2021 is not going quietly into the history books. It will likely go down in the our memories as truly unforgettable. Not for the good things we’ve seen, but the bad things we’ve endured.
Last weekend, my family and friends all survived as tornadoes cut a wide swath through four states. Areas in Kentucky that were once hometowns for me (and many friends) were decimated.
Mayfield was essentially destroyed. But Bowling Green and Campbellsville - towns where I was a fledgling reporter decades ago - were also hit. My sister’s home was undamaged, only a couple of trees toppled.
On the other side of their small hill, it was total devastation.
If you watch and listen as people work to salvage the shredded remnants of their lives you’ll note a common theme: thankfulness.
Seems most of us don’t appreciate what we have until our lives are all we have left.
If you’ve lived through a calamity, natural or otherwise, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, your prayer for those suffering should include thanks you aren’t sharing the experience.
Despite 2021 finally winding down, there are plenty of things still going on.
In some, the good guys actually appear to be winning.
A Page County, Virginia, man has been convicted and sentenced to five years in jail on twenty-six counts of felony animal fighting; twenty counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty; and drug possession. All after being busted in a cock fighting investigation.
Dale Comer, 42, also has 86 years of suspended time hanging over his head after his five-year sentence is served, along with n a lifetime ban on owning animals of any kind and $29,714.51 in fines and fees.
His sentence is thought to be the largest cockfighting sentence in Virginia or national history. It was investigated and prosecuted by Virginia Attorney General Herring’s Animal Law Unit -the first of its kind in the country.
Meanwhile in Oklahoma, there’s another brouhaha brewing between the state government and the Native American tribes there. This time the disagreement’s over hunting and fishing licenses.
Actually, the disagreement is over who needs them, who issues them and what they cost.
According to a statement from his office, Stitt believes “all Oklahomans should receive equal treatment under the law.”
Right now, the Cherokee and Choctaw nations have an agreement with the state to buy 200,000 hunting and fishing licenses every year (collectively). They pay $2 for those licenses.
Stitt wants them to pay the same price as other Oklahomans - $42 or more. The compact for those licenses expires on December 31. Barring the increase, Governor Kevin Stitt says his administration will not renew the state’s agreement with the Cherokee and Choctaw nations.
Chuck Hoskin Jr. the Cherokee Principal Chief, says Stitt’s proposal is a “non-starter.”
Stitt’s office says it’s to protect the interests of “all 4 million Oklahomans, including the state’s wildlife and natural resources.”
Choctaw Chief Gary Batton says the problem is really the governor’s refusal to recognize or accept the tribes as sovereign governments outside the state’s control.
He also contends Stitt doesn’t understand the finances of the compacts negotiated by former Governor Mary Fallin benefit both the state and the tribes.
The tribes agreed to buy 200,000 licenses at $2 each, plus an administrative fee. That’s roughly eighteen percent of state license sales each year.
The Choctaw, Batton says, never came close to handing out the 50,000 licenses bought from the state, but all the dollars benefit the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
In addition to the direct revenues, he says, a federal grant program is calculated each year based on license sales, state population and land side. If state license sales drop, it impacts available federal money.
The tribes say the hunting compact Stitt wants to renegotiate to a rate “thousands of percent above the current rate” already nets Oklahoma $38 million in funding.
The governor’s office says the financial impact is “unclear.”
The Department of Wildlife Conservation is (wisely) waiting to see what happens in the weeks before the Cherokee and Chickasaw compacts expire.
The reality, Batton says, is “we don’t have to pay anything- and that’s the path we’re going down.”
Instead, tribal leaders say they’ll allow tribal citizens to hunt according to tribal laws. If nothing’s resolved, the Cherokee nation says it will allow its citizens to hunt throughout the northeast Oklahoma reservation beginning January 1, 2022.
The souring relationship between Governor Stitt and the Nations began when a Supreme Court decision in July 2020 ruled that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation. It meant Oklahoma prosecutors lacked authority to pursue criminal cases against American Indian defendants in parts of eastern Oklahoma. Those “parts” include most of the city of Tulsa..
That decision reaffirming tribal sovereignty over criminal cases on tribal lands could lead to the state’s civil and taxing powers on those lands also being called into question by the Native Americans on Oklahoma’s Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole or Quapaw reservations. That’s not sitting well with Governor Stitt. Consequently, Oklahoma has made multiple filings asking the Supreme Court to reconsider McGirt.
“The state’s decision to end the hunting and fishing compacts with the Cherokee and Choctaw nations is disappointing,” says a statement from Muscogee Principal Chief David Hill, “it not only hurts the state of Oklahoma, but the true intent is to demean tribal sovereignty.”
— Jim Shepherd
