The Seventh Osage Nation Congress will convene for its 2022 Hun-Kah Session starting Monday, March 28 at 10 a.m.
This is the first 24-day regular spring session for the 12-member Congress of the 2022 calendar year. Per the 2006 Osage Constitution, the Congress “shall convene twice annually in regular session, so that six months shall not intervene between the last sitting of the Congress and its first sitting in the next session.”
This is also the final regular session for the Seventh ON Congress with six seats opening in the June 6 General Election and those six certified candidates who receive the most votes from their fellow Osages will take their oaths of office on July 9.
Congress members whose terms end this year are Scott BigHorse, Eli Potts, Paula Stabler, Angela Pratt, Brandy Lemon and Alice Goodfox. The other six Congress members in the middle of their four-year terms after being elected in 2020 are Billy Keene, John Maker, Joe Tillman, Jodie Revard, Pam Shaw and RJ Walker.
During the Hun-Kah Session, Congress will consider filed legislative bills, resolutions and other matters brought to the Legislative Branch for review and action. The Congress also considers individuals appointed for service on the Nation’s various boards and commissions for confirmation votes to serve three-year terms during the regular sessions.
The Congress members will meet in Congressional committee meetings – scheduled as needed throughout the session – for initial reviews and consideration of legislation and other matters.
During the month of February, Congress members filed two Congressional bills for consideration in addition to others filed in the previous two months. More bills and resolutions are also expected to be filed in March.
The two recently filed bills are:
ONCA 22-28 (sponsored by Second Speaker Revard) is an appropriation bill requesting $660,000 for architectural design and engineering costs for a new Heritage Center for the Nation. According to the bill, the $660,000 is requested from tribal funds in the general treasury and would be placed in the Nation’s capital assets fund.
The Wahzhazhe Cultural Center and Language Department currently share a building – referred to as the Heritage Center – along Main Street west of the government campus in Pawhuska.
ONCA 22-29 (Keene) is an appropriation bill requesting $250,000 from the Nation’s American Rescue Plan Act funding “to compensate the employees of the Osage Nation for expenses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The bill seeks to provide $500 in compensation to each full-time ON government employee for pandemic-related expenses.
The bill’s purpose also reads: “The employees of the (Nation) have all experienced additional costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic including additional energy costs from being at home, additional food and clothing costs due to supply chain interruptions, the purchase of masks, sanitizer and cleaning products to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus and the rising costs of all goods due to the economic inflation caused by the pandemic.
The Nation received significant funds from the U.S. federal government to assist with pandemic-related costs and this appropriation will help to mitigate the financial burden it has placed on our government employees.”
During the session and scheduled committee meetings, Congressional public meetings (except executive sessions allowed by Osage law) will be live-streamed at https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/who-we-are/legislative-branch/live-media
Copies of filed legislative bills and resolutions, as well as Congressional meeting notices and agendas for sessions are posted online to the Legislative Branch website at: https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/who-we-are/legislative-branch
