Annual tribal council occurs several times throughout October and differs from monthly sessions by allowing enrolled Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) members to present a walk-on resolution, which council representatives then deliberate on.
The Oct. 5 annual council session mainly featured announcements and lasted just over 20 minutes. Cherokee Nation Council Member Uriah Grass spoke briefly, advocating to strengthen ties between the two nations. Cherokee interpreter Sally Smoker announced her retirement, and Principal Chief Michell Hicks and tribal council expressed gratitude for her nearly 11 years in the position while celebrating her character.
“Throughout her years of service, Sally helped ensure that our Cherokee language remained an important part of Tribal government proceedings. Her dedication has made a lasting impact, and we are grateful for her contributions to preserving and promoting our language for future generations,” Hicks wrote in an Oct. 14 Facebook post.
Annual council on Oct. 12 included budget requests, award recognitions, and a board structure discussion. But one walk-on resolution carried just as much weight as pre-submitted agenda items like Nancy Pheasant’s successful proposal to dissolve the poorly attended constitutional convention. Pheasant was placed on the convention as an officer and, after nine months, was promoted to chair. She outlined the situation to tribal council: failure to have a quorum despite flexible meeting times and thus an inability to move forward with the constitution.
The tribe follows the EBCI Charter and Governing Document standing in place of a constitution, which has been pushed for decades but has yet to come to fruition.
In Spring 2017, the Sgadugi Constitution group, a committee of unappointed EBCI member volunteers from various communities, convened to draft a constitution. The group unsuccessfully proposed to send it to voters in 2019 as a referendum.
After six years of progress and what One Feather Editor Robert Jumper in an editorial described as “years of (Attorney General Mike McConnell’s) silence on the drafting of the constitution,” tribal council in April 2023 voted unanimously to put the document on the ballot. However, it had not undergone formal legal review.
In the following weeks, the Attorney General asked the constitution committee to rescind the document in favor of several Charter amendments, warning of severe legal consequences if the original document was adopted. In the coming months, the debate wore on, with proponents arguing that the people should decide their rights and that the document’s issues were exaggerated.
On July 13, McConnell expanded his initial request and also sought to rescind the 2021 and 2022 referendums on staggered, four-year council terms and consecutive term limits.
In the same editorial, Jumper argued that McConnell’s concerns about the measures depended on the constitution, which he’d proposed be stricken alongside them. Still, tribal council voted nearly unanimously to pass McConnell’s resolution, rescinding those two questions as well as the constitution — and creating the constitutional convention in question Oct. 12.
Immediately after Pheasant’s annual council pitch, Councilmember Shennelle Feather (Yellowhill) moved to pass it, and Councilmember Shannon Swimmer (Painttown) seconded. But when Councilmember Mike Parker (Wolftown) asked whether the legislation sought to change the quorum, not the convention, Pheasant clarified her intentions, and the conversation continued.
She said while she’s not looking to start from square one, she’d like tribal council “to not only give us direction but also to rescind the previous resolutions that requires us, just like your boards do, to fall under specific policies… (like) meeting that quorum.”
Pheasant cited an inability to act on a recommendation to alter the quorum mandate because the board failed to meet quorum to vote on those changes. Regardless, her proposal went one step further: to do away with the entire convention.
She instead advocated returning to the Sgadugi model of “an actual committee made up of community members” to ensure a draft constitution can be presented to tribal council before next year’s election, which she described as an “extremely limited” timeline.
Swimmer, who has been involved with the committee for around a decade, said the group’s pre-convention structure helped them create the entire document, but the new convention’s quorum stipulation — including the months spent creating bylaws — has stalled their progress.
Still, Pheasant said, the latter group has made enough headway to develop a vision.
“We have been working on a draft of the constitution where it marries both the constitution the way it was written before and also the charter,” she explained.
She asked that funds reserved for the constitutional convention be carried over to help this smaller committee publicize the draft document in the community before the referendum, covering everything from postage to member outreach and engagement. Hicks clarified that since appropriations come from the general fund, doing so shouldn’t be challenging; it’s only a matter of “shifting titles.”
Councilmember Venita Wolfe (Big Cove) indicated her support for Pheasant’s resolution, adding that a convention is itself a colonial concept.
Feather thanked her community, Yellowhill, for its strong participation and advocated moving forward with the document, which she said doesn’t need to be timeless to be adopted.
“This is just the beginning. This is the basis. It can be changed. It can be worked on. It is a working document, and you can add, you can subtract at any point in time. But we need a constitution,” she said.
The ordinance was passed unanimously, returning the group to its 2017 structure.
More cultural conversation
Annual council continued Oct. 16, with several appointments made, business measures approved, and resolutions discussed. Beyond those actions, Hicks directed Office of the Principal Chief Public Relations Officer Driver Blythe to describe an Oct. 15 conversation concerning an incorrect map with N.C. Secretary of Administration Gabriel Esparza. Essentially, Blythe explained, the Division of Indian Affairs and Department of Administration recently released a map displaying the historic EBCI land base as five present-day NC counties. Blythe said he and Hicks had sought to “educate and inform the secretary that we’re not just limited to five counties — that our tribe branched out over nine states, and that we actually encompassed over 15 counties in the state of North Carolina.”
Blythe described the incorrect map as a “hindrance” to the tribe, which is why an open discussion with Esparza was needed to correct it. He thanked Tribal Historic Preservation Office Director Beau Carroll for joining the contingent and explaining some of Esparza’s questions.
“[The map] sort of legitimizes erroneous information on some of these things,” Council Member Mike Parker, who was also involved in the conversation, concurred. That said, Parker added, Esparza was quite receptive.
“Secretary [Esparza], I was very happy to hear him. He’s open to correcting these types of things as we move forward,” he said.
Blythe also viewed the aftermath positively.
“Yesterday was a pivotal point to inform and educate. And I appreciate all the tribal council members that were here. I appreciate all the input that was given,” he said.
Hicks noted the tribe is planning to respond through social media and send a formal letter to Gov. Josh Stein requesting a correction.
Also related to cultural preservation, Swimmer raised a concern about losing fluent speakers without gaining new ones.
“I think we only have 120-some fluent speakers left now,” she said, encouraging members of the audience to attend the council’s language work session, which will occur Oct. 21 at 1 p.m. Chair Jim Owle (Birdtown) offered another way for the public to get involved where direct participation is not an option.
“If anyone in the public has any comments that can’t make that meeting on the language, just ask them to get the comments either [Tribal Language Program] or one of council members, and then that way we can put those comments out there from the people in the community,” he said.
Owle had also announced on Oct. 5 the tribe’s intention to find Smoker’s replacement by Oct. 12.
“We will be taking nominations for Sally’s position interpreter that will be voted on next Monday,” said Owle.
But no vote was held that day, and as of Thursday, Oct. 16, the interpretation chair remained unoccupied.
Beloved Woman Myrtle Driver subsequently offered to translate an introduction at the Oct. 21 working session.