Will cutting Council size fix tribal problems?

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Does Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr.’s initiative petition to reduce the size of the Navajo Nation Council to 24 delegates really fix the problems of how the Navajo Nation government operates?

Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan doesn’t think so.

“There are a lot of problems with both the legislative and executive branches of the government. The president’s task force points at the council delegates’ rings as an example of the failure of legislative oversight. That’s a fair question, but it’s an equally fair question to ask how failures of executive branch oversight led to things like the Bio Chemical Decontamination Systems disaster, which cost the Nation far more than those rings,” Morgan said.

“But, what worries me most, is that no one is asking the question of how changing the number of people who sit in the council chambers can really fix any of the serious problems in either branch.”

Simply changing the size of the Council only makes for fewer council delegates exercising exactly the same authority as the current 88-member Navajo Nation Council, Morgan explained.

Changing the size of the Council will not address the government reform issues Shirley is broadcasting in support of the initiative petition, Morgan said.

“Concerns about the efficiency of Navajo Nation government operations are much broader than the size of the Navajo Nation Council. Real government reform must include both the executive branch as well as the legislative branch of the Navajo Nation government,” Morgan said.

Morgan said that he is willing to sit down with the president to talk about the needs of the Navajo people and the role and function of Navajo government.

“If President Shirley is truly concerned with improving the way the Navajo Nation government operates, then I encourage the president to re-evaluate his initiative drive,” Morgan said. “Because — in reality — reducing the size of the Council does very little to address how the Navajo Nation government functions. Let’s have a meaningful dialog about how the Navajo Nation government can and should reform for the best interest of our people.

“As elected Naat’áanii (tribal leaders), President Shirley and I owe our constituents the courtesy of having thought things through, talked things out — to make plans for our collective future and to address meaningful and enduring government,” Morgan said.

“We should not deceive ourselves and think reduction of the Council will solve all the problems of how the Navajo Nation government operates or provides government services to the Navajo people,” the speaker said.

In 1989, the Council said that the current form of government was only temporary — a stopping place on the way to a government that would truly reflect the will of the Navajo people, but that never happened, Morgan said. It may be time to start again, he added.

“The president and I should be looking at a permanent, meaningful solution to the problems of the Nation’s government. Some might call it a constitution, others might call it a charter, but we need something that completely re-examines how this government works and fixes the problems we have encountered since 1989,” Morgan explained.

Morgan met with Shirley May 30 to discuss the idea of a broader reform. The speaker pushed for a second meeting for June 9 to develop more specific plans for such a reform effort.