U.S. District Court Judge David Sam has given attorneys for the Bureau of Indian Affairs 30 days to deliver a memo-randum discussing why an election dispute on the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation doesn't fall under federal jurisdiction.
Salt Lake attorney Ed Guyon filed the action in district court against BIA area director Walter R. Mills. It seeks injunctive and declaratory relief for his clients - Raymond Murray, Roseline Taveapont and Larry Blackhair, the winners of the tribe's May 16 general election - on the grounds that they were illegally deprived of their seats on the tribe's governing business committee.The election was invalidated by two of the tribe's three-member election commission, who alleged misconduct at the polls by the winners or their family members on Election Day.
Guyon says Mills maintains the election controversy is out of the BIA's hands and is a matter that must be settled internally, yet he has issued statements that the election ordinance used to invalidate the votes runs contrary to the tribe's constitution while, at the same time, recommended a new general election be held.
Until there is a new election, Mills has warned, the BIA will not recognize funding requests or governmental actions of the Ute Tribe. Mills said the only acknowledgment the BIA will give the tribe's government as constituted prior to the election will be in its efforts to hold a new election in a timely fashion.
"Our claim is they're (the BIA) supporting the people whose terms have expired. If they say they are staying out of this, then why are they doing that?" Guyon stated.
Provo attorney Anthony Fam-ulary is assisting in the case. "We say what the BIA has done is illegal. They have said their rights (Murray, Blackhair and Taveapont's) were violated, and then they go ahead and order a new election."
Two winners in the May 16 contest ousted incumbents Wendell Navanik and Floyd Wopsock. Navanik and Wopsock were politically aligned with former tribal chairman Stewart Pike, who still has two years remaining in office. All three of those who claimed victory in the election are political rivals of Pike.
In another development, last week election commission member Angelita Chegup issued a memorandum saying she had decided to revoke her vote to invalidate the general election. Chegup stated research she conducted into the legality of the tribe's election ordinance convinced her that the winners were unfairly dealt with. "As far as I can tell, the election of May 16, 1995, is valid . . . in my opinion (the winners) were denied post-election due process rights by the election commission."
The withdrawal of Chegup's signature leaves just one name, that of Kathy McCook, on the document invalidating the election. The third election commission member, Joan Lucero, who refused to invalidate the votes from the start, was removed as a commission member by Pike, Navanik and Wop-sock shortly after the election.
The winners and their attorneys claim that act alone should officially give them their rightful place on the six-member business committee, but Pike and his supporters continue to actively resist such recognition.
Last week members of the tribe's executive board, which Pike gave the daily tribal government operations after placing himself and two other business committee members on a four-week paid leave, began serving various department heads with notices placing them on two-weeks unpaid leave.
Key department heads, including tribal comptroller Keith McDonald and fish and wildlife director Bobby Chapoose, were apparently targeted, along with others, for attending a meeting called by the election winners.
The winners - who were sworn into office by a tribal court judge several days after the election - have been openly conducting their own daily business committee meetings at tribal headquarters, passing resolutions and ordinances and inviting tribal members to give their input.
On Tuesday chief tribal court Judge George Tah Bone heard issues connected to the election dispute.