OHA hearing officer Richie Nez just explained that presidential candidate Chris Deschene refused to take a Navajo fluency language test yesterday, which is his right.
Peter Deschene’s interpreter is Pete Deswood.
we have several motions that have been filed.
brian lewis, attorney for deschene
dismiss after hearing. petitioners not asking for vauge declaration, they need injunctive relief to reverse court decision. this OHA cannot go into office and ask for reversal of decision…in nelson case, case went on for several years and at close supreme court dismissed because wrong party named. you have no ability to cure all. cannot go back in time which is reason for dismissal. it’s sandoval versus election office and that case is about qualification. gishey versus deschene 1990 case cited. this is preelection challenge and case was much less ambigious. you can discover thru rules whether someone resided in rez for past three years by going to residence and also asking people. this is much more fluid and fluency is not properly defined and depends on what use language.
it appears from supreme court ruling that not properly before court and that holds true for what happened here with OHA initially dismissing the two complaints.
David Jordan, attorney for Dale Tsosie
the difference this case and Nelson case, the Nelson case had candidate accusing of election office of scewing up his candidacy and not against another candidate. in brief we identified 10 mistakes in conducting election. if you say election office did anything wrong then you have to file against election office. we are not saying, election office did anything wrong.
richie nex, hearing officer
Navajo supreme court in ruling in Nelson case talked about two candidates and they said it that election supervisors did ruling.
david jordan, dale tsosie’s attorney
true but nothing about what is happening here. we are challenging election office and election board.
we are saying deschene lied when he signed oath, which states that if anything untrue then he can be disqualified. in this case you have the proper party.
problem is he lied. i cud run for office by making false census number and claim i speak navajo language fluently.
