May 30, 2026.
Why Vote No to the new Constitution? This is an expensive process. All needed revisions should be added to our constitution prior to voting for it...add the appearances of manipulative behavior that point to the hopes that most people won't read the entire document prior to voting...
Why are You are required to vote yes for all changes without the option to vote on each change separately? The tribe's administration aka the board... refuses to answer that question.
While I have dozens of reasons to vote no they may be different than your reasons. In fact if you voted for each change separately and some of the changes I opposed were approved I would accept it. BUT It appears the current administration is counting on your desire to have a separation of powers as the driving force to remove your rights in the By-Laws ......."in our view".
Based on the document draft it appears that adding EQUAL RIGHTS was not even under consideration.
The people that voted for approval of
"Resolution 2026-145 that requests a secretarial election on proposed constitutional amendments and places the decision to update the tribe’s Constitution in the hands of Sault Tribe Membership. The resolution will be sent to the BIA by June 19 and then the BIA will begin the federal election process." FORGETS to mention all the other changes or the lack of the addition of Tribal Member Equal Rights that they could have easily added....purposely named it "3 Branch Separation Amendments Attachment for Reso 2026-145"
Missed Opportunities for Equal Rights -
- The draft of the constitution does not add equal rights to members. It in fact continues the policy of discrimination based on your address.
- It does nothing to prohibit blood quantum from being used to kick out tribal members or prevent family from being enrolled.
- Of Course we know it may cost the tribe more if they had to provide equal benefits to all members. However the *Majority appear to live outside the current service area. Are they going to vote to approval a document that continues to restrict their rights when it is an opportunity to be granted EQUAL RIGHTS?
- *We have to estimate that the majority of the Tribe live outside the Service Area because currently the tribal board is in violation of Article III Section One of the Sault Tribe Constitution which calls for any Tribal Member have access to the rolls. As a result we are basing this assumption on the US Census Bureau Data. While we could bring them to court..they may just fire the judge...or ignore the ruling.
You can find the edit to the Sault Tribe Constitution By-Law Article III Section 1....they want approved which removes our rights on page 15 which makes the separation of powers a mute point. because they added this change "The Tribal Council shall pass, through resolution, laws consistent with this article to govern the reasonable disclosure of information and appropriate sunset laws with regard to the disclosure of proprietary business information within six (6) months of the ratification of this amended constitution". Instead of that change what needs to be added is a clause added to the By-Laws that provides Criminal Penalties to the Board of Directors when they do not follow the current constitution. "In our Tribal Elder View"....
