In the third round of the Osage News Editorial Board’s Congressional Candidate Debates at the Osage Casino in Pawhuska on April 6, Allison Herrera of American Public Media moderated candidate perspectives on not only economic development, but tribal needs based on demographics, and how candidates are defining sovereignty, and top tribal priorities.
Incumbents Billy Keene and Pam Shaw addressed a crowd of 150-plus friends, family and citizens of the Osage Nation alongside first-time runners Christa Fulkerson and William Kemble. Wahzhazhe Communications live streamed the debate and the video can be viewed in full on the Osage Nation’s YouTube page.
Opening Statements
Keene began, thanking everyone and expressing care for mourners before summarizing his legal background and experience. “I’ve been humbled and humbled and grateful to serve for the last four years. I’m currently a practicing attorney and also a Congress member. I think this skill set is vital to Congress. I’ve also worked in gaming, with over five years in gaming. … I have experience in operations and gaming management.” Keene then referenced legislation he’d sponsored around maternity and paternity leave, concluding, “in our Osage constitution, that family and culture is emphasized. It’s an express right.” He closed by noting regrets, namely, that Congress did not expand housing further, and that the Congress “[was not very good at communication.”
Shaw recalled when Joe Tillman had once asked her if she “had brought her boxing gloves [to her very first session of Congress]. … You know, I just kind of smiled and thought, ‘Why? Why would I bring boxing gloves?’ … and let me just say, almost four years later, I understand that comment. And I got some bigger boxing gloves.” Shaw said it is an honor to serve and continued, “Most of you know I am Pam Shaw from the Gray Horse District, I have sixteen years in the corporate world, fifteen years in gaming and executive management. … Casinos bring 90 percent of our tribal funding,” she said, emphasizing gaming’s importance to employees both at Osage Casinos and at the Nation. “We do a really, really good job at many things.”
Fulkerson introduced herself as Deer Clan of Zonzoli, belonging to the Morrell Osage family, and born and raised in Osage culture. She noted her education and experience in business administration, tribal finance and accounting, as well as grant and fiscal compliance. She spoke about her family, and then noted that she holds an executive level position at the Innovation Foundation at the Oklahoma State University and described her character as hard-working, results-focused, and productive. “I have supported many departments and teams within Osage Nation [as a grant and compliance officer], … and I’m giving them the information and the tools they need to bring much-needed services and economic development,” she said.
Kemble spoke fourth, and thanked everyone before introducing himself. “I’m very humbled to be here today. My name is Will Kemble. I reside in Skiatook, Oklahoma. I was born and raised in Hominy, Oklahoma, Osage country. The first thing that I would want anyone to really know about me other than my name is I’m a person of faith and I try to live by it, and I try to talk about it everywhere I go,” he said. “I have my bachelor’s from OSU in business administration and my master’s in accountancy. My work experience has been fifteen-plus years in public accounting as a financial statement auditor. I’m used to getting into the details. I not only like it, I love it, figuring it out the hard way to be able to provide the answers.”
First Question
How would you, as a member of Congress, assist the chief on navigating the tobacco and gaming compact negotiations with the state of Oklahoma?
Keene replied:
“Recently, we’ve had a reservation setback. Right now, I’m trying to strategize how we can get that back before the courts; but a lot of these other tribes, they’ve kind of ceded the post-McGirt world, where they’re saying, ‘Well, we’re just going to go back to those trust pockets of land, and we’ll kind of concede to Governor Stitt.’ I don’t think the Osage Nation needs to do that.” He said he is defiantly against fifty-fifty splits with the state that other tribes have agreed to. “We need to stand firm and keep trying to maybe work out a sixty-forty split, or something of that nature, because a wise man once said, ‘To be sovereign, you have to act sovereign.’ And that’s what we need to do, navigating these waters ahead.”
Shaw answered second.
“To be sovereign, you have to act sovereign—that is absolutely the case, especially with the climate in the State of Oklahoma right now.” She said she has grown as a Congressperson by keeping her ears to the ground. “I pay attention, go to meetings, go to the capitol, [get] involved in groups, including the OITA, the [Oklahoma] Intertribal Tax Association, which [sovereignty] absolutely is the topic each time. So, I think to help the chief navigate this particular issue, we do have to stand strong, we do have to give him whatever he needs from us—whether it be funds, whether it be additional money for attorneys for this fight—yes, we do have to support it and we do have to stand our ground. We do have to act sovereign.”
Fulkerson answered next.
She said that Congress’ job in navigating such compacts centers around “sovereignty, and supporting our Office of the Chiefs.” She said that Osage tribal compacts and sovereignty go hand-in-hand and agreed that “the fifty-fifty match that’s happened across Indian Country doesn’t fit our people here. And it’s important for us to be knowledgeable and to do our due diligence in giving information out as a tribe, and being able to support our Office of the Chiefs when he needs it. I worked with the Office of the Chiefs for many years, I have a great relationship with them—as is [the case] with other boards and sub-boards and entities within Osage Nation, and I’m happy to support whatever they need,” she said.
Kemble reflected:
“When I look around Indian Country, which is Oklahoma, to say that you’re an Osage person, it comes with a sense of pride. It comes with a sense of standing. I do believe that with our neighboring organizations, neighboring governments, every effort should be made until they get exhausted. But at the end of the day … we do have to act sovereign. We do have to push the envelope of what the limitations of what sovereign is, if there is. To have that compact, to have that arrangement, I think that we need to stand firm, and we need to stay strong, and we need to find out what our limitations are. And with being Osage, we’re the ones that’s going to hold ourselves backs. I do believe that. We have ready people, we have smart people, we have forthright and assertive people. It’s a matter of getting the right people here.”
Second Question
Many people want to come back to the Osage to live and/or work. If elected, what do you plan to do about the housing crisis on the Osage reservation?
Shaw answered first.
“That is a question and something we talk about often in Congress,” she said. “Housing … it’s a big deal, not just for us but for many tribes or communities. Even little Fairfax where I live, I mean we all have the struggles, the limitations—need more housing, affordable housing, our folks aren’t able to find it. Listen, one of the things I’m really proud of is our grants department at the Nation. They do a really, really good job. Christa is very familiar with our grants department at the Nation. … are there additional grants that can help us solve this problem, partially? I think one of the best ways is to look at other communities, other tribes, we don’t have to always recreate the wheel. We’re sovereign and we can do what we want to do and what works best for us, but look at what some tribes who have already attacked this problem.”
Fulkerson answered:
“When I went to work for the Osage tribe, we revamped their grants management style, their whole plan. When I was there, I learned much about housing, worked with housing, and there are lots of things we can expand on in our housing plan with HUD that we don’t take advantage of. There is a lot of money left on the table and I would be happy to support anything that the Office of the Chiefs sends forward in order to make it a better housing situation within our boundaries. It’s essential for us to have housing, because right now we are the biggest county in Oklahoma. We’re going to invest in a bunch of Internet infrastructure. … we’re going to grow our economic development incubator right here. … This housing crisis has got to go now, and it can go, there are solutions for it. Thank you.”
Kemble was third to answer.
Providing economic development “to give them a living, to come back home, is the way to go,” he said. “Please come back. That’s what we want. We want everybody to be around our Osage environment, be in our Osage culture. We want to see our folks,” he said, and asserted that economic development and jobs are part of the goal of Osages moving back. “So, folks seeing dollars on economic development in more areas just other than the three, I guess you might say, cultural districts. There’s Skiatook, there’s Barnsdall, there’s land that is available even in my hometown of Skiatook, Okla. We have to explore our options and get our name in more places than just a few towns. … So, I encourage that kind of goal, … but yes, improving on our current homes here in Osage country I think is also something that needs to be done and addressed and get folks in on.”
Keene replied:
“We have to stretch every federal dollar there is. A lot of this housing problem is a math problem. So, we got to stretch out HUD funds, we have to use tribal dollars and … that takes economic development,” he said. He noted that the tribe is trying to get a new gaming facility in Missouri and that tribal dollars are needed to offset limited allocations from the federal government. “So, we need to make more money as a tribe with economic development,” he said. The federal government supports elder and low-income housing, explicitly, “which is great, but a lot of our Osages who are middle class need help, too,” he said “We’ve got to maximize the grant funding and also inspire economic development to get more tribal dollars pumped into housing,” he said, and expressed that the tribe could build multi-purpose condos “as some tribes [do] down in Southern Oklahoma.”
Third Question
How would you balance the needs of different demographics within the tribe, for example, elders, youth, families, etc.?
Fulkerson answered first.
“I’m used to juggling a lot of balls in my industry I’m working in, grants management, grants, compliance, budgeting. I think that I have learned through my experience out in the world and within our reservation to be able to focus not just on one thing—focusing on a lot of things. That’s how I work, that’s what I do. The priority list is our elders, but we have lots of those, so I believe that I’m able to, as a Congressperson, to be able to touch on all of those things. There’s lots of days that go by that we can handle this. We have the talent, we have the people with the education, the skills, and the experience to do that. Thank you.”
Kemble answered second.
The first priority, he said, is to understand the tribe’s demographics, needs and priorities. “But other than that, focusing on every one of them, [their] health. I don’t want to leave anybody with unfairness, to leave anybody behind that is struggling, so for their general welfare needs, I would want to focus on that, to get them to a place where they can fight for their own living, they can strive for their own living,” he said. “As for our elders, they’re all precious, they’re all precious to us: their health mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally, caring for them because they are our memory. They are going to be able to tell us … where we need to go.”
Keene followed.
He pointed out that Osages who are already taking care of their own preventative care are less vulnerable and said, “To follow Will’s statement, our most vulnerable first, which would be our elders and our children. Handicapped, veterans. I think that would be who we would look to help first, and like Christa said, I think this is kind of a difficult question. I’d also like to say those Osages that don’t like grape dumplings, you’d be left out. [Laughter.] I’m just kidding. That’s a joke, but like I said, it’s important to protect our vulnerable population, and like Will said, we want all Osages happy, healthy and whole.”
Shaw answered fourth.
She expressed anticipation for the census results, even though they would not include every Osage household, “because sometimes participation, even voting, isn’t what we’d want it to be,” she said. “We do have some tools available to us—the Constitution, strategic plan, the census, … it’s going to give us a really good look into where to start. Most vulnerable, children and elders of course, that’s what our Constitution says. The wellbeing of all of us, that’s absolutely needed, as well. I’m really concerned about the education of our youth, but I want to talk about the educational needs of some that aren’t college-bound, some that have learning challenges, what do we do?”
Fourth Question
What actions do you believe need to be taken and will have the most impact on protecting tribal sovereignty?
Kemble answered first.
“More laws that have some kind of synergy and interaction with our nearby governments, neighboring governments, even other tribal governments. We’re part of an ancient Dhegiha tribe, we’re surrounded by our other tribesmen as part of that, even having some kind of synergy with them is overall an exercise of tribal sovereignty. Funding our own folks, advocating for our own folks, criminally and civilly,” he said. On LGBTQ rights, he said, “Treat them as humans! They’ve got the human rights, just the same as everyone else. We can disagree with that kind of stuff but they still have rights themselves. No matter what kind of walk of life that you come from, we all have to stick up for one another.” He ended by noting that Congress must assert criminal jurisdiction. “Say, ‘That’s our folks, they need to come over here,’ or ‘That happened on our land, they need to come over here.’ Really taking a stance on that.”
Keene answered second.
“We currently don’t have any water code in the Osage Nation. I apologize for that, that’s a failure on Congress’ part. We passed a good ag bill. We need comprehensive water law. Food, with the Butcher House, food sovereignty. As Will suggested, we need to keep expanding our criminal code. We did a few years ago, and you know, we can always tweak it. We can always make it better. Expand our civil codes, because like Jackie said earlier, when she was up here, the federal government might not always have our backs, so when it goes from the feds back to us we need to have strong tribal laws. If we don’t have that, we can’t find courts to enforce that. But my focus mainly is the water and the food, because without that, that sustains us as human being and keeps us safe. So we have a lot of work to do and I think that we need to hit the ground running and I think I provide a good skillset to do that,” he said.
Shaw replied:
“Sovereignty again, that’s a good thing to talk about. … because of the challenges that we have, especially in our state right now, there are attacks on our sovereignty every single day. Yes, I think it’s important for us to synergize with other tribes. There’s a group called United for Oklahoma. When we’ve gone through these compact battles, they’re extremely powerful. I went to the state capitol on the day that the House or Senate, and I can’t remember which one, overrode the governor on the extension of the tobacco compact, so, I’m sitting there, in the chambers and I watched this whole group of tribal leaders. The big guys. Cherokee. Choctaw. Chickasaw. The ones that everyone considers to be so powerful walk in at the same time and all of the folks down on the floor, the Congresspeople looked up and looked scared to death. It was powerful. It was something to see. So, remembering that yes, when we work together, not only internally but also externally with other tribes, we are powerful.”
Fulkerson gave the final answer.
Legal authority, economic independence, cultural preservation, political autonomy and remembering that “we’re not alone” comprise a multi-faceted approach, she said. “We can try to go it alone and we don’t have to … we need to protect our sovereignty, that means we have to take on our own responsibility. That means we have to, unfortunately, invest in our own infrastructure and our own organizational capacity,” she said. For the Osage Nation to strengthen, it is necessary for the tribe to unite from within, too, she said. “Fighting amongst ourselves is not going to solve any problems. We have to unite. We all have different perspectives and experience that we bring to the table, but that’s a good thing. We need those within our government.” She also noted that economic development and criminal codes need updates, and the Office of the Chiefs has already begun the process, which she asserted Congress must support.
Fifth Question
What do you think are the most pressing issues facing the Osage Nation and how will you address them?
Keene answered first.
“I think our reservation case is the most pressing now. Obviously, we’re disappointed so we’ve got to find a way to eventually win that. Another thing, too, is we have a governor who is bigoted, and ignorant about Indian affairs. There’s going to be … coming up, we’ll have gaming compacts eventually come, we’re having our big tobacco compact as well, so I think engaging in that fight is also extremely important. And one other thing is, as our population gets bigger, sustaining our big three funding is also obviously very important. So as long as we keep economic development, we need to keep finding ways to make money outside of gaming because like Osages everywhere, we need to keep those levels sustainable for them as well.”
Shaw answered second:
“The core is that we have limited resources, limited resources that have provided for us very well. How do we take us up to the next level? How are we going to be able to provide more services to protect our mineral estate, protect our folks, to educate our children, all of our children? How are we going to be able to do all of those things if we don’t focus on economic development? So, it’s important, it’s important. Proud of what, the money has been provided to us, but we’re almost to a point where if we do not … focus on more, focus on leveling up this government, leveling up our businesses, leveling up our Congress, we’re kind of at the tip-top of what we can do, as far as tribal funds. So, I think there’s so many important issues, every single one of them equally as pressing.”
Fulkerson answered third.
“Well, we must assert our jurisdiction. We also should prioritize our financial standing. We need to have someone on Congress who knows how to read a financial statement correctly, and it’s very important for us to be able to support one another instead of playing the ‘Gotcha’ game all the time. That doesn’t do anyone any good. … Whenever I took over the compliance, I told people in the departments and all over, we are going to do compliance, we’re going to start from scratch of quality assurance. We’re going to be a top compliance of quality assurance. We’re not playing the ‘Gotcha’ game anymore. There has been many departments that have years of no training. So, we have to invest in our people. Sovereignty, we need to take care of our own problems within our own tribe in order to be able to move the needle forward.”
Kemble answered last.
“I think there’s a lot of intelligent, a lot of strong-hearted people and a lot of very enthusiastic Osage people that are strengths that we’re not harnessing that. Our weakness is where we allow waste, or abuse or spending time just, just squabbling with ourselves. I think that needs to be rectified. Who’s going to do that work? So, for 15-plus years in my auditing experience, public accounting, it’s digging into the details, digging into the calculations. But as well, having a stronghold on our land base. Having a stronghold on where we are at. I don’t want the name of Osage Nation to be fading off into any distance or getting further away from being at the table. We need to harness the strength of our own people, our own resources, having food sovereignty, water sovereignty, all of it.”
To watch the candidates’ closing statement, as well as rebuttals and all statements in full, see this video here: https://www.youtube.com/live/4djsIN9DZiE?si=rnbv43DVZ-zpZxCt .
