Impeachment court date postponed

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, July 27, 2006

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The Oglala Sioux Tribe has a new vice president, and a court hearing on the legality of the impeachment of embattled tribal President Cecelia Fire Thunder has been postponed.

Eileen Janis of Pine Ridge, who came in second for vice president in 2004, was named vice president this week by a tribal council vote of 14-1, Councilman Garfield Steele said Wednesday.

Janis said she had previously worked in health administration for the tribe, but she believes she lost that job for political reasons.

Janis takes the place of Alex White Plume, whom the council elevated to president after it impeached Fire Thunder last month.

Fire Thunder has gone to tribal court to challenge the council's vote to impeach her. A hearing was to have been Friday; however, tribal Judge Lisa Adams recused herself, Fire Thunder's attorney, Robert Grey Eagle said Wednesday. A new judge must be named before a hearing date is set.

"As long as my appeal is still in the system, I'm still the president," Fire Thunder said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Councilman Steele disagreed. "The court lacks the authority," he said. "I don't think they have legislative powers."

Tribal Councilman Will Peters, who voted to impeach Fire Thunder, said: "As far as I'm concerned, the impeachment stands. It's done."

Fire Thunder and Grey Eagle are arguing in tribal court that the vote to impeach her was not by a two-thirds majority of the 18-member council. They also say the impeachment was without valid cause and that the tribal council violated Fire Thunder's right to free speech.

The impeachment was sparked by her 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 is on hold until a statewide vote in November.

Abortion opponents on the reservation, including Peters, objected that Fire Thunder had improperly used her position as tribal president to promote the clinic.

Peters and Fire Thunder, however, do agree on one thing. Each says the impeachment controversy is about procedure, not abortion. Peters says Fire Thunder violated the tribe's ordinances and policies. Fire Thunder says the council did not follow its own rules.

Earlier this month, Fire Thunder and Peters argued their cases in back-to-back news conferences at the offices of Sacred Circle, a Rapid City-based women's advocacy program.

Fire Thunder said Wednesday that Cangleska, Sacred Circle's parent organization on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, now faces threats of having its charter revoked for allowing Fire Thunder to have her news conference there. "They're on the hot seat," she said. "But you cannot personalize what we're doing."

Peters responded: "There's no truth to that at all. It's just another political tactic to upset people."

With no court date set for a hearing on the impeachment, White Plume remains at work at tribal headquarters in Pine Ridge, in the president's office that Fire Thunder believes is rightfully hers. "We're taking this a day at a time," she said.

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