Navajo president talks up reform

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — In an interview with the Independent when he turned in the petitions for his two initiatives, President Joe Shirley, Jr., talked about government reform saying that the initiatives to reduce Council from 88 to 24 members and to give the president line item veto power are “very much needed,”

“I think if we can reduce the Council to 24, I think the government should work more efficiently, the legislature should work more efficiently,” Shirley said.

He added that he would like to see chapter governments build up and for more chapters to get local governance certified.

Shirley said around the Navajo Nation, people are always telling him they applied for housing, water lines and power lines ten to twenty years ago and are wondering when they will get those.

“At the same time, I know there’s a lot of money coming in every year and we’re not setting it aside for infrastructure. This fiscal year is the first time we set aside $22 million for capital improvement. That’s good but we should be putting aside at least $50 million per year for capital improvement,” Shirley said. “With a smaller legislature working with the president, putting the people first, hopefully that will mean getting more infrastructure out there on Navajo land. I don’t really feel that we have that today.”

Shirley said that the overall reception for the two petition initiatives has been “very positive.”

“I think it’s safe to say that the majority are very willing to come forward and sign both petitions. Some of them wanted the reduction more than giving the president line item veto authority,” he said.

In response to statements by the legislative branch that he doesn’t have a plan for government reform, Shirley said, “This is the plan ... A smaller legislature working with the president, we can talk about downsizing government, building up chapter governments and getting more money for infrastructure, put people first. That’s the plan.”
He called the two initiatives “a good beginning.”

“From there we can talk about the Navajo attorney general getting elected, maybe a Navajo Nation treasurer elected by the people — things like that,” Shirley said.
He added that the Navajo Nation had to go through reformation with the 1989 Title 2 amendments that established the three branch government.

In response to a recent report from the Diné Policy Institute delivered by Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan during the Council’s fall session that proposes to do away with the presidency, Shirley called it “going backward” and regression.

“We had what he’s now referring to where we didn’t have a president. We called him the chairman of the Navajo Nation Council. He oversaw not only the legislative branch but also the executive branch. We’ve gone through that,” he said.

He said that he feels that the three-branch government is working for the most part.

“Certainly we still need to work on making some changes to it to make it better, but I think to do away with the presidency, which is the only voice of the people, which is the only voice for the whole nation, to do away with that will be a travesty and I don’t think the people will have it. I don’t think it’s a plan at all myself,” the president said.

The most important jobs for the Navajo Nation president, Shirley said, are keeping an eye on government and making sure the people’s money is used prudently.