IGR turns down plea to fund special election

With less than a month to go, the special election on two council reform proposals remains unfunded with little hope the council will foot the bill.

Now, election officials are talking about the possibility of postponing the election until 2010 if they can't find the money needed - $289,912 - by Dec. 4, 11 days before the scheduled Dec. 15 vote on reducing the council and expanding presidential veto authority.

"If we find the funding by then, we can proceed," said Larry Biltah, chairman of the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors. "If not, the election still has to take place, we have to give it to the people. But maybe it doesn't have to happen in a special election.

"We will probably seriously look at holding it during the 2010 elections," Biltah said, referring to tribal elections that will take place in August and November.

The NEA has until Christmas to hold the election, according to a July 30 order of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court.

However, election officials say they didn't include money for a special election in the budget that took effect Oct. 1, and cannot use money budgeted for the next regular election, the 2010 primary.

They've made several fruitless attempts to get the council to approve a special allocation, most recently on Monday when they asked the Intergovernmental Relations Committee for help.

And the one sure source of money the NEA thought it had disappeared Oct. 16 when President Joe Shirley Jr. issued a memo withdrawing his offer to transfer $190,000 in executive branch funds for the NEA's use.

Shirley stated that the reversal was in response to claims by Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale) that the president's office was trying to tell the NEA, a part of the legislative branch, how to conduct the election.

On Monday the Board of Election Supervisors appeared before its oversight committee, IGR, to plead its case. The IGR committee, which includes the chairs of all 11 standing council committees, turned down the request on grounds it was not put in the form of legislation.

"Listening to this report, I didn't hear anything about the program," said Ervin M. Keeswood Sr. (Tsé Daa Kaan), chair of the Government Services Committee. "This is just a request for funds."

Overall, the committee answered the NEA's pleas with criticism.

Election officials should have prepared for the special election, first called for in a June 25 order by hearing officer Carol Perry, by including its cost in their 2010 budget, said Larry Noble (Jeddito/Low Mountain/Steamboat), chair of the Human Services Committee.

"Where's your money, where's your budget?" Noble asked. "You're shooting from the hip and we're caught in between the president's office and the board of election supervisors."

Biltah pleaded uncertainty, saying the order to hold an election was under appeal throughout the summer and his board did not set a firm date for it until after the election office had drafted its budget for fiscal 2010.

The Supreme Court rejected the board's request to reconsider its July 30 ruling in early September, a couple of weeks before the council finalized the 2010 budget.

Other delegates railed against the order to hold an election, saying it had been unduly influenced by Shirley.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to keep people from voting," said Kee Allen Begay (Many Farms/Tsé Ch'ízhí), chair of the Judiciary Committee. "But I'm trying to avoid misleading the people to vote in such a fashion."

Claiming that Shirley has influenced the courts and now the election administration in pushing his initiatives, Begay said he is concerned the entire process is biased.

"That's what people have indicated to me," he said. "They say they are being misled."

Begay also chided the election administration for not including the special election in its 2010 budget request.

"If you really had the best interest of the Navajo people in mind, you wouldn't be here asking for money," he said. "This should have been in the budget for 2010."

Committee members asked why the election supervisors did not present their funding request as a council resolution, the usual form for a funding appropriation. (While several routes exist to fast-track an emergency funding bill, the council shot down an effort by Delegate Leonard Tsosie to get such a bill added to the fall session agenda. Efforts to fund the election by inter-branch transfer collapsed in the crossfire over Shirley's alleged interference with the election planners.)

"Why were you guys unprepared?" asked Sampson Begay (Jeddito/Low Mountain/Steamboat), chair of the Transportation and Community Development Committee.

Several IGR members said they thought the special election was biased because there has been no effort to educate the public on the issues, particularly by the election administration. The NEA should be the driving force behind nonpartisan voter education, they said.

Biltah said the election funding would pay for voter education. The office has not sponsored forums or informational presentations on the initiatives because it doesn't have the funding, he said.

"The rights of the voters is the highest right," Biltah said. "This has to be fair, we really have to prepare for it."

Election Supervisor LeNora Johnson stressed to the IGR committee that the election board is not a part of the president's campaign to pass the initiatives. Rather, the election supervisors are trying to follow the court's ruling, she said.

"What do we do? That's why we're here," she said.

However, in the end, the IGR members offered no solutions and the Dec. 15 special election remained where it has been - in limbo.

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