One of America's wealthiest casino tribes will convene today in a strange and bitter tribal council election – with two candidates banned from tribal lands and effectively barred from voting.
The race for two seats on the council of the United Auburn Indian Community, operator of the Thunder Valley Casino Resort, comes after a failed petition drive to recall the five-member council. It led to six tribal members involved in the recall effort getting banished for up to 10 years and stripped of casino payments of $30,000 or more a month.
Now, two of the banished members, former tribal Chairwoman Jessica Tavares and a tribal elder, Dolly Suehead, are running for seats on the tribal council.
But they are not allowed to show up on tribal lands to vote.
"Any attempt to enter these properties will be viewed as trespassing," the council informed Tavares in a letter Dec. 7. The council also notified Tavares and Suehead that they had missed a deadline to apply to vote by absentee ballot.
Fred Hiestand, an attorney for the six banished members, charged their voting rights were violated because the absentee voting deadline came on Nov. 14 – one day before the tribal council told them they were to be banished for "libel and slander."
The recent political infighting has consumed a 185-member tribe that has apparently earned well more than $1 billion in net revenues since its casino opened in 2003.
In a Nov. 29 letter, the tribe confirmed that it was standing by its decision to ban Tavares for 10 years and deny her casino payments for four years. Suehead was banished for four years and denied payments for six months.
Tavares and Suehead are seeking to replace two current United Auburn board members, Kim DuBach and Brenda Conway.
Hiestand charged that his clients, barred from voting, also face the possibility that, "if they were to get elected, they can't serve.
"It's just a rigged election," he said, adding: "A despotic government wants to quash dissent."
Tribal spokesman Doug Elmets said Tavares, who was tribal chairwoman from 1996 to 2010, had her own history of banishing members with whom she disagreed.
He said Tavares and other disaffected members "knew full well" they could be subject to discipline, including banishment from tribal lands, and that they had an opportunity to sign up for absentee ballots beforehand.
"The reality is they were given the opportunity to vote by absentee ballot and they did not exercise that right," he said.
The tribal rift escalated as the Tavares faction complained about a generous contract – including a cut of net revenues – with tribal attorney Howard Dickstein, a $1 million advertising pledge for the Sacramento Kings and funding for a tribal school.
The tribal council countered that dissident members "caused serious damage to the tribe's reputation" through comments in their recall petition – which was not certified for a vote – and to the media.
In a Dec. 5 certified letter to Suehead, the tribe's election committee took issue with a Nov. 7 news release by dissidents "who falsely accused our committee of rigging the last elections" in 2009.
The letter noted the rival faction's media announcement came out seven days before the tribal deadline to register for absentee voting.
"You then openly predicted in the public media that you would be banned and not allowed to vote at the polls," the tribal letter to Suehead said.
"Under these circumstances, it would have been prudent for you to exercise your right to vote by simply returning the (absentee) ballot we sent you, but you chose not to do so."