Gover-Miller challenges Yahola Osborn in Tukvpvtce District with ‘daily needs’

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While they agree on the need to expand housing access across the reservation, the two candidates seeking a four-year term representing the Tukvpvtce District “B” seat on the Muscogee National Council have different opinions on the Sept. 20 question that will appear alongside their election on voters’ ballots.

Incumbent Thomasene Yahola Osborn, who serves as the National Council’s current second speaker, is seeking her third term on the tribe’s legislative body. Challenger Elizabeth Anne Gover-Miller is hoping voters continue to show a willingness to oust incumbents, as they have the last two election cycles.

The Tukvpvtce District covers a southernmost section of the Muscogee Nation Reservation and overlaps the northern half of Hughes County in eastern Oklahoma. The Muscogee Nation holds elections every two years for its National Council, which has eight districts, each with an “A” seat and a “B” seat. While council candidates are required to live in their district, every Muscogee citizen may vote in every council election — for now. This year’s Sept. 20 ballot contains a question that would reinstitute district-based voting if passed.

Early voting runs Sept. 17 and 18 ahead of Election Day on Saturday, Sept. 20.

Candidates concerned by ‘long waiting list for housing’

The daughter of former National Council Speaker Thomas Yahola — who represented the Tukvpvtce District for nearly three decades — Yahola Osborn moved to Wetumka when she was in elementary school.

With 30-plus years working in the housing arena, she said improving access to housing will continue to be a priority if she is elected to a third term on the National Council. Amid uncertainty over changes to federal grant programs supporting tribal nations, she said the tribe needs to prioritize ways to address the issue locally.

“I think we need to get some tribal funds into housing,” Yahola Osborn told NonDoc in an interview. “I think in the Indian housing plan, we might build or purchase 35 units a year for our citizens. But with a growing waiting list, we’re not getting anywhere. It’s a rat’s wheel.”

She said she has spoken with Principal Chief David Hill “about having emergency housing at each of our low-rent sites that we have throughout our reservation.” Such units would help tribal citizens displaced by tragedies or natural disasters, like a house fire or a tornado.

Having worked in various social service capacities for tribal governments over the past 24 years, Gover-Miller noted that the Muscogee Nation has “a long waiting list for housing.”

“It’s been this way for years,” Gover-Miller told NonDoc in an interview. “I do believe our tribe generates enough dollars that we could be building a certain number of houses each year, but we also need to look at the areas that need housing more. I feel like Tulsa is an area that is underserved just because it is an urban area.”

Gover-Miller — who is also known as Anne Townsend Gover-Miller — lives in the Holdenville area. She said new plans to build casinos in Coweta and Eufaula should include broader conversations about economic development.

“Have we looked at how building casinos in those areas is going to impact housing in those areas, and have we planned ahead?” Gover-Miller asked. “We need to look at our policies and procedures as far as housing goes, and what is it going to take for us to get families in these homes and build more homes in a timely manner, but mostly in the areas where it’s going to be best served.”

Asked what she considers the biggest issue facing the Muscogee Nation currently, Yahola Osborn said the tribe’s health system seems to be “have a hard time retaining doctors.”

“Maybe we need to consider housing for our doctors in the Okemah area. Not anything major — and maybe even our paraprofessionals as well, our nurses — because it’s just hard for someone who is used to a larger city like Tulsa or Shawnee to come and live in our rural areas,” she said.

Candidates split on in-district voting question

When Muscogee citizens cast their ballots for the Sept. 20 election, they will decide a ballot question that asks whether the tribe should return to in-district voting only for National Council seats. Currently, all 18,095 registered Muscogee voters are eligible to vote in all National Council elections.

Underscoring what could be a tight election on the constitutional amendment, Yahola Osborn and Gover-Miller expressed different perspectives on the issue.

Gover-Miller said she would prefer to retain all-district voting because she approaches legislative service as having a responsibility to help all citizens.

“If I were voting on it personally, which I will, I would vote ‘No.’ But that’s me personally,” she said. “If I were to be elected as a representative, I would have a neutral platform on it because I have deemed myself an advocate for the people no matter where you live. It doesn’t matter to me whether you vote in my district or every district: If you need help, I’m still going to serve you.”

Yahola Osborn, however, said she supports the ballot question and a return to district-only voting after more than a year’s worth of conversations with citizens in her district.

“I can recall one elder woman in Dustin. She said, ‘Even though there’s a lot of names on the ballot, I only vote for the ones that I know in my district,’” she recalled. “We didn’t have a whole lot of community members that night in that meeting, but the majority (in that meeting) wanted to return back to district voting. I mentioned it, and they did as well, that they don’t know people in Tulsa, so how could they know who is the right person that they feel would best suit the needs of the nation. Vice versa, people in Tulsa, they don’t know who we are here in this area either. The needs are so different.”

Yahola Osborn identified “being able to listen” as one of her “strong suits.” To that end, she said she agreed with many citizens who were opposed to the Muscogee Supreme Court’s July ruling that found a right to Freedmen citizenship within the Treaty of 1866.

With a request for the decision to be reheard denied, however, Yahola Osborn said she supports Hill’s recent executive order that creates a pathway for the eventual enrollment of Freedmen, the descendants of former slaves. Nonetheless, she has concerns about tribal resources being strained if tens of thousands of new citizens are enrolled.

“We don’t have enough commerce. So if we’re going to have all of these people enrolled into the tribe, then how are we doing to be able to sustain our programs?” she asked.

Gover-Miller appeared to be more conflicted over the situation.

“I can’t necessarily say I agree with the court’s ruling, but that doesn’t mean I’m in opposition to the Freedmen either,” she said. “I hate to sound neutral, I guess, because I’m all for anything that benefits our Muscogee people, but I have talked to many of our elder citizens who have literally shed tears because they have had to prove their citizenship by blood and work extra hard to prove that they were Muscogee, and they just cannot fathom being able to just come in and say, ‘Hey, I’m a Muscogee citizen, let me enroll,’ without having to provide some type of proof.”

Hill’s executive order is aimed at fleshing out that application process, but Gover-Miller said she wished some other solution could have been found.

“As the Freedmen go, do I believe they deserve something? Yes, I do. I believe they deserve something. I believe they deserve to reap some benefits form the traumas that have been passed down to them. Even generations later, people were trying to heal from that, and I think the same goes for the Freedmen,” she said. “I’m just not certain that any of those benefits should come from the Muscogee people. So while I am open to trying to sit down and try to work this out, because if it remains that the Muscogee Supreme Court decision is final, we have no choice but to move forward. And instead of sitting around and being angry about it, we’re going to have to move forward.”

Gover-Miller described herself as “kind of Switzerland, I guess you could say on this.”

“I see the high emotions rolling on both sides of the fence. I have loved ones on both sides of the fence, and I can definitely see where each side comes from,” she said. “But I am Mvskokvlke at the end of the day, and I have to stand with my Muscogee people on these issues.”

With federal funding cuts looming for tribal nations, Gover-Miller said the nation’s biggest priority should be “strengthening our laws and writing tax codes” following the 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma decision, which affirmed that Congress had never disestablished the Muscogee Nation Reservation.

“We have a whole new platform. It’s just going to be very important that we sit down as a National Council and decide to write the laws of the nation in a manner that is going to strengthen and hold our sovereignty intact and build our nation stronger for our people,” Gover-Miller said. “Tax is going to be an important source of revenue on the reservation. Anything inside the reservation boundaries, I believe we should be able to create a tax for. Whether it’s a tourism tax or a tribal tax that goes along with the city tax, if it’s property taxes, I believe there should be some way for us to create a tax to generate revenue for the nation.”

Gover-Miller said she would need to be elected in order to access more information about how specifically taxes could be applied, but she said a Muscogee Nation property tax would likely not apply to non-tribal citizens.

Asked her thoughts on tribal taxation, Yahola Osborn was more reserved because she said she is “not an expert” on the topic.

“There has been, during our forums, one candidate who has talked about taxation. But we’ll have to see if that candidate wins the election and go from there,” Yahola Osborn said. “But we do have a tax commissioner, and I do believe it’s important for us to work together with the tax commissioner in whatever junction that may be. We just came off of the tobacco compact, and we didn’t get that. So there are so many things that need to take place regarding taxation.”

Gover-Miller said economic development must be prioritized across the reservation, but particularly in its rural communities.

“It wasn’t until I moved here about three or four years ago that I began to realize that access to services was so much different here than if you lived, say, up north of I-40. Even transportation to communities for these citizens living in these underserved areas can be difficult,” she said. “Economic development is going to be a priority. Where and how we can do that is just going to be something we have to look at. We’ve got a large land base and plenty of opportunity to look at out there to see what we can do — maybe joint ventures with other entities to bring businesses south of I-40.”

Yahola Osborn said economic development is important — people in Wetumka could use a car wash, a laundromat and a grocery store, she said — but she cited recent controversy over proposed data center projects when describing the priorities articulated to her.

“I was asked if I had gotten any feedback regarding the data center that was postponed for 60 days that we just talked about at the council meeting a couple of weeks ago,” Yahola Osborn said. “My answer was, ‘You know what? My citizens in this area, there has only been one person who has asked me about that.’ The needs of the people in my district are more, ‘I need my lights on. I don’t have any water. My AC is acting up. I’ve got a bad roof.’ It’s more daily needs than what are the bigger things going on in the nation. For the people in my district, it’s just living.”

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