Native American Times
Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. scored two legal victories Friday when the tribe’s Supreme Court ruled that an election to reduce the Tribal Council properly passed, and a council vote to place him on leave was invalid. Navajos voted overwhelmingly in December to reduce the council from 88 members to 24 and give the president line-item veto authority. Tim Nelson, a Navajo voter from Leupp, challenged the council reduction, saying it should not have passed without a majority vote in each of the tribe’s 110 precincts.
The Navajo Nation Supreme Court has paved the way for a ballot initiative aimed at reducing the size of the tribal government and giving the tribal president a line-item veto power. The current tribal administration had argued that supporters of the initiative failed to gather enough signatures to qualify the measure, but the court determined that officials used conflicting criteria to invalidate signatures.
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