Native American Press/Ojibwe News

Despite the fact that reconsideration of the recall ordinance was not on the agenda, according to several sources King spent an hour and forty-five minutes presenting a 55-page document criticizing the recall ordinance at the December 11th tribal council meeting. He detailed 25 things that, according to King, were wrong with the recently enacted recall ordinance. These included three separate allegations by King that the recall ordinance was in violation of the Red Lake constitution.

After presenting his criticisms of the ordinance, King asked tribal council secretary Judy Roy to introduce a motion to revoke the recall ordinance, and he asked Redby representative Julius Thunder to second it. According to Press/ON’s sources, King asked Roy and Thunder because Roy had introduced the October 9th motion for passage of the recall ordinance, and Thunder had seconded it. Since Roy and Thunder would not introduce and second his recall revocation motion, Dan King made the motion himself. It was seconded by Little Rock representative and hay entrepreneur Harlan Beaulieu, one of the “fab four.” (The other two “fabs” are Red Lake representatives Fabian “Nickel” Cook and Delores Lasley.)

During discussion of King’s motion to revoke the recall ordinance, tribal attorney Dave Harrington reportedly stated that everything in King’s one hour and forty-five minute presentation was “laughable and ludicrous.” Sources told Press/ON that the reason Dan King attacked the ordinance so vigorously was that it was prepared by tribal attorney Dave Harrington. There has reportedly been conflict between King and Harrington in the past.

Following King’s lengthy presentation, other council members expressed their views on the proposed revocation.

Secretary Judy Roy, Julius Thunder, and the two Ponemah representatives, Rudy Johnson and Clifford Hardy, voted against King’s proposed revocation of the recall ordinance The “fab four” voted to revoke it. Redby representative Al Pemberton abstained. He had voted for passage of the recall ordinance at the October 9th tribal council meeting. A source told Press/ON that shortly after the recall ordinance was enacted, Pemberton was hired as director of the Red Lake DNR, a tribal job for which a number of tribal members feel he is unqualified. His appointment as DNR director was supported by the “fab four,” and some sources felt that this influenced Pemberton’s vote. Tribal council chairman Bobby Whitefeather broke the tie by voting against King’s motion to revoke the recall ordinance.

After the vote, the tribal council broke for lunch. Treasurer King never reappeared for the afternoon session.

Dan King was elected tribal council treasurer in the 1998 tribal elections by a margin of 36 votes, 1,573-1,537. 1,716 signatures were validated on the recently circulated petition to recall Dan King; 1,665 – twenty-five percent of the total registered voters – are required. The petition was returned to petition drive organizers for correcting incomplete addresses. According to petition drive organizer Archie King, the petition will be returned to tribal council secretary Judy Roy, with the defects corrected, by Sunday, December 16th.

The 1958 Constitution
The recall ordinance is mandated by the 1958 constitution of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Article X, Section 2 reads, “The Tribal Council shall enact an ordinance which shall prescribe regulations, charges and reasons for removal or recall or a district representative or officer. The grounds for removal, right of petition, and other factors shall be carefully framed to protect the interest of the Red Lake Band.”

The 1958 constitution was adopted by the Red Lake Constitutional Committee at a Bemidji meeting on October 15, 1958, and was approved by Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett on November 10, 1958.

Despite the fact that the Red Lake Band constitution has required a recall ordinance for the past forty-two years, to the best of Press/ON’s knowledge the October 9, 2001 recall ordinance is the first attempt by the tribal council to comply with the constitution’s recall requirement.

The 1958 constitution replaced “Peter Graves’s constitution,” adopted in 1918, under which the old Red Lake General Council was organized. Peter Graves died in March 1957; he was succeeded by his son Joe, who died less than a year later. On March 5, 1958, after years of skullduggery, the Secretary of the Interior’s office found “that there has been a breakdown of the government of the Red Lake Band,” and withdrew its recognition of the General Council.

The 1958 Red Lake Constitutional committee included Dan Needham, Sr., Tom Cain, Roger Jourdain, Byron Graves, Andrew Sigana, Louis Stateley, and Adolph Lussier. Roger Jourdain was elected tribal council chairman in the first election, and remained in office for thirty-one years, until 1990.