Judge: Diné can vote on smaller Council

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

WINDOW ROCK — A decision filed Thursday by the Office of Hearings and Appeals will allow Diné to decide whether to shrink the largest branch of government.

The decision by Hearing Officer Carol K. Perry also requires that a vote be held to allow voters to decide whether to give the president the ability to reject individual parts of legislation, which is often a collection of laws. United States President Barack Obama already has this ability when deciding whether to approve federal legislation. It’s known as the “line-item veto.”

Perry’s decision stipulates that each vote be held within six months.

In 2000, a majority of registered voters said yes when asked in a referendum whether to shrink the council to 24 members. The decision was never enacted because the Navajo Election Administration — which falls under the direct influence of the legislative branch, the council — deemed the majority inconsistent with the Navajo Nation Election Code.

NEA officials said that even though the measure achieved an overall majority, it failed to yield a majority at each of the Nation’s 110 chapters.

On Oct. 28, 2008, Shirley submitted two petitions to the election administration, according to the corrected final judgment filed Thursday. One petition aimed to again allow voters to decide whether to shrink the council to 24 members. The other aimed to allow voters to decide whether to give the president the power of line-item veto. Each petition required about 16,500 signatures, or 15 percent of 110,202 registered voters. Shirley had garnered 18,638 signatures in support of holding a vote to shrink the council, and 18,202 signatures in support of holding a vote for line-item veto.

On Nov. 12, 2008, the Navajo Election Administration denied both petitions, claiming a combined approximately 9,000 signatures were invalid. Two days later the election administration refused Shirley the opportunity to review the grounds for dismissing the 9,000 signatures, according to the 37-page judgment. Three days after that Shirley filed an appeal, which eventually led to the hearing decided upon Thursday.

During the hearing, Frank Seanez, representing the election administration, told the court that some of the signatures were dismissed because the names failed to match with names listed in its database of registered voters. Others were dismissed because items were left blank. The petitions asked each signer for his or her signature as well as several pieces of personal information ... address, census number, chapter name. It required each signer to not only sign, but also to print his or her name. If the person signed but didn’t print, the election administration nullified the signature because a field was left blank, according to the judgment.

If an address didn’t match the address on record, the signature was nullified. If someone forgot his or her census or social security number — or wrote it incorrectly — the signature was nullified.

The Office of Hearings and Appeals judgment concludes that these practices do not comport with Diné Traditional Law, which is titled under subsection 203 of the Navajo Nation Code. It found that the petition to hold a vote to shrink the council did in fact garner at least the minimum number of signatures required for a vote, while the petition to hold a vote to give the president the power of line-item veto did not garner enough signatures.

The judgment further concludes that, even though the second petition failed to garner 16,500 validated signatures, the process of validating signatures “places an undue burden on NEA,” and therefore interferes with voters’ participation in government ... and therefore violates Fundamental Law.

Reporter Phil Stake can be reached at philip.stake@gmail.com, or by calling (505) 863-6811 x223.