Hearing set on chamber’s challenge to NECA’s status

WINDOW ROCK

Navajo owners of small business are still upset at a resolution approved by the Navajo Nation Council last year that gave the Navajo Engineering and Construction Authority Priority One status when it comes to getting tribal government contracts.

They were so upset that the Dineh Chamber of Commerce, which is made up of Navajo small business owners, eventually filed a lawsuit against the tribe in an attempt to reverse that decision.

A hearing on that lawsuit is scheduled to be heard at 2 p.m. today before Window Rock District Court Judge Carol Perry.

This hearing is not on the merits of the case but on a motion filed by the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, which is claiming that the lawsuit lacks a foundation to go forward to a hearing on its merits.

The chamber of commerce, as well as a number of Navajo business owners, objected to the proposal when it was first introduced last year, pointing out that when the tribe established the priority system more than a decade ago, tribal enterprises were given a Priority Two status.

Navajo government officials said at the time that it would be unfair to give tribal enterprises a Priority One status because it would make it almost impossible for Navajo small businesses to compete and the government’s position then as well as now was to help Navajos start up and maintain their own businesses.

Jeff Begay, head of the DIneh Chamber of Commerce, said Monday that when the Council was asked to give NECA a Priority One status, his organization went before Council committees to make them aware that approval would have a serious effect on Navajo companies in the construction business.

At the time, he said, the committees agreed to hold a public hearing on the matter before it came before the Council.

“That public hearing never happened,” Begay said.

Because of that and because the Council’s decision to give NECA a Priority One status violates the purpose of the priority system to help Navajo small businesses, the chamber filed the lawsuit.

The chamber, however, has a major roadblock it must hurdle – tribal sovereignty.

The Navajo Nation Council, like state legislatures and Congress, have immunity from being sued for the laws they enact.

Suits are allowed only for the most narrow of reasons because if lawsuits were permitted, anyone who is not happy with a law could file a suit to try and get it overturned.

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