Challenge to Shirley ballot initiative delayed
By Jason Begay
Navajo Times
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(Special to the Times - Leigh T. Jimmie)
Angelana Cody, center, with President Joe Shirley Jr.'s reform task force, explains the petition to Marlene Gorman, right, of Nazlini, Ariz., at a booth in Window Rock.
The May 30 hearing on objections to President Joe Shirley Jr.'s government reform initiative has been continued for two weeks, giving each side additional time to refine their legal arguments pro and con.
Steve Boos, a Durango, Colo., attorney and former chief legislative counsel who is representing Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Pinedale/Iyanbito) on the challenge, requested the continuance.
Boos said he needed time to review a motion to dismiss the case filed May 27 by Albert Hale, a current state senator and former tribal president who is representing Shirley.
Then ... well, here's a timeline:
There were no objections to Chapela's timeline.
The hearing is meant to determine the validity of Morgan's objections to Shirley's government reform initiative. The president's initiative - actually two - would ask voters to approve reducing the council from 88 to 24 members and give the president line-item veto authority.
Morgan insists such an initiative would require a supermajority vote - a majority "yes" vote in each chapter - and could be overturned by council action.
The initiative language in the petitions now circulating around the reservation specifies that only another ballot initiative could overturn them.
Hale's motion to dismiss argues that Morgan's objections are premature, and that the challenge process is available only after signature petitions have been validated by the Navajo Election Administration.
So far, Shirley has fulfilled all requirements governing ballot initiatives, Hale asserts. Morgan's objections are primarily against the Navajo Election Administration and its decisions regarding the initiative, "and not to anything that the president has failed to do," he states.
Marcella King, chief hearing officer, said before the proceedings that the Office of Hearings and Appeals is usually mired in complaints during election years. She asked both parties to split the cost of the hearings.
Each side reportedly has applied for $300,000 from the Department of Justice to cover their legal costs. It could not be determined whether the grant money was awarded by press time.
The parties will be asked to pay for Chapela's time and services, King said. However, she could not estimate how much the hearing could cost as that depends on how long it lasts and how much time Chapela spends on the case.
During the hearing, Hale pointed out that he and Chapela were business associates in the 1980s. Boos said he nevertheless had no objection to Chapela serving as hearing officer.