very good light when you have that type of interference. Sometimes it comes across as being more of a dictatorship versus a democracy. It really makes greater society doubt in the ability of that government of being able to provide for the people true leadership. And I know as a sovereign nation there have been other tribes and this is just from my travels and visiting with other jurisdictions and sharing war stories. We are under such a microscope, not only the judicial system, but the overall tribal government in Indian Country. We are constantly being held at an even higher standard. Yes, we need to be at a high standard, yes, but it appears when there's just a small hiccup or a small misstep it's magnified 100 times. "˜Well, you see, that's why we don't deal with that tribe,' for whatever reason it may be and it could be miniscule, but for the outside world it's like waiting. They're lying in wait for you to trip and fall. Choctaw itself has had its ups and downs. There's not a tribe that hasn't. We've seen successes, we've seen challenges, but we continue to persevere because of our membership. We're not going anywhere. At one point we were the third top employer of the State of Mississippi providing economic development, providing income for this state and that speaks volumes. Now we're dealing with the issues of the economy, the national economy and the effects that it's having on our tribe and we're having to act and react to those things and it's not been favorable, but we also have to be sustainable for our people and there are hard decisions that we have to make and we've made those decisions, rightly or wrongly, whatever may be perceived on the outside world, as a sovereign we have to maintain for the people."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned this issue of outsiders are looking very closely at what tribes do and in many respects they're waiting for tribes to mess up and using it as an excuse to say, "˜Okay, either we don't want to deal with them or they shouldn't have sovereignty,' whatever it might be. And I think that's really where court systems are critical because in many respects they're the most tangible connection, the most visible reflection of what tribes are doing and what tribe's abilities are, what their capacity is, how they make decisions. Is that something you've experienced at Choctaw?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Yes, very much so, very much so. We've been fortunate. Legal communities -- whether it's on the reservation or off reservation -- are small and word of mouth is very powerful. People know what's going on, whether they're on the reservation or not, they know what's going on and it's really key on how you bring these people in and how you...and also educating, educating them about what we are and who we are as a sovereign nation. One of the things that we provide as a system is a form of a bar meeting and providing them training, bringing to them things that are happening on the national level, educating them, and that's key -- going out and educating. And that's a lot of what I did as well during my time with the court. I've gone to Harvard, to Southern, to University of Southern Mississippi, to the University of Mississippi Law School, to Mississippi State [University], to a lot of the local universities within the state to talk about this very system. And they're so amazed at one, we're not just this casino that they see talked about on TV. Secondly, that there is a functional government, but what they're also very surprised at going back to what we've talked about earlier is the fact that there is no jurisdiction over non-Indians and that's always been the big, "˜Ah ha. Are you kidding me? How can that be if we're in this country of the land of the free and our constitution, our U.S. Constitution,' but that's what the cards we're dealt with. And that's how fragile these systems and governments are because I'm sure if the federal government wants to, and again looking at how governments are exercising their sovereignty or lack there of, they would be more than willing to come in there. It just says that we have to provide you with health and education, but it doesn't really say to what degree so I can...you'll take what I give you and that's where as sovereign nations we really have to be diligent about our exercise of government and of our sovereignty. We have to be. I know I sound like this...I sound like this caped crusader, "˜We've got to be. Somebody has to be at the gate and it's going to be me,' but there needs...there really needs to be more development of people who understand public service of giving back to the people and we've got to cultivate that."

Ian Record:

"So you've made references to the incredible growth of the Mississippi Choctaw's economy over the past several decades and I'll ask you a very blunt question. Could Mississippi Choctaw when it comes to economic development be where it is today if they, for instance had what's often referred to as a 'kangaroo court'?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"The short answer, no, I don't believe they could be. This system was and is, continues to be an evolving system and I think with the right leadership it was determined that there are certain things we're going to have to put in place in order to be successful and strengthening the court system was one of them. This system was taken into management of the tribe in 1985 and was operating with a very skeletal group of people and then they expanded the service. And then in 1997 there was another reorganization where they developed very distinct divisions of court. This would give the system the capacity to handle all civil matters. We had well over 1,000 people working for the tribe in the hospitality portion of it and of the industrial arm of it. The majority of these people were non-Indian. Where are civil actions going to take place? In our court if they're working for this tribe. You also had, once gaming came into play and tribal members were receiving per capita, a rush of people wanting to enroll and so our enrollment jumped by leaps and bounds from 3,000 to 4,000 to almost 10,000. And so you had to have the ability to handle all the issues that come with the economic growth and the court system and law enforcement are the people that deal with a lot of the day to day issues that come with that prosperity."

Ian Record:

"So in many ways the court system is the primary vehicle for managing growth for tribes."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"I would say so. People may disagree but I would say so."

Ian Record:

"So I wanted to ask you a bit more about this issue of justice systems and how they maintain stability in law and order and how does that... how does the justice system at Choctaw provide that for the people?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Well, we've been fortunate that the tribe has taken over, like I said earlier, management of the law enforcement division. It's now the Department of Public Services, as well as the court system itself. The tribe itself has also contributed to our legal community and I include law enforcement in that and detention as well by providing legal counsel for the tribe. We have an attorney general's office that's set up as well as a legal defense, which is the equivalent of legal aid for individual tribal members and so we have a pretty diverse legal community there. This provides for the community, for the people the ability to be represented within our system, but not only within our system, should there be issues that occur off reservation they have the ability to use legal defense to represent them as well in issues such as maybe child support type issues if it's a non-Indian and Choctaw union and the marriage dissolved and there are challenges and things may end up taking place off reservation for whatever reason. Also, the ability if they need counsel in federal cases as well because you know as well as I do that there's always challenges there where the level of adequacy of representation at the federal level. We've seen time and time again where Native people have just not had proper representation, which also dovetails into the additional work that I do as a commissioner for the Mississippi Access for Justice, ensuring that all people have the ability to have legal representation for their issues. But for the people, just knowing that there's law enforcement, there's a police officer there who is not out there on his own. There's a strong department and when I call I know they'll be here not in three hours, maybe within 30 minutes or 15 minutes depending on the location because we are managing our own law enforcement. What does that say for the greater communities? We're able to assist them as cross-deputized officers, peace officers, to assist them with whatever issues may be taking place. Again, going back to jurisdictional issues, there's always, "˜Well, where are we? Are we on Choctaw land or are we on county land? Where are we?' And so it's a tough call at times. Sometimes somebody has to pull the map out and say, "˜Yeah, well, here's the line.' And so it speaks volumes as to partnerships that have to be developed and strengthened to show stability, for them to see the stability of this system. And it spills over even into the court. We had an instance where there was an issue off reservation with two tribal members being dealt with in the county court and the court was familiar with our peacemaking, Itti Kana Ikbi, court, our traditional form of court. And he called up our peacemaker and said, "˜Look, I have this issue here. I think that it should be better resolved...it could be better resolved with you and peacemaking.' That is unheard of for a county court to turn its jurisdiction over to a tribal court. Even I was taken aback. But societies are changing and there are times of tension in race relations, yes, we recognize that. And to see something like that happen only proves more to me that we as a people, not only tribal members, but as people are changing and recognizing that we are just as capable as our counterparts are and that also signals stability."

Ian Record:

"I think in that particular instance, part of to me is them probably saying, that county court judge saying, "˜Hey, those guys do things, they do it right, they... yes, they have their own systems, their own principles that they administer justice on, but they do it consistently, they do it fairly and I have confidence in turning this over knowing that they'll resolve this dispute in a good way.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so that generated even more conversation and we have a very good rapport with the county courts and so there have been times where other issues, other instances have taken place, but that was just the turning point. And to be quite honest, I never would have thought I would have seen things like that happen in my lifetime. There's always been this sense of separation and I'm sure it is with other Indian tribes. "˜You're the Indian tribe, you're over there. Here we are metropolitan society. You do your own thing and we'll do our own,' but we're all members of the community, of our communities, and it's being able to interact with one another and working for the greater good of the entire people because don't forget, it's the people who are living outside that are probably working for the tribes on the reservation. So there has to be, whether they like it or not, there has to be a relationship."

Ian Record:

"Yeah, we hear this more and more often, this refrain from tribal leaders of, Native nations aren't islands and they can't act like there are. They can't exercise their sovereignty in isolation, that for them to advance their strategic priorities they're going to have to, of their own volition, build these working relationships with other sovereigns, with other jurisdictions, with other governments, with other municipalities in order to advance their priorities and create a better community."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Exactly, and I think that's what has been the successes of what has created an environment of success for our tribe, for Mississippi Choctaw, has been those relationships whether it's local, state or federal, having those relationships not only within your executive branches and legislative branches, but also within your judiciary. Maybe I was in the judiciary the fifth year of my tenure and I had the opportunity, and it was such a very moving moment, when I had the Chief Justice of the State of Mississippi and his associate justice come down. He came down to Choctaw and sat down and had a conversation with me, the Chief Justice of Choctaw Supreme Court, his counterpart to talk about, "˜How can we help one another?' And that's something that is...I couldn't even imagine that happening. And I shared with him... and we got to know one another and we've become good friends and I said, "˜It had to do with the people and the timing.' Everything just came and lined up and it worked. And so we were able...and we have and we've continued that relationship even with the new Chief Justice, that there continues to be and as well as my new counterpart, there continues to be this continuation of the relationship and it has to be. And it's good that it's now recognized."

Ian Record:

"A couple more questions here. This issue of...getting back to the issue of when you have a justice system creating this environment of stability, of law and order, of certainty, of essentially offering a fair forum for the resolution of disputes where people feel that, "˜If I need to go have a case heard, whether I'm an offender or the one that's the victim in this case, that it will be resolved or adjudicated based on the merits of that case.' Doesn't that send a pretty powerful message to not just those outside investors, but also to your own people that, "˜Hey, this is a place where I can come or I can remain and invest my time, invest my resources, invest my skills, my ideas and the future of the nation.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"One thing that I know people struggle with is understanding the system and once you enter in and begin going through all the different processes, they then realize how difficult it is to go through the court system per se. And it may have been designed specifically for that, because you certainly don't want frivolous actions coming before the court. You certainly don't want a manipulation of the system and so it's holding all parties accountable. And the messages that it sends to the people, I would hope, and that was always our hope, was that, "˜You will receive fairness here when you walk through these doors. You will see an individual there who is going to render justice, whether it's on your behalf or not, whether it's for you or it's not.' Of course when the person fails to get the decision they want, you have that as well. But I know that in my dealings with the legislative body, they recognize it as well and at times you have to let the community member vent. They're also your constituents and so you've got to let them vent, but also talking them through, "˜Well, this is what it is but you also have the ability to appeal,' which is the beauty of it all. There is still another forum to go to if you're dissatisfied and if it's a true error of law, then you do have another venue to go to. In some instances, most tribes don't have that luxury."

Ian Record:

"Several years ago we were talking with Norma Gourneau, she was...at the time she was the vice chair at Northern Cheyenne, and they were dealing with this issue of...the court judges were just getting steamrolled by councilors every time...they were having a big issue for instance with automobile repossessions by off reservation dealerships and these off reservation dealerships would get a default on a car loan, they'd come on the reservation to get the repo order enforced so they could actually come on the reservation and pick up the car. The tribal member who was in default would go to a council member and say, "˜Oh, I need my car.' The council member would lean on the judge, the judge would rule on the tribe's behalf. Before long nobody's selling cars to tribal members. And so what she said was they put a fix in there. They did a constitutional reform, they insulated the court from political interference and she said, "˜What I found was I had a lot more...I found myself empowered because I wasn't dealing with those issues anymore. I could now...I wasn't putting out those fires of having to interfere in the court system so now I could focus on what was really important for the tribe, which was where are we headed, where are we going and how do we get there?' Is that...do you see that as an important dynamic to have when the court system is insulated from that essentially liberates elected leaders to focus on those things?"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"I wish there was more of a way to make that happen for all of us because we all deal with those...again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier -- political interference -- and again it's up to you as an individual of your integrity whether you allow it or not. Yes, they can be pretty quick to apply pressure on you. Yes, we've dealt with those types of things. It was always astonishing to me when a vendor would call and say, "˜Well, this is happening and I'm not getting service, I'm not getting the court system to react quickly enough.' And our council would be so quick to step up for those vendors and I'm like, "˜You have to allow the process to take its paces. It has to go through its paces. You can't speed anything up for anyone in particular. It doesn't matter, it just does not matter.' But yes, we have experienced in the past where because you had a number of tribal members defaulting on a lot of things, businesses begin then questioning, "˜Well, do I really want to do business with a Choctaw?' Not so much about the judicial process itself, but if I'm not going to be getting my money back or if I'm not going to get paid for whatever service I render, is it worth my time? Which is a much bigger question, but going back to insulating yourself, we as a judiciary, as many judiciaries, have canons of ethics and it depends on what those things mean to you. The legislative body as well as the executive body, unfortunately in our instance, don't have canons of ethics and...but those are to me things that are internal. You should have those types of ethics. You should know that it's not proper to go to the judge to say, "˜Change your decision.' It's not proper. You would feel...if there were clear lines of language that said, "˜No, you cannot approach the court,' then the atmosphere would be different. The atmosphere would be very different. Yes, there are tensions, there are questions, "˜Well, what's going to happen with the impact of this decision I've made? How is that going to affect possibly my appointment? Will I still be here in four years?' But if there were that...if there was the ability to have that happen where language could be developed and there were clear separations, you would be able to be in a position to judge more effectively without the fear of repercussion. You would. It's bad enough you have a lot of other things that you have weighing on you as a judge, to have that extra layer put on you and the sad thing is it's your own people, these legislative members are also your members, members of your community and of your tribe. I've heard one councilman tell me...he told me once, there was a case that was being dealt with and he was insistent on trying to get involved, to come in. And I said, "˜It's clear in the code, you can't stand as an advocate. It's clear in the code that you cannot post bond for this...bail for this individual.' And he would tell me real quick, "˜Well, out in this county I'm able to call the judge and da da da da da.' And I said, "˜Well, you know what, that's that court system, not here.' Needless to say, he wasn't my friend anymore, but that's the whole point of it. It's where your integrity lies and you have to. But again, it's also educating, educating the legislative body because of the evolution, the changes of a justice system, what justice systems mean, fairness and that, "˜No, you can't go and ex parte the judge.' It's about fairness and not so much about control. And that's the problem, it is an issue of control."

Ian Record:

"So the tribal code for Choctaw prohibits elected officials from, I guess, involving themselves in court cases in certain respects."

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Yes, that's correct. If I as a tribal member would ask a councilman to come in to serve as an advocate or a speaker on their behalf of sorts, it's not allowed. They're not allowed to post bail or bond for anyone. It's right there in black and white, but they still continue to try to do that. I've always told my staff, the judges, when we look at the canons of ethics, "˜It's there to protect you so use it,' tell them that this is what the canons of ethics tell us in regards to appearance of impropriety, of political influence and things of that sort. That's what it's there for. And it's a struggle, it is a struggle and this is something that I know a lot of tribes face, a lot of judges face. It's a hard...it's a hard line to walk because again you are a member of the community, you do not have the ability to blend in with the general populace. It just doesn't happen. Like I said, for our tribe, we're a membership of almost 10,000. We have on the reservation over 6,500 people."

Ian Record:

"Do you think part of it, when elected leaders feel that impulse to interfere on behalf of a constituent, that they maybe haven't gone through the paces perhaps as you've termed it to think, "˜What's the long-term implication of my action here? Because I might be helping,' because that's their feeling, "˜I'm helping this person. I'm helping this person, but am I really helping the nation in the long run because this is going to be the ramifications of this. There's a ripple effect to what I'm doing.'"

Rae Nell Vaughn:

"Yes, and you're exactly right. I know in some instances their intentions are good, their intentions are good, they do want to help their constituent. They feel that someone needs to step up for them, someone needs to represent them, and maybe for whatever reason the different programs may not be able to help that particular individual, for instance, a vulnerable adult, an elderly person who may be being taken advantage of with his grandchildren taking the monthly check. And so I can see that, but when you don't allow the process to happen and if you don't follow the letter of the law, then the messages that it sends out is that, "˜Well, you can change the rules whenever you want,' and you can't do that. The rules are the rules for everyone, whether you're the community member, whether you're a member of the council, whether you're the chief, the rules are the rules. And although some people may think they might be able to change those rules; that's where the strength of your judiciary is the test not to allow those things to happen. I know within...in Indian Country those things happen where they're tested all the time. Like we talked earlier about jurisdictional issues, everyone is coming at you from different angles and let me tell you, being...living the life of a judge is not an easy thing. It's rewarding at times because you're providing a service to the people, the successes that you see make it worth all that you have to go through, but the political side of it can be at times very disheartening, very discouraging because you're having to deal with this mountain of things that are coming at you and you're trying to do the best you can do for your system. And sometimes people just don't see it the way you see it and it's trying to reach consensus with people, to get them on your side, get them to understand. Education, it's...it always goes back to education, teaching the membership, teaching the legislative body what these systems are all about and how important it is because at the end of the day that's going to be what makes you successful as a people, as a community. For me, it's always been my philosophy that tribal courts are the guardians of sovereignty. It's our job to make sure that we protect this sovereign through the well of the court, through this legal system and it's something that when you take on this judgeship, it's not about the notoriety, it's about what you provide, what you bring to the bench and the protection of the sovereign. That's the bottom line of all of this."