I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Members of the Navajo Nation will be choosing a new president and tribal council delegates on Tuesday and the Navajo elections are just as historic as the New Mexico elections—with the potential for the first Navajo female president. Tuesday will also usher in a completely remade tribal council, which the Navajo people decided in a special election last year to reduce from 88 to 24 members.
Two New Mexicans are vying for the top Navajo political position—current New Mexico State Senator Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, and current Navajo Vice President Ben Shelly, who hails from Thoreau. If elected, Lovejoy would be the Nation’s first female president. Her campaign received a boost last week when Shelly—who was a tribal delegate before becoming Vice President—was caught up in charges brought by a special prosecutor against the majority of the tribal council.
Navajo Nation Special Prosecutor Alan Balaran alleged in the complaint that 77 delegates and the current Vice President inappropriately gave discretionary funds to their family and friends.
Shelly spokesperson Brayden Nez told The Independent that the charges were released a couple of weeks before the election for political reasons, and that Shelly is caught up in a conflict between the executive and legislative branches that has seen almost the entire tribal council included in the charges. Shelly, he said, followed the rules in place when he was a tribal delegate in 2006, and has done nothing wrong.
“They’re being brought because of the elections,” Nez said. “He [Shelly] isn’t a crook. He’s got an ordinary family, he had problems like anyone. He got help from the Council, he did not write it out.”
Others share that view, with an attorney for one of the delegates alleging that the timing of the complaints were an effort to “tamper with the elections.”
Shelly’s campaign has in turn filed an ethics violation alleging that Lovejoy’s running mate, Earl Tully, was the recipient of some of the discretionary funds at the heart of the complaints. The complaint against tribal council Speaker Lawrence Morgan and other tribal delegates–detailed in the Gallup Independent, and not currently online–sets out that the funds were allegedly given to Tully while he was making in excess of $50,000 as an employee of the Tribal Housing Authority.
Nez said that Shelly supports the reduction in size of the council, an issue that has been at the center of a political dispute between the Navajo president and tribal council.
President Joe Shirley has been in a power struggle with the tribal council for years. He was a strong advocate last year for the reduction in council size, as well as obtaining line item veto power for the president. The Council attempted to derail Shirley’s power at one point in 2009 by putting him on administrative leave, which the Navajo Supreme Court later said they did not have the power to do. The Council attempted to put a referendum on the ballot this year that would require Navajo justices to be elected rather than appointed. The question is on the ballot, but after vigorous protest by the office of the President, among others, Navajo election authorities announced this week that it was not a valid question, and would not be counted.
Sen. Lynda Lovejoy did not reply to an email by The Independent requesting comment about the charges brought by Balaran.
