Hundreds of members of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians have signed a petition calling for an amendment to the Tribal Constitution.

"All we really wanted was for the Tribal Council
to understand that hundreds of tribal members want
this, and that they should help us move the process forward.
Whether they will really do that remains to be seen."
—Brian Napont,
helping circulate tribal petitions

The tribal chairman, Robert Kewaygoshkum, has asked officials in Washington, D.C. for advice on how to proceed.

A proposed constitutional amendment would allow tribal members to vote for the positions of Chief Judge and Appellate Judges of the Tribal Court, the Tribal Prosecutor and Tribal Police Captain. Currently, those positions are filled by political appointees hand-picked by members of the Tribal Council, chaired by Kewaygoshkum.
The tribal government is the largest and richest government entity in Leelanau County, controlling assets of more than $68 million. The Tribal Council serves as the board of the tribe’s Economic Development Corporation – the largest single employer in Leelanau County and one of the largest in the Grand Traverse region with total gross revenues of more than $115 million.

The drive to amend the Tribal Constitution was spurred last year by a highly contentious Tribal Council election. Months of delay and challenges in Tribal Court led to the resignation of Tribal Court chief judge Katherine Scotta in January. The Tribal Council finally replaced Scotta this month by appointing the former associate tribal judge and former Leelanau County assistant prosecutor Wilson Brott to the fulltime chief judgeship. Unlike Scotta, Brott is not a tribal member.

The Tribal Council election last year led to the defeat of longtime tribal councilor and former tribal chairman George Bennett.

Alleged election irregularities also led to the disqualification of the top vote getter in two of the tribe’s abortive primary elections last year, Brian S. Napont. Another candidate who was among the top vote-getters in the races – but who was also disqualified as the result of legal challenges instigated by Bennett and others – was former tribal councilor Thurlow “Sam” McClellan.

Earlier this year, Napont and McClellan were joined by fellow GTB Natural Resources Department employee Desmond L. Berry in circulating a petition calling for an amendment to the Tribal Constitution. Last month, the three submitted to the Tribal Council a petition signed by 232 tribal members residing in the tribe’s six-county service.

Berry and Napont told the Enterprise last week that their interpretation of federal and tribal law is that they would be required to obtain 348 signatures on their petition for a special election to go forward. A special election to amend a tribal constitution is referred to as a “Secretarial Election” because it is administered by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Since Napont, McClellan and Berry have submitted their petition to the Tribal Council, the number of signatures they have obtained has gone up to 305, Berry said.

“There are two ways to bring a constitutional amendment forward,” said Napont. “One is for the Tribal Council to submit a request to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA) – which is what we’ve asked the Tribal Council to do through our petition. The other method is to have 30 percent of tribal voters sign a petition and submit it directly to the BIA.”

Berry and Napont said they disagree with the Tribal Council and the tribe’s general counsel, attorney John Petoskey, who has opined that a much higher number of signatures are needed for the process to move forward. The difference appears to be in how a qualified tribal voter is defined.

In biannual tribal elections, only tribal members 18 year of age and older who reside in the tribe’s six county service area are eligible to vote. Thirty percent of that number would amount to 348 voters.

However, in March 1988, the GTB Constitution was adopted after a Secretarial Election in which all adult tribal members were eligible to vote whether they resided inside or outside the tribe’s six-county service area in northwest lower Michigan.

There are currently some 4,000 enrolled members of the GTB living throughout North America and beyond. Of those, approximately 3,097 would be eligible to vote on whether to adopt a constitutional amendment, according to Petoskey.

Thirty percent of that number would require 930 voters to sign the petition – not 348 as petitioners had hoped.

“They’re trying to make it as hard on us as they can,” Napont said. “All we really wanted was for the Tribal Council to understand that hundreds of tribal members want this, and that they should help us move the process forward. Whether they will really do that remains to be seen.”

GTB general counsel John Petoskey told the Enterprise this week that he’s confident the tribal government is doing everything it can to make all tribal members aware of the proposed constitutional amendment. The tribal government is also actively seeking guidance from the Secretary of the Interior on policies and procedures for conducting a Secretarial Election, he added.

Kewaygoshkum on Sept. 7 sent a letter to all 3,097 adult tribal members along with a detailed legal briefing prepared by Petoskey.

“While the Tribal Council has not taken a position either supporting or opposing the submitted petition,” Kewaygoshkum wrote, “the Council does take the position that the required number of petitioners under both tribal and federal law is 30 percent of all enrolled members over the age of 18, or approximately 930 voters.

“This issue of amending the Constitution is momentous…” the tribal chairman added.
Kewaygoshkum has also sent a letter to Dirk Kempthorne, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, requesting the secretary’s “opinion on the appropriate policies and procedures, as determined by your office, to address this petition.”

Petoskey said that, as of early this week, the tribal chairman had yet to receive a response from Kempthorne’s office.