7/1/2014 10:41:00 AM Letter to the editor: Should the Navajo Nation government more closely resemble U.S. government?
To the editor:
To all current candidates running to be Navajo Nation president:
Could the reformed Navajo Nation government establish traditional Navajo government based on the Navajo clan relationships and use the Navajo language to write the traditional Navajo Nation government?
Can it outline its purposes, limit its scope, indicate the several branches of that traditional government, which includes a two term limit for president, honest allocations of tribal funds, defining the offices of each branch, saying how those offices will be filled and by what authority and what and how power is vested in each and how those offices will be related to one another while still retaining sovereignty?
For example: The Constitution of the United States established a federal union, not a unitary state. Each state entering the union still retained some measure of individual sovereignty. The states surrendered only the power to make war and peace, to enter into alliances with one another or with foreign nations, to make treaties and so on. They retained some measure of local or internal sovereignty over the citizens within each state's borders.
A dual sovereignty was established: one that was national, the sovereignty of the federal government and the 13 local sovereignties, the sovereignty of each of the states adopting the Constitution. The citizens who made up the people of the United States also had a dual citizenship. They became citizens of the new United States but also remained citizens of each individual state.
If you were elected the Navajo Nation president to reform our Navajo Nation government similar to the federal government, could it dissolve the Navajo Nation sovereignty?
Please answer the June 1, 1868 Navajo Nation Peace Treaty Sovereignty question - the Navajo people want to know the answer before they vote for you.