Sault Tribe Board May Delay Constitutional Vote — and One Director Wants Their Pay on the Line

SAULT STE. MARIE — Three months ago, the Sault Tribe Board of Directors unanimously agreed to let tribal members vote on fundamentally restructuring their government. Tonight, they’ll consider taking that decision back. And if they do, one director has an idea for demonstrating just how confident everybody is in the reversal: stop paying the board. Welcome to the September 1 meeting, where the agenda includes proposals to prepare for a new three-branch government, find money to pay for it, postpone the election that could create it, and financially penalize the board if it postpones that election. Government efficiency has finally been achieved. All possible directions are now available simultaneously.

The fight concerns a proposed overhaul of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians government that would establish separate legislative, executive and judicial branches. This isn’t an idea somebody scribbled on a Buffalo Wild Wings napkin last Thursday; separation of powers has been debated within the Tribe for more than two decades. In 2025, the Tribe mailed members a survey asking what governmental structure they preferred. Of 6,388 ballots counted, 3,566 favored three branches, compared with 1,596 for two branches and 1,198 for keeping the existing one-branch structure. That’s a convincing victory among the people who answered, although there’s an asterisk roughly the size of a Kewadin billboard: 39,117 surveys were mailed and turnout was 16.33 percent.

Still, the board moved forward. On May 19, directors unanimously approved Resolution 2026-145, requesting a federally administered Secretarial Election that would put the proposed amended constitution before tribal members. Robert McRorie, Isaac McKechnie, Aaron Payment and Tyler LaPlaunt sponsored the resolution. Payment’s name there isn’t surprising. He’s spent years pushing for separation of powers and shortly before the May vote called the effort his “life’s work.” Chairman Austin Lowes similarly described establishing a three-branch government as his top priority heading into 2026. After twenty-some years of discussion, surveys, resolutions and the usual governmental migration through enough paper to deforest Wisconsin, the question finally appeared headed to the people who would actually have to live under the thing.

Then August happened.

Director Kimberly Lee now has a resolution on tonight’s agenda that would rescind the board’s authorization for the Secretarial Election. Lee isn’t throwing rocks from outside the building, either. She was sitting on the board May 19 and voted for Resolution 2026-145 along with everybody else. She had raised concerns about constitutional reform before that vote, including questions about protections for members and the consequences of changing the Tribe’s governmental structure, but ultimately voted to send the question forward. A little more than three months later, she wants the brakes applied, and the reason laid out in her resolution is money.

Lee’s proposal says members should receive a complete breakdown of implementation costs and information about the Tribe’s financial condition before deciding whether to approve a new government. More remarkably, the resolution says “the Tribe’s financial situation is not clear enough” to provide that information before the Secretarial Election would occur. That doesn’t tell us the Tribe is broke, rich or storing gold bars underneath the blackjack tables. It tells us exactly what Lee’s resolution says: the financial picture isn’t clear enough to tell members what this governmental overhaul is going to cost before they vote on it.

The timing is hard to miss. On August 24, the board held a constitutional implementation workshop that included discussion of the Tribe’s financial status, with that portion closed to the public. Another implementation workshop on August 31 included an “Estimate of Increased Cost.” No public dollar figure accompanied the agenda. What did appear immediately afterward was Lee’s proposal saying the Tribe needs five-year financial projections and a full accounting of implementation costs before the election proceeds.

If Lee’s resolution passes, this isn’t putting the election in the glovebox until next week. The executive team would have until May 1, 2027, to publish five-year projections of both the Tribe’s financial position and the cost of implementing the amended constitution. Monthly open workshops would provide updates, with another resolution authorizing a Secretarial Election scheduled to return to the board in June 2027. After more than twenty years of talking about separation of powers, another nine months might qualify as a rounding error, but it would nevertheless reset an election process the board unanimously launched in May.

Director Robert McRorie has a competing resolution on tonight’s agenda, and McRorie apparently left the diplomacy setting in the OFF position. Its title is “UPHOLDING THE MEMBERSHIP’S RIGHT TO VOTE AND ENFORCING BOARD ACCOUNTABILITY.” He argues that tribal members have had years to consider separation of powers and that suggesting they aren’t sufficiently educated to vote on it insults their intelligence. He also points out that nine members of the current board participated in the unanimous May vote. Lee is one of them. McRorie’s resolution further says the three newly elected directors — Ashley Gravelle, Sue St. Onge and Cole Goudreau — campaigned on protecting members’ right to vote on separation of powers.

Then McRorie stops using the indoor voice. His resolution says that if the board rescinds its unanimous May decision, directors should acknowledge that the original vote could only have resulted from either failing to adequately review and understand what they were voting on or purposely intending to mislead tribal membership. Those aren’t exactly the traditional governmental choices of A, B, C and “all of the above.” McRorie has offered Door Number One: you didn’t know what the hell you were voting for. Door Number Two: you knew exactly what you were doing and misled everybody.

And then he gets to the paychecks.

McRorie’s resolution proposes that if the Secretarial Election authorization is rescinded, all Board of Directors compensation be immediately forfeited and applied toward costs resulting from the rescission until those expenses are paid. In plain English: you voted for it, you told everybody they were getting a vote, and if you’ve changed your minds three months later, put your paycheck where your resolution is. Whether his colleagues find that argument persuasive may depend partly on how strongly they feel about constitutional government and partly on whether they enjoy receiving money.

Making the whole thing stranger, another resolution in tonight’s very same packet proceeds as though the three-branch government is still coming. McRorie and Director Jennifer Sorenson want authorization to hire a temporary legislative legal consultant because, according to their resolution, the Tribe “is moving towards the implementation of a three-branch government.” The consultant would help write and revise the tribal laws necessary to make separation of powers actually work. So the board will simultaneously consider hiring somebody to help build the new government and postponing the election needed to create it. Somewhere in the middle sits McRorie waving everybody’s paycheck around. There will presumably be coffee.

Chairman Austin Lowes has yet another piece of this puzzle on tonight’s agenda, involving approximately 71 acres near Detroit Metropolitan Airport that were once supposed to become a Sault Tribe casino. The Tribe acquired what’s known as the Sibley Property in Huron Township and fought to have the land taken into trust, but years of litigation eventually killed the casino plan. The federal government refused the trust application, the D.C. Circuit upheld that decision in 2024, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Tribe’s appeal in April 2025. Lowes’ resolution dispenses with the funeral music and simply states that because of those court decisions, the Tribe “will not be able to open and operate a casino on the Sibley Property.”

Lowes wants the Tribe’s chief financial officer authorized to put the property up for sale, although any eventual offer would still have to come back before the board. Here’s where the dead casino wanders back into the constitutional story: legally available proceeds from selling the property could help pay for implementation of the amended constitution. So one resolution says the Tribe doesn’t yet have a clear enough financial picture to hold the constitutional election, while another proposes selling the remains of a failed Lower Peninsula casino project to help finance the government that election could create. This isn’t necessarily contradictory, but Christ Almighty, it does make for one hell of an agenda.

Which leaves the obvious question hanging over tonight’s meeting: what changed between May 19 and September 1? The public record gives us pieces rather than an answer. The board unanimously authorized the election in May. The Tribe told members the constitutional question was headed toward a vote. Three new directors arrived after this summer’s tribal election. Implementation planning continued. Workshops examined finances and increased costs. Now a director who voted to authorize the election wants the authorization rescinded, while other directors are simultaneously proposing to keep building the machinery needed to make the new government work.

Lee’s argument is straightforward enough: before tribal members create an entirely new governmental structure, they deserve to know what the damn thing costs and whether the Tribe can afford it. McRorie’s argument is equally straightforward: members have been talking about this for more than twenty years, the board already voted unanimously to let them decide, and directors don’t get to yank the ballot away now because they’ve suddenly discovered that governments cost money.

Tonight, the board gets to decide which argument wins.

And somewhere near Detroit sits 71 acres of casino that never happened, possibly waiting to help pay for a government that hasn’t happened yet.

Hell of a Tuesday.

Source: The Daily Pasty