WEBVTT 00:00:01.740 --> 00:00:09.066 Hello. Okay. I guess we start now. Huh? I guess so. Uh anyway so uh I 00:00:09.099 --> 00:00:15.256 came down from the Navajo Nation to talk to malin Parker who told me at 00:00:15.289 --> 00:00:23.289 the time that yes you has gotten a federal grant to do vista volunteer 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:30.767 training. And Mr volunteer is an off spin of the Peace Corps program. And 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:38.046 uh it's something that A. S. U. Was very proud to receive. And uh Mr 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:45.707 volunteers were volunteers that came to ASU for their training. And those 00:00:45.740 --> 00:00:52.646 students were then assigned to an indian reservation and not necessarily 00:00:52.679 --> 00:00:59.016 with any specific duties except to help the community right proposal, make 00:00:59.049 --> 00:01:06.167 contacts for the local communities to outside businesses and write letters 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:12.757 , right resolutions and in many cases getting involved in school community 00:01:12.790 --> 00:01:18.186 activities and all of that. But before they go out these Mr volunteers had 00:01:18.219 --> 00:01:24.887 to be trained and become sensitive to indian desires and then wishes and 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:28.587 the kind of activities that they can get involved in. So during the 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:33.706 training program while they were on campus here at A. S. U. 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:39.777 We uh work with them and place them during the training as part of the 00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:45.947 training process uh and put them out in indian communities. And my job was 00:01:45.980 --> 00:01:49.956 to bring them together in the evenings and have lectures on what they 00:01:49.989 --> 00:01:54.936 experienced during the day and they were trying to get themselves involved 00:01:54.969 --> 00:01:57.837 and after ground with some of the projects that they were involved and 00:01:57.870 --> 00:02:03.397 with local communities. And so that was my job was really to help the 00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:11.430 volunteers And uh and it was done right here out of a S. U. And so I did 00:02:12.270 --> 00:02:19.087 that for two years. Uh and I really enjoyed working with many, many 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:23.626 american indian leaders, not only here in the southwest and I had to take 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:30.927 these volunteers to the local tribal government. I also went and drove 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:35.617 across the country to places like north south Dakota. It was that the 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:40.506 indian tribes up there and some of the vista volunteers who were assigned 00:02:40.539 --> 00:02:46.707 uh to those tribes into Minnesota ST paul Oklahoma. 00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:52.386 And so I got to know many uh indian leaders at the time here in the 00:02:52.419 --> 00:02:58.816 southwest. It was with the pueblos in new Mexico and then practically all 00:02:58.849 --> 00:03:02.927 the tribe here in the state of Arizona. And so my job was just to visit 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:07.747 them out in the field and give them some encouragement and and then try to 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:13.446 correct some of those things that they ran into as a volunteer. And so 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:18.557 that was something that I really really cherished in doing it. I I think 00:03:18.590 --> 00:03:24.566 I'll never ever get involved in that kind of uh services again where you 00:03:24.599 --> 00:03:30.446 had nothing, you didn't have any money. Uh pay wise. Yes I was paid but it 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:37.416 was very little and I had to live like uh the volunteers and be able to 00:03:37.449 --> 00:03:40.927 start projects with without anything. And it was just getting the 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:46.777 community residents involved in solving some of their local problems. And 00:03:46.810 --> 00:03:54.810 so I I left that after two years. And I think this happened in Something 00:03:55.460 --> 00:03:58.566 like 1967, 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:04.196 that's when I resigned. And Or maybe it was 1966. I resigned from here 00:04:04.229 --> 00:04:12.229 from a shoe and then went to work for uh huh DNA people's legal services I 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:17.346 believe. I was the second or the third person employed by the legal 00:04:17.379 --> 00:04:22.447 services program. There was a young man by the name of Theodore Mitchell. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:29.967 And then the Navajo person Leo Haven. And I was the third one coming on 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:35.356 board. And our job was to meet every day and to plan the legal services 00:04:35.389 --> 00:04:40.406 program on the Navajo reservation. And once we start started the Navajo 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:48.036 program, then we branched out into apaches uh White Mountain and out to 00:04:48.069 --> 00:04:54.736 the Hopi reservation. And then we also took in other poor folks, all the 00:04:54.769 --> 00:05:00.767 indigent people in the southwest. And so we established offices in tuba 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:06.687 City on the Hopi reservation. White Mountain Apache and then all the five 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:11.957 agencies on the Navajo then eventually branching out into a farming town 00:05:11.990 --> 00:05:19.990 area and uh Flagstaff and those places where there were high population 00:05:20.029 --> 00:05:26.106 density of the poor folks. And so we were at that time uh just 00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:29.007 representing everyone. 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:34.067 And the money that we got came from O. E. O. Office of Economic 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:41.406 opportunity in Washington. And I remember it was right about at this point 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:47.046 that Hillary clinton, uh the senator from new york and now the 00:05:47.079 --> 00:05:51.846 presidential candidate who was involved in the legal services program. And 00:05:51.879 --> 00:05:58.306 she served on the legal services national board. There was appointed by a 00:05:58.339 --> 00:06:05.387 democratic president. It may have been uh jimmy carter that appointed her. 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:10.937 And so I had to work with all at the National Legal Services Board to 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:18.707 keep the american indian legal program going. And DNA being the largest 00:06:18.740 --> 00:06:26.740 legal services program in America, it had a lot of spunk, it had a lot of 00:06:26.839 --> 00:06:32.366 good things that we were doing that attracted some excellent lawyers 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:39.416 through the program. And uh and my job was to recruit lawyers from across 00:06:39.449 --> 00:06:45.447 the nation. I always started each year, let's say at Harvard or boston 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:53.480 University and came down to uh Yale Cornell, N. Y. U. In new york city and 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:58.387 john marshall in Chicago. And then here in the Southwest University of 00:06:58.420 --> 00:07:05.406 Arizona, U. C. L. A. U. S. C. University of California stanford University. 00:07:05.439 --> 00:07:13.439 So I had on my list maybe something like 20 or so uh Law school. And I 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:18.606 kept a record of all the students that are interviewed and at the end of 00:07:18.639 --> 00:07:23.116 their third year upon graduation I just wrote them a letter and revisit 00:07:23.149 --> 00:07:29.536 some of them and they came to work to DNA. And during the summer months of 00:07:29.569 --> 00:07:35.207 course they came to him DNA and the Navajo and we place them out in the 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:43.240 agency field offices to get their work experience. And so that was one of 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:51.240 my responsibility for DNA. And as we were taken in cases 00:07:52.339 --> 00:07:58.127 because it was a free legal services. We had all these indian people that 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:05.827 just came left and right and our offices was always full every morning 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:11.036 with people that came with legal problem whether it be a divorce problem 00:08:11.069 --> 00:08:16.986 or employment uh problems that the indian people were facing 00:08:17.019 --> 00:08:23.916 discrimination that they had experienced in the cities and land problem or 00:08:23.949 --> 00:08:29.387 problem with their social Security or problem with them being fired by the 00:08:29.420 --> 00:08:35.506 tribal government. Be a indian health service, maybe a malpractice case 00:08:35.539 --> 00:08:41.187 out of indian health service. So we were involved in so many cases, an 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:46.276 assortment of cases. There was just no no limitation as to the kind of 00:08:46.309 --> 00:08:50.996 problems that the people brought to us. And one of the things that was an 00:08:51.029 --> 00:08:55.856 outstanding two outstanding feature of DNA people's legal services that I 00:08:55.889 --> 00:09:03.889 really really like Who was # one. Uh huh. It instead of putting out all of 00:09:05.539 --> 00:09:10.697 your workforce out into the agencies and they take any case day after day 00:09:10.730 --> 00:09:17.026 after day which was endless. Uh in terms of accepting those cases, we 00:09:17.059 --> 00:09:24.587 created what we call a law reform unit. That meant that you went out and 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:30.417 you got the most experienced lawyer and put it at your central office and 00:09:30.450 --> 00:09:36.837 all they would worry about is looking for those law reform cases Where we 00:09:36.870 --> 00:09:44.047 can pick a case one case go to court, win it and then that will allow all 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:50.606 the other cases to follow suit to follow the example and the decision that 00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:55.557 that people derived at and it covered some of the cases that were pending 00:09:55.590 --> 00:10:03.537 at those local offices. And so it ends up to reform and the laws, the laws 00:10:03.570 --> 00:10:07.547 that were affecting the poor people here in the southwest. And so that was 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:14.496 an important and feature and we had some of the uh great lawyers with much 00:10:14.529 --> 00:10:22.116 , much skills and we took from that law reform unit uh took many cases to 00:10:22.149 --> 00:10:26.126 the United States Supreme Court and I'll just talk about one or two of 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:31.167 them. One of them was a Mcclanahan case. The Mcclanahan case was a case 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:38.016 where rosal mcclanahan was being taxed a personal income while she was 00:10:38.049 --> 00:10:45.366 working uh and living on the neighborhood nation. And uh we handled that 00:10:45.399 --> 00:10:49.827 case and took it all the way to the United States Supreme Court and the 00:10:49.860 --> 00:10:54.646 court ruled in her favor and they said that she has her allegiance back to 00:10:54.679 --> 00:11:02.679 the Navajo government and she uh does not have to pay the state income tax 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:11.039 because if that was the case, then she would be allowed the state to tax 00:11:11.659 --> 00:11:16.106 her those tax money would be used off reservation to build roads and other 00:11:16.139 --> 00:11:22.217 infrastructure in the Supreme Court. Saw where all that those monies were 00:11:22.250 --> 00:11:27.807 needed back on the reservation. So that was a very, very important case 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:34.067 that DNA was involved in Another one was what they call a controversial 00:11:34.100 --> 00:11:40.026 one. A trader case where we had traders on the Navajo nation and those 00:11:40.059 --> 00:11:46.116 traders that were at the time doing business with the Navajo people, the 00:11:46.149 --> 00:11:53.557 Navajo people would pawn, they're saddled their jewelry, uh, any belonging 00:11:53.590 --> 00:11:58.776 that they have, they would pawn it with the traders, but in return, the 00:11:58.809 --> 00:12:04.006 traders did not give them any kind of a receipt and the interest rate that 00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:09.807 they would collect once the uh the uh neighborhood people would generate 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:16.047 enough money to get those upon articles back to them. And so there was no 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:24.080 way of keeping a record of that. And the traders were really taken 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:31.337 advantage in many cases with a non english speaking Navajo, the cost of 00:12:31.370 --> 00:12:37.947 cigarettes would go way way up high below the above the market value and 00:12:37.980 --> 00:12:41.447 many of the items that they were selling, their trader would essentially 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:47.717 be the same. But what we were concerned about was the Navajo poor folks 00:12:47.750 --> 00:12:53.807 that we're dealing with the traders and how they, the traders would 00:12:53.840 --> 00:13:01.840 intentionally uh lose much of their upon article and according according 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:09.917 to them, they would walk after premise and you'll never see it again. And 00:13:09.950 --> 00:13:14.797 the poor never with people said upon my saddle here and upon my jewelry 00:13:14.830 --> 00:13:20.006 here, How come it's not here. So that was kind of like an endless argument 00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:28.039 that happened. So we brought in uh Federal Trade Commission two get after 00:13:29.889 --> 00:13:34.467 the traders and the B. I. A and have some kind of pond ticket that they 00:13:34.500 --> 00:13:39.937 can issue to make sure that the interest rate that they were charging was 00:13:39.970 --> 00:13:46.746 reasonable. And then it was their ticket also to ensure that those upon 00:13:46.779 --> 00:13:52.787 articles don't get lost and sold to tourists and other people. And so that 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:58.677 was also a famous case that we handled, it was mandated by the courts to 00:13:58.710 --> 00:14:05.547 do that. Of course there was an education right about this time In 19 late 00:14:05.580 --> 00:14:13.580 1960 68, 67. Uh huh. There were practically very very few uh public school 00:14:17.399 --> 00:14:23.126 supported by the state financially and having those public schools located 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:30.506 on the Navajo nation. And I can think of schools like chin lee for example 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:37.976 and Rough rock. And when the Rock High School to achieve high school 00:14:38.009 --> 00:14:44.837 Newcomb Crown point and Navajo Pine right at the sawmill there, those 00:14:44.870 --> 00:14:50.746 kinds of schools, there were non existence and it was through a case that 00:14:50.779 --> 00:14:57.136 DNA has been involved in, that we handled through the federal system where 00:14:57.169 --> 00:15:05.169 the judge mandated that these local school districts also build schools on 00:15:05.970 --> 00:15:11.967 the neighborhood nation as well as in their own county. And what really 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:18.057 moved the jets in those cases were how the neighborhood people wanted 00:15:18.090 --> 00:15:23.297 their Children to get an education. They were very insistent. And uh and 00:15:23.330 --> 00:15:29.106 then the other thing that really caught the eyes of the the church was 00:15:29.139 --> 00:15:33.146 that many of these neighborhood kids when they get on the bus in the 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:40.177 morning, they had to be bus uh 60 70 mi, 80 miles away to go to a public 00:15:40.210 --> 00:15:44.707 school off the reservation. And I remember a federal judge in Salt Lake 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:49.907 City making a comment when the day is steady. If they go out into the 00:15:49.940 --> 00:15:54.587 street, go out into the highway at five a.m. 5 30 in the morning to catch 00:15:54.620 --> 00:16:00.327 a bus and then by the time they get to their school and then they're 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:06.697 preoccupied with their class all day and then get back on At 3:30 and then 00:16:06.730 --> 00:16:11.116 they don't get home until the sun goes down in the winter time, it might 00:16:11.149 --> 00:16:19.149 be snowing and, and you let them off the bus at those highways and when 00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:23.486 it's snowing, aren't you really jeopardizing the safety of those Children 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:28.356 ? I remember judge making those comments. And so as a result, they were 00:16:28.389 --> 00:16:35.356 all mandated to have schools on the reservation. And because of that, the 00:16:35.389 --> 00:16:41.366 birth of public schools on the Navajo in the state of Utah. That was how 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:45.606 the Monument Valley High School was built. The White Horse High School. 00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:53.026 And now the Navajo Mountain High School, it was really by a, a mandate by 00:16:53.059 --> 00:16:58.047 that, by the federal judge and they're still carrying out the spirit of 00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:05.377 that Jet's decision or federal courts decision. And so basically that's a 00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:13.410 , that's the kind of cases DNA was involved in. And uh, and DNA was very, 00:17:13.470 --> 00:17:20.347 very controversial needless to say because of what we were getting 00:17:20.380 --> 00:17:27.407 ourselves involved in and it wasn't really DNA employees sitting down and 00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:32.157 scheming and conniving as to what we should do. We were pushed by our 00:17:32.190 --> 00:17:37.286 clients. The Navajo people were really, really pushing us. and the last 00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:45.226 one I just mentioned is a case against the Navajo tribal council where the 00:17:45.259 --> 00:17:51.357 issue of reapportionment was raised by a a neighborhood client from 00:17:51.390 --> 00:17:56.447 Shiprock New Mexico. And his question was very, very simple. Where he said 00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:04.127 , if you look at the Navajo council seats, there is a council delegate 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:11.806 from from The Western Agency that represents 200 constituents 00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:18.486 And he goes to one Chapter House. His his constituency is 200. I have a 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:26.519 console delicate that represents Shiprock and we have several 1000 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:35.407 neighborhood people that is represented by that council council delegate. 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:42.197 But when they both of them get into an office, they vote on issues. And 00:18:42.230 --> 00:18:48.256 my counsel delicate is carrying the weight of several 1000 people while on 00:18:48.289 --> 00:18:54.496 the other hand, the other delegate is only representing uh 200 Where's 00:18:54.529 --> 00:19:00.786 equality? Where is fairness? Uh What does the law say? And they wanted us 00:19:00.819 --> 00:19:08.246 to to handle that case and we had to handle the case. And so we went into 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:13.677 the tribal court and handled the case and the decision came down by a 00:19:13.710 --> 00:19:20.117 tribal judge. That neighborhood nation just has to reapportion its voting 00:19:20.150 --> 00:19:26.496 district to reflect equal representation among the Navajo people. Equal 00:19:26.529 --> 00:19:34.529 representation by the council delegates. And that really turned tribal 00:19:34.829 --> 00:19:39.207 council and what they do in their responsibility and the controversy that 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:41.806 generated? 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:46.296 Turn the tribal government upside down. And as a result, people were 00:19:46.329 --> 00:19:50.137 raising questions about what DNA was doing and why we were handling those 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:56.976 cases. But people didn't understand that the Navajo also had a law called 00:19:57.009 --> 00:20:03.046 equal representation and the Navajo Bill of Rights states that so it was 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:08.236 our own Navajo law that dictated that there's going to be fairness and 00:20:08.269 --> 00:20:14.457 equal representation on the federal side. There was the United States uh 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:22.016 huh Civil Rights Act that mandated the same thing. And so in our case, we 00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:28.306 were backed up by a federal law and tribal law and that was very very 00:20:28.339 --> 00:20:30.347 controversial. 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:38.380 And as a result, the United States Senate. Mhm. And other representative 00:20:39.089 --> 00:20:44.726 congressional representatives also started raising an issue on DNA 00:20:44.759 --> 00:20:49.907 people's legal service. And I could remember a book that somebody wrote 00:20:49.940 --> 00:20:57.076 call all the President's men. There is a page or two that mentions and 00:20:57.109 --> 00:21:05.109 talks about uh uh DNA people's legal services. And as I remember uh 00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:13.816 President Nixon got on the plane from Washington and I think he was on his 00:21:13.849 --> 00:21:21.849 way to California. And he gave Barry Goldwater a ride uh to phoenix On Air 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:29.016 Force one And one or 2 other congressional delegation from Arizona also 00:21:29.049 --> 00:21:34.437 hopped on the plane. And one of the things that the reporter wrote that 00:21:34.470 --> 00:21:37.437 Barry Goldwater was concerned about that. He wanted to talk to the 00:21:37.470 --> 00:21:42.226 president was how do you eliminate the in their people's legal services on 00:21:42.259 --> 00:21:47.806 the Navajo and they're they're getting involved in a lot of these uh 00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:54.677 situations and that they should not be involved in and uh that they wanted 00:21:54.710 --> 00:22:02.710 , he wanted to do something legislatively to limit DNA is ability to some 00:22:03.349 --> 00:22:11.006 extent. And uh and so that it got to that level. And ultimately 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:17.627 we also had to fight for our survival and manage to do that all the way 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:22.407 from the Never one nation local 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:29.707 government agencies all the way into the United States Senate. And it was 00:22:29.740 --> 00:22:37.740 it was one of those things where you know, that, you know, that fair 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:46.359 fairness could only be rendered by local people to people that they 00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:52.207 represent. And here we were constantly 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:56.647 uh suing the B. I. A. Indian health service, the state government. We were 00:22:56.680 --> 00:23:00.467 winning cases when those folks. But there were a lot of other people who 00:23:00.500 --> 00:23:04.816 said, hey, how come you guys are always after us? What about your own 00:23:04.849 --> 00:23:10.566 tribal government? They're just as unfair as as as we are and you should 00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:18.599 also go after them. And so that was uh something that people that we were 00:23:19.809 --> 00:23:25.677 always fighting with raisin on the service, the kind of services that D. N. 00:23:25.710 --> 00:23:31.986 A. Uh was providing. And uh and as I said, the end result was Washington 00:23:32.019 --> 00:23:37.617 having to make that decision to keep us going. And so basically that was 00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:44.137 my work for uh or DNA. And the second features that I really, really like 00:23:44.170 --> 00:23:52.170 it was was we did not have one single neighborhood lawyer at the time and 00:23:54.140 --> 00:23:59.607 we brought in a lot of non indian lawyers when those schools that I name. 00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:01.907 And 00:24:01.940 --> 00:24:06.107 we wanted to, 00:24:06.140 --> 00:24:14.140 we wanted to see if there is a way that DNA can generate enough interest 00:24:14.170 --> 00:24:22.170 among the young people at the local high school level to see if we can 00:24:23.140 --> 00:24:28.806 have enough young people get interested in becoming lawyers. 00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:31.607 And at that time, 00:24:31.640 --> 00:24:37.707 uh, it was considered probably 00:24:37.740 --> 00:24:43.917 not the right time to raise those kinds of issues. But we said that well, 00:24:43.950 --> 00:24:48.847 we can't be in the controversial then than what we have done the less 00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:53.947 previous years. Why don't we just go into the high school and talk to the 00:24:53.980 --> 00:24:59.947 seniors and juniors and sophomores? Uh huh. Every major high school on the 00:24:59.980 --> 00:25:05.016 reservation, we should go in there and explain to them what DNA is 00:25:05.049 --> 00:25:10.826 confronted with and we don't have any Navajo lawyers. And so that was a 00:25:10.859 --> 00:25:18.859 systematic way. Uh huh. Going after solving a problem that was 00:25:19.740 --> 00:25:27.197 institutionalized by the Navajo government and the Navajo people and to 00:25:27.230 --> 00:25:29.306 change 00:25:29.339 --> 00:25:37.339 a big huge government and the attitude. Uh huh Like the attitude never one 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.607 nation possess. 00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:47.726 That's that's really, really hard. And so we spent a lot of time educating 00:25:47.759 --> 00:25:55.759 the young people and within the next 3-5 years propped up a lot of Navajo 00:25:56.200 --> 00:26:00.867 youngsters that we're interested in in law school. And I just remember and 00:26:00.900 --> 00:26:07.607 I just well named several of them to indicate the interest that was there. 00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:13.117 One of them was Claudine Bates author item Shiprock area and she 00:26:13.150 --> 00:26:21.026 ultimately became a director of litigation that DNA. Then she uh also 00:26:21.059 --> 00:26:27.036 became the 1st 1st attorney general for the neighborhood nation. And then 00:26:27.069 --> 00:26:32.927 she also became the chief justice of the neighborhood nation. And she was 00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:38.016 one of those individuals that that we work with it at early stage to get 00:26:38.049 --> 00:26:44.056 her interested in law because he was so bright. And so she ultimately 00:26:44.089 --> 00:26:51.566 became uh and almost like an institution on the neighborhood with uh that 00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:56.877 generations of Navajo people. The other one was a young man by the name of 00:26:56.910 --> 00:27:04.447 Herbert, Yossi, K. Maro Kayenta and who also became the attorney general 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:09.197 and now is the chief justice of the Never one Nation. I remember Herbie 00:27:09.230 --> 00:27:15.097 Ozzy because he went to school both Claudine and her beyonc went to school 00:27:15.130 --> 00:27:21.177 here at the issue. It was one of the first students at the law school. And 00:27:21.210 --> 00:27:26.766 then uh the other one was Lewis did not soc who is now the attorney 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:32.006 general for the Navajo nation. So these were kind of a representative of 00:27:32.039 --> 00:27:38.816 never heard people at the time that grew out of that concern for uh 00:27:38.849 --> 00:27:44.076 getting more novel people interested in law. And I like that. I like that 00:27:44.109 --> 00:27:49.117 feature of D. N. A. And D. N. A. Going out promoting that. Now, there was 00:27:49.150 --> 00:27:54.207 no rules or regulation within the legal services program telling us to do 00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:58.976 that. We just did it on our own. And because we knew it was needed. And I 00:27:59.009 --> 00:28:04.427 remember legal services official in Washington D. C. Asking questions 00:28:04.460 --> 00:28:09.556 about how come we were, what were we doing in school? Talking to their 00:28:09.589 --> 00:28:16.726 kids about DNA and and talking about all of these things and we just 00:28:16.759 --> 00:28:23.367 explained to them how to something like that was of necessity. And it was 00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:29.937 something that uh we got together connive and scheme on it and decided 00:28:29.970 --> 00:28:33.546 that's what we should do. That's what people demand. They said, how come 00:28:33.579 --> 00:28:38.447 we have all these non indian lawyers here, why couldn't we have our own 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:42.687 neighborhood people become lawyers and that you guys should get involved 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:50.720 in that kind of education and produce never or lawyers. And so, uh, you 00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:58.990 know, within a short period of about 10-15 years, we were able to get 30 00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:05.266 35 Navajo indian lawyers. And I think that's that's a progress, a big huge 00:29:05.299 --> 00:29:09.217 progress. Probably more important than many, many of the cases that we 00:29:09.250 --> 00:29:16.367 ever handle. And so that that was something that that was close to my 00:29:16.400 --> 00:29:24.400 heart at at the N. A. And so that was kind of like the end of my work with 00:29:27.049 --> 00:29:34.707 these, the different agencies on the Navajo. And then came 1983 00:29:34.740 --> 00:29:41.986 when I decided to run for the, Excuse me, I should say 1982. Then came 00:29:42.019 --> 00:29:50.019 1982 when I decided to run for the tribal chairman because I was pressured 00:29:50.170 --> 00:29:54.917 into doing it. I really I really didn't plan it. I never ever thought that 00:29:54.950 --> 00:29:59.117 in my younger days that I would ever become a tribal chairman. But it was 00:29:59.150 --> 00:30:04.437 one of those things that you don't work at. But people notice and people 00:30:04.470 --> 00:30:11.347 will hear you people, we'll see how you have certain abilities perhaps 00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:16.657 that you ought to try some of those things that I keep on doing from the 00:30:16.690 --> 00:30:24.690 Navajo government level. And so I ran in 1982 and one. And And then served 00:30:25.119 --> 00:30:33.119 for three years when 19 I mean four years 1983 2, 1987. 00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:42.440 And that was my involvement with never a nation government. And since 00:30:42.630 --> 00:30:48.607 since we're talking about education, there were many things that we did 00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:54.377 during those years. And I'll mention, I'll mention three or 4 important 00:30:54.410 --> 00:31:01.107 things that I think we did different The year 1983, 00:31:01.140 --> 00:31:05.597 one of them was the establishment of the Justice Department for the Navajo 00:31:05.630 --> 00:31:12.607 nation. Uh huh. It it was just barely getting off the ground when I took 00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:17.506 office. Uh my 00:31:17.539 --> 00:31:23.516 people were telling me that we need to make it larger and bigger and 00:31:23.549 --> 00:31:29.167 really get serious about a bigger establishment of the Justice Department 00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:35.667 because up to that point it was only two or 3 office people that commanded 00:31:35.700 --> 00:31:43.607 the the desk at the neighborhood legal counsel. So we made it into a 00:31:43.640 --> 00:31:49.056 Justice department that never where people can be proud. And again, my 00:31:49.089 --> 00:31:52.887 choice was Claudine Bates author and that's how she became the attorney 00:31:52.920 --> 00:32:00.920 general. And so we established that and got all these cases back from non 00:32:01.740 --> 00:32:07.107 indians that were representing the neighborhood nation. We had lawyers in 00:32:07.140 --> 00:32:11.847 Salt Lake City, we had lawyers in the phoenix and Washington D. C. And 00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:15.836 they were handling Navajo cases and we decided to take all those cases 00:32:15.869 --> 00:32:21.336 back to the Navajo in the window and uh and literally drove a truck around 00:32:21.369 --> 00:32:26.177 to haul all these cases back. And because we had established a big huge 00:32:26.210 --> 00:32:31.627 Justice department so that was one success 00:32:31.660 --> 00:32:36.726 in terms of what we were doing, The other one is the establishment of the 00:32:36.759 --> 00:32:42.476 Supreme Court neighborhood nation. Supreme Court was born during the first 00:32:42.509 --> 00:32:50.127 four years. And because there was a huge demand for for that and then 00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:57.326 people wanted to appeal their cases and they wanted uh Supreme Court that 00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:04.347 would be uh huh staff with some knowledgeable people in law. And then the 00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:11.387 panel, the panel on the Supreme Court would be judges that came from the 00:33:11.420 --> 00:33:19.420 old Navajo uh judges that had a lot of sense of native justice and they 00:33:20.529 --> 00:33:26.377 would bring that kind of school into the bench in the Supreme Court and 00:33:26.410 --> 00:33:32.796 then the other one would be a recent law graduates, a person who's 00:33:32.829 --> 00:33:38.086 licensed in the state to, to practice law. And he would bring in the 00:33:38.119 --> 00:33:46.119 modern idea, the new justice than the new sense of fairness from, from the 00:33:46.759 --> 00:33:54.759 anglo world, but that person being a never at the same time. And, and then 00:33:55.539 --> 00:34:00.326 in the middle would be a person who would be appointed as the chief 00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:04.917 justice, working with these two justices that will have the ability to 00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:12.307 speak Navajo and english very well. That can look at both the traditional 00:34:12.340 --> 00:34:20.077 tribal charges point point of view and the modern young college and law 00:34:20.110 --> 00:34:28.110 school graduate. And so we created that Supreme Court and to the state as 00:34:28.670 --> 00:34:35.396 a result of as a result of establishing the Supreme Court, It has blossom 00:34:35.429 --> 00:34:39.936 into something that is highly respected by all the non indian communities 00:34:39.969 --> 00:34:44.767 nationwide. The Supreme Court of the Navajo nation comes to these law 00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:52.256 schools like ASU Harvard stanford all of these major law schools and they 00:34:52.289 --> 00:34:59.017 hold their cases there. And the Jets, the Jets is, they were here recently 00:34:59.050 --> 00:35:07.050 at a shoe. The judges use both their Navajo knowledge about custom and 00:35:07.380 --> 00:35:15.380 usage in, in settled in tribal dispute as well as the modern law governing 00:35:16.300 --> 00:35:23.956 some of those uh, controversies or disagreements. And so it was something 00:35:23.989 --> 00:35:31.989 that it was something that we saw back then. 00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:34.307 And 00:35:34.340 --> 00:35:40.807 because of that we created that the Supreme Court. Yeah. And 00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:46.307 I don't know what people know that I really agonize 00:35:46.340 --> 00:35:53.356 agonize through who I should appoint to the Supreme Court. And uh and 00:35:53.389 --> 00:36:00.396 these were all the things that were on my mind and I had it a vision in my 00:36:00.429 --> 00:36:05.827 head that we can't have that be completely dominated by the recent law 00:36:05.860 --> 00:36:13.860 graduates because we'll lose will lose the the other part the Navajos 00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:22.597 sense of justice. So we've got to bring those older elderly people and 00:36:22.630 --> 00:36:29.267 their sense of what is fair and what is just into the Supreme Court and 00:36:29.300 --> 00:36:34.827 then we've got to have somebody that appreciates both the both worlds. And 00:36:34.860 --> 00:36:42.860 so I agonize over that and I I'm very happy with people that we appointed 00:36:43.530 --> 00:36:48.117 uh to the Supreme Court. And there's a huge success and I guess the third 00:36:48.150 --> 00:36:55.796 one is uh huh The 3rd 1 is the trust one. 00:36:55.829 --> 00:37:03.829 Uh I was very very lucky, extremely lucky to be put in office with council 00:37:06.710 --> 00:37:14.710 delegates that were highly dedicated, their integrity was beyond reproach. 00:37:15.829 --> 00:37:23.829 Uh They were very visionary in terms of things that they looked at. I was 00:37:26.489 --> 00:37:30.947 I was I just happened to be elected at the same time that the neighborhood 00:37:30.980 --> 00:37:38.980 people elected them. So I give much credit to that Tribal Council that 00:37:39.389 --> 00:37:44.756 came into the office with me at the time in 1983. And one of the things 00:37:44.789 --> 00:37:52.789 that happen was that when we passed the Never one Nation tax law when we 00:37:55.070 --> 00:38:01.517 said we're going to begin taxing the uh companies that work on the 00:38:01.550 --> 00:38:09.146 reservation and at that time we had one or 2 taxes that had just been 00:38:09.179 --> 00:38:15.637 passed by the, by the council before I got into office. And then we wanted 00:38:15.670 --> 00:38:23.670 to make it, make it bigger more fair and uh, and have more companies pay 00:38:23.960 --> 00:38:28.436 taxes. And so we put all of that together and had a big tax and 00:38:28.469 --> 00:38:33.486 legislation that passed were passed by the council immediately there after 00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:39.387 we got sued in a lawsuit called Kerr McGee versus the number one nation. 00:38:39.420 --> 00:38:46.247 And uh, where the companies did not want to pay taxes. And, and I remember 00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:50.736 calling a meeting of all that. The companies that work on the Navajo 00:38:50.769 --> 00:38:55.017 nation that we're doing business. Remember calling a meeting and having 00:38:55.050 --> 00:39:00.287 them come to the council chambers and where I had really talked to them. 00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:04.276 These are the Ceos, the head of the company's and pleading with them 00:39:04.309 --> 00:39:12.309 saying, uh, let's work together and we want you to do business with us. 00:39:13.719 --> 00:39:19.907 And, but they were, they were so angry and they were so angry that the 00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:25.736 Navajo nation solve it to pass a tax and legislation so that they had to 00:39:25.769 --> 00:39:30.626 begin paying taxes. And my point to them was that listen everywhere you go 00:39:30.659 --> 00:39:36.586 , you have to pay taxes and why don't you want never one nation to do 00:39:36.619 --> 00:39:42.546 likewise. The company that you have, you have business in Virginia, You 00:39:42.579 --> 00:39:49.356 have business in Appalachia back east, you all have to pay taxes. And what 00:39:49.389 --> 00:39:53.477 do you make you believe that you can come to the Navajo nation, expect not 00:39:53.510 --> 00:40:00.177 to pay taxes. We're hungry. We're short on revenues and there are people 00:40:00.210 --> 00:40:07.026 need jobs out there and our people need services. It's badly needed. So we 00:40:07.059 --> 00:40:15.059 need to generate revenues and but uh they went ahead and filed a lawsuit 00:40:15.429 --> 00:40:23.376 anyway. Well That suit was won by the Navajo Nation in my in my 4th year. 00:40:23.409 --> 00:40:30.486 And and I told the companies that they could pay the tax that they're 00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:36.177 supposed to pay to the neighborhood nation into escrow account. And so 00:40:36.210 --> 00:40:42.717 that escrow during that four year period, uh Had generated something like 00:40:42.750 --> 00:40:50.750 217 million Or $214 million dollars uh during the, during the time between 00:40:51.670 --> 00:40:56.126 the time they filed the lawsuit and when the case was decided in the 00:40:56.159 --> 00:41:01.077 Supreme Court, it generated that much uh 00:41:01.110 --> 00:41:07.427 revenues for the neighborhood nations. So my point to the company was okay 00:41:07.460 --> 00:41:14.566 since you sued us, you've got to continue paying in escrow into an escrow 00:41:14.599 --> 00:41:19.736 account at the bank. So that when the case is decided, if you, when you 00:41:19.769 --> 00:41:23.876 take your money back, if we win as a neighborhood nation, then we take 00:41:23.909 --> 00:41:31.909 everything. And so mm, The 214 million 00:41:32.309 --> 00:41:38.747 was then given to the Navajo Nation when we went when we won the case and 00:41:38.780 --> 00:41:45.217 the tax case. And the question was, what do we not do with that? 214 00:41:45.250 --> 00:41:51.077 million and uh, there were a lot of needs. The needs back then were the 00:41:51.110 --> 00:41:59.110 same as the needs now. And, but the council were very insistent 00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:08.800 if we used all of this money now, it won't really generate a whole lot of 00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:17.066 meaningful answers to our problems. Why don't we put it into some kind of 00:42:17.099 --> 00:42:25.099 uh huh savings account and where we can generate interest of those savings 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:33.360 ? So by having more discussions with money managers and people, members of 00:42:33.420 --> 00:42:37.796 the budget and finance committee at the time we decided that we should put 00:42:37.829 --> 00:42:45.829 these monies into trust. So we establish something like seven, seven trust 00:42:46.969 --> 00:42:54.666 accounts. Excuse me. Yeah, seven trusts funds for the neighborhood nation. 00:42:54.699 --> 00:43:02.316 And there was a trust fund for the elderly, trust fund for Navajo prep 00:43:02.349 --> 00:43:06.787 school. There was Trust one for students who want to go to vocational 00:43:06.820 --> 00:43:12.566 education. There was trust funds for the scholarship funds. There was 00:43:12.599 --> 00:43:19.977 Scholars one was depleted at the time and we had to replenish that. We 00:43:20.010 --> 00:43:25.727 established a trust fund for all the chapters. Chapter houses is called 00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:32.427 the nation building fund. And we had a trust fund for the elderly folks 00:43:32.460 --> 00:43:37.347 because up to that time, uh, the federal government had decided that 00:43:37.380 --> 00:43:43.086 they're not going to fund the senior citizens program anymore to buy them 00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:48.686 glasses, wheelchairs. These kinds of basic basic needs of the elderly 00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:55.867 people have. And so we decided that we should put some monies into trust 00:43:55.900 --> 00:44:01.637 for those folks. And so we have an elderly trust one. And then the last 00:44:01.670 --> 00:44:08.807 one was the handicap. Next to the last one was a handicap trust fund for 00:44:08.840 --> 00:44:15.717 the handicapped people. And the last one was the permament fund. And there 00:44:15.750 --> 00:44:21.467 was the biggest one And the Parliament fund, we put it, we put $26 million 00:44:21.500 --> 00:44:24.456 dollars into trust 00:44:24.489 --> 00:44:32.489 and decided that the council each year should invest 00:44:33.190 --> 00:44:40.057 12% of the total tribal revenue for that year into the Parliament fund. 00:44:40.090 --> 00:44:44.197 And then the turned up the Parliament fund. The interest that it earns 00:44:44.230 --> 00:44:49.546 would go back into the fund. So you had to money's coming into the 00:44:49.579 --> 00:44:55.256 Parliament fund, one from the council and then the interest that it earned. 00:44:55.289 --> 00:45:01.717 And I never ever thought that someday we would be talking about having 00:45:01.750 --> 00:45:09.356 the trust fund reach a billion. And as of last week, 00:45:09.389 --> 00:45:17.389 I was told by the money managers That we are now at 958 million. And that 00:45:17.690 --> 00:45:23.236 during either dis quartered and or june or the next quarter. And then in 00:45:23.269 --> 00:45:31.066 september That we would reach one billion And $1 billion dollars is a lot 00:45:31.099 --> 00:45:36.617 of money. And the council and I agree that we would leave this money alone 00:45:36.650 --> 00:45:42.847 for 20 years and we'll see how much money it generates. By all accounts, 00:45:42.880 --> 00:45:47.356 the money managers and people who do this for living. They were saying 00:45:47.389 --> 00:45:53.727 that you will probably have 300 some odd million dollars. And then here we 00:45:53.760 --> 00:46:01.760 are at a year 207, it's at 958 and it's going to generate over a billion 00:46:02.449 --> 00:46:08.066 sometimes this summer. Now. I also talked to some money managers that 00:46:08.099 --> 00:46:14.186 handle these, these kinds of accounts that say If the novel people decide 00:46:14.219 --> 00:46:20.157 to leave that $1 billion dollars in trust, leave it alone, then you don't 00:46:20.190 --> 00:46:26.577 have to wait For another 20 years to generate another billion. They said 00:46:26.610 --> 00:46:32.296 that it's going to be shorter. It may look something like maybe 16 years 00:46:32.329 --> 00:46:37.376 uh that it can generate all that amount of money within that period of 00:46:37.409 --> 00:46:42.296 time. And then if you want to leave the money in there after that and try 00:46:42.329 --> 00:46:47.126 to reach a three billion. Then it's not going to take 16, 15 years, it's 00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:54.407 going to be shorter. So as the years go by that uh, money that it's going 00:46:54.440 --> 00:47:00.106 to earn the fun, the fun income the number of years it could generate a 00:47:00.139 --> 00:47:06.477 billion is going to get shorter and shorter. And so it's, it's something 00:47:06.510 --> 00:47:10.986 that we're very proud of, Something that I'm very proud of. But I keep on 00:47:11.019 --> 00:47:17.327 going back to the council, uh if I was not put into office with the kind 00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:22.756 of console that we had back then we wouldn't, we wouldn't be talking about 00:47:22.789 --> 00:47:30.686 a trust fund that big. No, I was extremely lucky. Uh and I consider myself 00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:36.247 lucky to and the honor of serving the, With that council that was elected 00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:43.577 in 1982 And took office in 1983. And so it was really because of them that 00:47:43.610 --> 00:47:50.356 we have generated this much money for the neighborhood nation. Uh, it's 00:47:50.389 --> 00:47:56.376 really done to ensure the future of the naval people and it's going to be 00:47:56.409 --> 00:48:03.686 up to the young people as how they may want to use this. So that's kind of 00:48:03.719 --> 00:48:09.767 like a highlight of my first year, first term in office. And then the 00:48:09.800 --> 00:48:17.800 second term, we also did some outstanding work in terms of buying more 00:48:18.869 --> 00:48:24.256 land, adding more land to the neighborhood nation. And the reason why we 00:48:24.289 --> 00:48:28.436 did that is, is uh, 00:48:28.469 --> 00:48:33.686 the Navajo population will keep on growing, but our reservation going to 00:48:33.719 --> 00:48:40.836 remain the same. It's going to be the same size size wise and we need to, 00:48:40.869 --> 00:48:46.657 we need to continue wearing about increasing the landholding of the Navajo 00:48:46.690 --> 00:48:53.436 people. And so during my second term, that was our major, major goal. It 00:48:53.469 --> 00:48:59.387 was something that we really, really wanted to do and to do that, we had 00:48:59.420 --> 00:49:06.077 put some money into a trust for what we call a land acquisition fund. And 00:49:06.110 --> 00:49:10.977 about a week, two weeks ago, I was told that that is all the way up to 47 00:49:11.010 --> 00:49:19.010 , million. So we have that much money to buy an additional land adjacent 00:49:19.070 --> 00:49:23.666 to the neighborhood nation. And that's in keeping with what we were doing 00:49:23.699 --> 00:49:30.666 in the first term. So it's something that uh, we're very proud of. And uh 00:49:30.699 --> 00:49:35.347 , there were also many other things that happened during that second term 00:49:35.380 --> 00:49:41.177 in my office. But since we're on education, let me just tell you also what 00:49:41.210 --> 00:49:49.157 happened. And this may lead into now our discussion on education. In my 00:49:49.190 --> 00:49:51.637 first term. 00:49:51.670 --> 00:49:57.967 In my first term we decided with the education Committee that what we 00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:02.927 really really need is 00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:07.526 Navajo education policy 00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:15.559 because we did not have any instrument document law policy 00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:21.197 that indicates to 00:50:21.230 --> 00:50:27.396 the people on the reservation as well as the people surrounding the 00:50:27.429 --> 00:50:34.017 reservation, including Washington. What is our goal? Where are we going? 00:50:34.050 --> 00:50:40.017 Where do we want to go in education for the Navajo people? People were 00:50:40.050 --> 00:50:44.956 continuing to ask questions about how important is the language. What 00:50:44.989 --> 00:50:51.867 about culture? Aren't we really losing the neighborhood language? And if 00:50:51.900 --> 00:50:59.227 you think we are then what is being done to enhance the land? Which. 00:50:59.260 --> 00:51:04.617 Mhm. So there were many, many questions that that were raised by the 00:51:04.650 --> 00:51:10.517 public, not only on the Navajo but state officers, State Department of 00:51:10.550 --> 00:51:18.550 Education's and uh and what that did is it brought on this whole idea that 00:51:19.090 --> 00:51:25.557 we should have a statement of purpose and that's the birth of neville 00:51:25.590 --> 00:51:32.267 education policy. And I can working with that Tribal council committee on 00:51:32.300 --> 00:51:40.126 Education headed by David Soc. Uh it did the job that that we needed to do 00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:47.626 which was to establish and to have an act of a neighborhood nation council 00:51:47.659 --> 00:51:55.126 clearly indicated that education was important and that how we wanted to 00:51:55.159 --> 00:52:00.756 enhance education and that was that the purpose of the neighborhood 00:52:00.789 --> 00:52:07.727 education policy. 00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:10.526 Uh huh. 00:52:10.559 --> 00:52:12.630 Uh huh.