Bates hopes new Council will keep subcommittees

WINDOW ROCK

Incoming lawmakers with the 24th Navajo Nation Council will have many responsibilities to begin or continue a new direction for the Navajo Nation.

Their first item of business is the selection of a new speaker.

Some new delegates are brand new to the job of lawmaking, while others served on the Council in years past. Then there is the handful of incumbents.

Issues such as the fate of Navajo Generating Station to the oversight and handling of the Sihasin and Permanent Trust funds, and everything in between are just a few what they will have to address.

After a speaker is chosen, the next task is deciding who will be placed on the four standing committees: Budget and Finance, Law and Order, Health, Education and Human Services and Resources and Development. Then there are subcommittees that are as important as the four committees.

“It’s up to the 24th and how they want to deal with the existing subcommittees,” said outgoing Speaker LoRenzo Bates. “They were created through a resolution. If they choose to continue, that’s their prerogative. If they want to amend the existing resolution, that’s their prerogative. But be mindful the subcommittee were created as result of the 23rd Navajo Nation Council’s priorities.”

In total there are 10 subcommittees that the 23rd Council established: Arizona Gaming, Energy Task Force, Inter-Agency Task Force, Little Colorado River, Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, Sexual Assault Prevention, Sacred Sites Task Force, Sihasin, State Task Force and Title II Referendum.

An example of a priority is to strengthen the relationship between the Nation and states, which is why the State Task Force was established.

With the U.S. House of Representatives having a majority of Democrats and the Senate still being run by Republicans, this raises the question of how to balance this power?

A switch has also happened in New Mexico with an incoming Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham and in Arizona with its first female Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema.

“Council wanted to build a better relationship with state, county and federal officials,” said Bates. “They’ve been very successful in building a relationship. Again, it’s up to the 24th if they want to continue that.

“The experience that we have had in the four years is educating leadership of what Navajo is and what direction Navajo is taking,” he said.

In 2014, the Navajo Nation received a settlement of $554 million paid by the federal government for its management of trust assets. With this money the Sihasin subcommittee was created to make sure plans were developed for projects.

“The Sihasin subcommittee entertained expending the dollars for infrastructure,” said Bates. “As we speak, those dollars are being expended for the purpose that the Sihasin committee recommended and the Council approved.”

Bates said the 24th Navajo Nation Council must continue the Sihasin subcommittee, as well as work on the Permanent Trust Fund’s five-year plan.

“In the event that they choose not to, then those projects that were all approved will not become a reality,” said Bates. “That not only includes what comes from the legislative side but from the incoming president-elect and vice president-elect.”

The Sexual Assault Prevention Subcommittee and Human Services committee member Amber Crotty has taken the issues of sexual assault and abuse and domestic violence to the federal stage.

Bates represents Nenahnezad, Newcomb, San Juan, Tiis Tsoh Sikaad, Tse’Daa’Kaan and Upper Fruitland and hopes the incoming Council will continue the projects he and his colleagues had spent years on.

“I represent six chapters and each of those chapters has devoted their time and effort in terms of developing their projects,” said Bates. “I would not want to see any one of my chapters not being able to successfully get those projects implemented and done.

“That applies to the rest of my colleagues,” he said, “each of us has an involvement in being able to provide the dollars needed to put in infrastructure, economic development and get chapter projects done.”

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