By
Benny Polacca
Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear appointed two Osages to serve on the Grayhorse Village Committee as interim members.
Charles “Chuck” Tillman and Mark Bowman are interim appointees for the five-member Grayhorse Village Committee, and they will be considered for confirmation by the Sixth ON Congress when it meets for the 2019 Hun-Kah Session starting in late March.
Tillman is a previous village committee member last confirmed in 2014. Bowman is a first-time appointee for the village committee.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, the three Osage villages “shall organize a village committee to provide for the health, safety and welfare of its inhabitants, for the maintenance of the tribal property, and to serve as custodian and manager of tribal property and improvements located within said village.”
For the Grayhorse village, Osage election law states: “The Chief shall appoint the Grayhorse five-person Village Committee with the advice and consent of the Osage Nation Congress.” The law also states the Hominy and Pawhuska village committees “shall undertake biennial elections for Five Person Village Committees” with village residents voting in those respective elections.
The next regular Hun-Kah Session starts in late March for a 24-day run. During the session, the Congressional committees will initially consider recent board and commission appointees’ professional resume information before a potential referral vote to the 12-member Congress for a final confirmation vote.
According to ON Congressional rules on appointments, Appointees will also receive a questionnaire from the respective Congressional committees seeking background information on appointees’ professional work experience history as part of the consideration.
The Congressional rules also state: “Once a Congressional committee considers an appointee and a report is issued to the Congress, then “any member of Congress may move during the ‘Motions’ portion of a session for a nominee (appointee) interview to be placed on the agenda, or alternatively may move for confirmation consideration of the nominee to be placed on an agenda. The motion is subject to amendment and requires an affirmative majority vote of the members present to pass. Should either of the motions fail, the motion may be reasserted any day until the day before the last regular day of Session.”
Original Publish Date: 2019-01-15 00:00:00
