The Hammer Falls

As I write this, it is 8:30 in the evening, and about 80 degrees outside. I am in Phoenix, Arizona, for the 65th National Congress of American Indians Annual Conference. Chances are I will not be posting this tonight, but rather sometime in the a.m. The high price that is being paid for my room, government rate notwithstanding, does not include internet service. For that I must pay an additional $13 per day, nearly one-tenth the cost of my room. This is a sore subject for me, enough that during most of my travels I research lodgings to find out if they charge for internet service. As a personal rule of thumb, if they charge, I don’t stay. I overlooked that this time. Actually I just forgot. It’s a matter of principle, like paying for the bottled water only a foot from my laptop. $5.25 will buy a couple gallons of milk back in Oregon. Likewise $40 gets me an entire month of internet service at home.
In the grand scheme of things these kinds of costs aren’t going to change lives or bust my wallet, but they do add up, and I am among a growing population of people who believe that it is actually quite possible to be nickeled-and-dimed to death. Plus the Hyatt Regency doesn’t need anymore of my money.
I find myself thinking of these kinds of things because tomorrow, or today, depending on when I get around to posting this (maybe I’ll head down to the lobby), an event that has been looming for almost my entire time of Council will finally unfold. During our Wednesday night Council meeting a few dozen Tribal members, providing there is no change on heart in the majority, will cease to be Grand Ronde Tribal members. They are to be dis-enrolled, wiped from our records. Maybe it is better that I am here in Arizona, away from an act I and others tried to prevent. I could call in, since teleconferencing is catching on, but other than being just another “yes” vote since there isn’t really any other way to interpret our Constitutional membership requirements, legally there is not a whole lot I can do. It has been a long time since I felt this helpless.
This has been overall very quiet, given the enormity of what is about to unfold. I suspect that was intentional. When the dis-enrollments were tabled again last spring, my understanding, and the reason that appeared to be given, was that because we were working on the Enrollment Ordinance regarding how to correct/amend the Restoration roll, this matter would wait until that work was concluded especially since this group of Tribal members could potentially be affected by new language. My suspicions then were that this was a simple stall tactic to avoid making an unpopular decision just before Tribal Council elections. That wouldn’t be illegal, but ethically questionable, though such a thing would be hard to prove. Given that we almost never discussed the Enrollment Ordinance between May and September, my suspicions appear to be correct. We had more discussion on the Leno letter than we did on this.
I am not sure what could have been done to prevent this, aside from upheaval through our Tribal elections. I say that because realistically the antidote to this situation , which would have been to successfully amend the Constitution last February, never had support on Council. Even though the majority of Tribal members who voted wanted to see the amendments pass, the power to ultimately fix this problem still came down to Council. Had they, or should I say we, advocated to right this wrong, there is little doubt in my mind we could have made that amendment pass. But not all of us did, and nobody can tell me there isn’t one or two of my peers who have secretly gotten exactly what they wanted.
What I am curious to know is if this will be the dying ember that reignites the proverbial blaze, or has the fire finally died out. I don’t really know. But I know that somewhere there are some Tribal families who must prepare themselves for major changes, and parents will have awkward explaining to do their children.