Reading Minds

We met on Friday regarding the Special Constitutional Election. There wasn’t a whole lot to talk about, other than that we need to make clear to members what exactly is going on. For the second time in three weeks, I was told that we were off the ball somewhat in terms of educating members on this whole thing. I could help but roll my eyes at that comment, because up until now, just doing anything on this topic, whether a letter, article, or announcement even, has been a chore, a painstaking task of building consensus on an issue in which there would never be any consensus. We’ve never had the full support of Council on this, and about the only way we would ever arrive at consensus would be to bring in new Council members. It has been that difficult.
I’ve been trying to get a grip on what exactly has happened in the last week, especially regarding enrollment. Most of Council seems pretty calm and okay with what is taking place. All we are doing now is waiting, waiting for the BIA to give us the green light and clarify a few major points, one being whether the registration process would need to commence anew, the other a simple date for the election. Whether there is some sort of plan ready to take off once we get those answers I can’t exactly say. I was never privy to the apparent discussions that took place prior to the hasty decision last week. Had not somebody else pointed out that we still had Q & A sessions scheduled next week, I can’t help but wonder if those would have ever been caught at all.
Although I am only a fraction of the way through Barack Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope”, there is already one passage that sticks out. He points out that those in positions of power rarely feel the real consequences of their decisions. I can’t think of a truer notion right now. In communicating with a number of people who’ve waited since 1999 on this issue, the sudden change in plans is apparently sickening. One person I spoke with said she felt like throwing up when word got to her about the change in plans last week. It has been gut-wrenching and stressful, and could grow to be more so later on.
All of that of course makes me wonder how this might have been handled had some of us on Council been directly affected by the whole enrollment mess. What if our kids had gotten the letters notifying of pending dis-enrollment? What if we were the ones whose membership hinged on the election that likely takes place in a few months? I can think of a few more what-ifs.
I’ve been trying to gauge how some of my co-workers feel about all this, to be specific what spurred the decision to change things up. While two Council members have been, to their credit, fairly clear on how they feel, some of the others just seem to be going with the flow, following the lead of those who feel more strongly about the issue, especially the definition of Grand Ronde blood. It seems, quite honestly, that the decision to separate that portion of the amendment was made specifically so that section would fail. Why that would be I can once again only speculate, but my hunches are pretty strong right now. I could always ask, really, but something tells me getting a truthful response is highly unlikely.
It’s times like these that I wish I could read minds. So we wait. Business continues for us. For some Tribal members and families, things might never again be the same.