Fire Thunder ousted again

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 19, 2006

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RAPID CITY -- No sooner had a tribal judge reinstated Cecelia Fire Thunder as president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe than the same judge revoked the reinstatement.

Tribal Chief Judge Lisa Adams issued both orders Monday in Pine Ridge, within hours of each other, according to documents provided by the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The Rapid City Journal was unable to reach Judge Adams on Tuesday.

Fire Thunder, who worked in the president's office in Pine Ridge on Monday afternoon, didn't learn of the second order until a tribal council member's unexpected news conference Tuesday in Rapid City.

"We were surprised by the ruling," Fire Thunder's attorney, Robert Grey Eagle, said.

Fire Thunder's impeachment was over her controversial proposal to build a private women's clinic on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The clinic, she said, would be beyond the reach of South Dakota's new abortion ban - if the ban ever took effect. (The ban has since been referred to a statewide vote in November.)

Fire Thunder's proposal got national attention, but abortion opponents on the reservation protested.

The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council suspended Fire Thunder in May for allegedly using her position as president of the tribe to promote the clinic and collect donations for it.

Fire Thunder and Grey Eagle argued in tribal court that the council's June 29 vote to impeach Fire Thunder was illegal - partly because the 9-5 vote did not carry a two-thirds majority of the 18-member tribal council. They also argued that the grounds for impeachment and an earlier gag order violated Fire Thunder's civil rights, in particular, her right to free speech.

"How is it that people need to live in fear for expressing their opinions?" Fire Thunder said Tuesday during a news conference that she called at the offices of Sacred Circle, a women's advocacy program based in Rapid City.

Fire Thunder told about a dozen reporters that her challenge of the impeachment was based on the council's failure to follow proper procedure. "The law is the law," she said. "They have to follow it, and I have to follow it."

Impeachment procedures aren't directly addressed in the tribe's constitution, Grey Eagle said, but a 1941 tribal ordinance calls for a two-thirds vote of the entire council.

Fire Thunder emphasized her challenge in tribal court was about procedures, not abortion.

But Fire Thunder remains a co-chairwoman of South Dakota Healthy Families, the group seeking to overturn the state's abortion ban. She did not back away from her position on the law, which doesn't make exceptions for rape or incest. "How dare someone make a decision for a woman who has been raped," she said.

Will Peters, a tribal council member who voted to impeach Fire Thunder, attended her news conference Tuesday, remaining quietly at the back of the room until it concluded.

Then, Peters announced his own news conference. Half a dozen television cameras were quickly turned to the other side of the room for his announcement.

"Now, the official word is the president has not been reinstated," Peters told reporters.

Peters said he and other council members, assisted by an attorney for the tribe, got the reinstatement revoked by citing a tribal law that prohibits injunctions against tribal officials.

The council members also argued, successfully, that the tribal council had not been allowed to defend its position.

Adams rescinded Fire Thunder's reinstatement, according to documents provided by Peters and by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but the July 28 hearing at 1 p.m. in Pine Ridge stands.

Grey Eagle said he expects that hearing to be "packed."

Grey Eagle also argued that the law that Peters cited applies to permanent injunctions, not temporary injunctions. He said he would file a "memorandum of law" in tribal court in support of the temporary restraining order, but he said Fire Thunder would not directly challenge the most recent ruling. "We'll wait until the hearing July 28," he said.

Meanwhile, Alex White Plume, who was vice president of the tribe, will continue to serve as president.

One key issue in the dispute is whether a president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe can make political statements without council approval.

Peters said, "She is free to do so as long as she is speaking in a positive manner about the tribe." But Fire Thunder should not have spoken about abortion without approval of the tribal council, he said. He called her clinic proposal "a slap in the face to the tribal membership," and he said that Fire Thunder had "engaged in unauthorized political activity."

Fire Thunder argued she was speaking as a private citizen and exercising her First Amendment rights. "I'm a real strong proponent of health care," she said.

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com