The Navajo President and Navajo Council Speaker’s Agreement

The Navajo President and Navajo Council Speaker’s Agreement on Government Reform

In an agreement between the Navajo presidency and the Speaker of the Navajo Council both parties have written their intent to work together on government reform. Saying that the document can be construed as a constitution, they have written a plan to petition the Navajo Council for $2 million dollars to fund the effort. Seeing that the budget for the Office of Government Development has been stripped of its budget and staff has been distributed to other departments the actions seem to be somewhat contradictory.

The agreement goes on to suggest a team of ten, half from Speaker and half from Prez, should write the rules and arrangements for the constitutional construction and place a document before the Navajo Council for an ‘up or down vote’ without amendment. Critics like Judiciary Committee Chairman Kee Allen Begay and other council delegates argue that the agreement does not include the hogan-level input from the Navajo people and that not including the judiciary branch in the work limits our collective perspective. Proponents like Council Delegate Leonard Tsosie, who worked on crafting the compromise and is a signee to the agreement, argue that the compromise is fair and that including the judiciary would have compromised their ability to rule in the case where Speaker Morgan had asked the Navajo Supreme Court about the president’s ballot initiatives. While no one disputes that the intentions are good by both sides the question of whether their methods of writing the document are inclusive enough needs to be addressed.

During a meeting last fall with his staff Vice-President Ben “91 MPH” Shelly asked his staff whether or not they felt the nation’s electorate would be able to handle constitutionalising their laws. Many of the ‘intellectuals’ (read left-over campaign staffers) implied they felt the Dine’ were not savvy enough to understand what, how, and why a constitution works. The lack of faith our government has in its people is very obvious when they do not wish to include all one hundred-ten chapters in the work to write our laws. While it is great that they have figured out the FOR THE PEOPLE portion they need to understand that the BY THE PEOPLE section is just as critical to ensure the electorate is willing to vote on a document they are familiar with. In an age where information can travel at the speed of Mercury, and be streamed live for anyone online, it amazes me that government still does not bother to try and keep their people informed. The Navajo people are the true sovereign of our land and each chapter is home to many people with abilities that will be needed to craft a worthy document for our nation. The President and Speaker should be very careful in their approach to this subject and trying to write this in a condescending manner for the people. It would be a huge embarassment to them both if the people reject the document at the ballot because of a desire to keep this matter in Window Rock not at the local level.

The agreement they worked out in between their offices is available for view in the “Photos” section of this Myspace. com site. Check it out to see yourselves what our leaders are doing on our behalf with the nation’s assets.
Do you think it is befitting for our nation to go against our tradition of local rule and inclusive discussion and still let the president and speaker’s offices total control of our constitution? Should we rather hold a convention of the 110 chapters and include the people collectively the right to say their mind and discuss constitutionalisation at their home levels and maybe stream it on the web for off-nation members to view and particpate in?

How many lawyers does it take to write a constitution?