Map madness

Come next January will visitors to the Navajo Nation Council see 88 or 24 members?

That's still the question of the day as various forces continue to push to get a reapportionment plan in place that would reduce the number of delegates to 24. Meanwhile others are still trying to challenge the Dec. 15 special election where Navajo voters opted for the smaller council.

As it stands now, the Navajo Election Administration is preparing packets for prospective council candidates to pick up beginning Feb. 4 and these packets are based on an 88-member council.

At the same time, executive branch officials are holding public meetings across the reservation to present their 11 proposals on how to reduce the council to 24 precincts.

In the meantime, an individual who filed a challenge to the validity of that election is planning to appeal the Jan. 15 decision by the Office of Hearings and Appeals that dismissed the complaint.

The answer to the question of 88 or 24 may be answered next week when the Navajo Nation Council meets in its winter session.

Although it's not on the agenda yet, supporters of the reduction are hoping to get it before the council for a decision.

If that doesn't happen, officials for the tribe's election office said they plan to go ahead and get the 88-member packets ready for distribution. While it's still possible that new packets could be developed after Feb. 4, once the election process starts, election officials say it's going to be a lot harder to change.

Another key day in all of this is today (Jan. 21).

Edison Wauneka, director of the Navajo Election Administration, said the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors will meet and representatives of President Joe Shirley Jr. plan to ask the board's support for one of their 11 reapportionment plans so the board can present that to the council.

Tribal law requires that any reapportionment plan must be developed by the election office and then presented to the council. Whichever plan may eventually be adopted whether developed by the executive branch or others, it would need the official blessing of the board and council.

That's the main problem executive branch officials face in their efforts to get a reapportionment plan enacted - getting the council to accept a plan.

On one hand Navajo voters overwhelmingly approved reducing the membership of the council and the president's office has developed 11 plans to accomplish this.

But until they can get the council to recognize any of the plans, the election office is planning to go ahead with an election that calls for 88 delegates.

Wauneka and the election board have come under constant criticism by the president's office in recent months for putting up roadblocks to the election and now refusing to do anything to come up with a reapportionment plan.

Wauneka stressed that the board's actions in the last few months doesn't mean that the election board opposes the reduction.

"All we are doing is following tribal law," he said.

The law he refers to was passed by the council several years ago and calls for the election board to reapportion the council based on the federal census, the next of which won't be complete until 2011 at the earliest.

Wauneka said that if the president's office seeks the support of the election board for a plan, election officials will have two major problems.

The first is that the election office did not develop the plan and Wauneka said election officials would question the validity of any plan that was developed by someone else since tribal law gives that authority to the election office and board.

Secondly, in order to support any reapportionment plan developed by the president's office the board would have to find a way to go around the mandate to wait for the 2010 federal census before developing a reapportionment plan.

The election office's stance in all of this has not set well with president's office officials who have accused Wauneka of "dragging his feet" in an attempt to delay implementation of the reduction.

Since the president's office can't order the election office to accept a plan, without the election board's support any reduction effort this year may be dead in the water.

So it comes down to the council and what it does next week.

As president's office officials point out, Shirley doesn't have the ability to sponsor legislation. Only members of the council do.

That's why they are counting on Leonard Tsosie, the council delegate for White Horse Lake Pueblo Pintado and Torreon, to present the 11 plans to the council in hopes that, one, the council agrees to consider the matter and, two, the council agrees to accept one of the plans.

Shirley is supporting a plan called D-2.

It's one of two plans that divide the reservation into 24 separate precincts with Chinle Tuba City and Shiprock having their own council delegate and the rest of the chapters being represented by the 21 other delegates. The 21 delegates would have between two and seven chapters in their precincts.

All of the other proposals divide the reservation into six agencies with four council delegates elected from each of these agencies to represent all of the chapters in that agency.

Back to top ^