{"id":19855,"date":"2022-01-12T21:30:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T02:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=19855"},"modified":"2022-01-12T21:35:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T02:35:39","slug":"prominent-leader-of-sault-ste-marie-tribe-of-chippewa-indians-censured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/01\/12\/prominent-leader-of-sault-ste-marie-tribe-of-chippewa-indians-censured\/","title":{"rendered":"Prominent leader of Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians censured"},"content":{"rendered":" <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/08\/04\/aaron-payment-investing-in-infrastructure-in-indian-country\/aaronpayment-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14613\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" data-attachment-id=\"14613\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/08\/04\/aaron-payment-investing-in-infrastructure-in-indian-country\/aaronpayment-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/04\/aaronpayment-scaled.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2560,1920\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-title=\"Aaron Payment\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Aaron Payment. Photo by &lt;A href=&quot;https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kevin_Abourezk&quot;&gt;Kevin Abourezk&lt;\/A&gt; &lt;A href=&quot;https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kevin_Abourezk&quot;&gt;&lt;I aria-hidden=true class=&quot;fab fa-twitter&quot;&gt;&lt;\/I&gt;&lt;\/A&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/04\/aaronpayment-1024x768.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/04\/aaronpayment-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Aaron Payment\"   class=\"size-full wp-image-14613\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\"> Aaron Payment. Photo by <A href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kevin_Abourezk\">Kevin Abourezk<\/A> <A href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kevin_Abourezk\"><I aria-hidden=true class=\"fab fa-twitter\"><\/I><\/A><\/figcaption>\r\n<div class=\"h3-responsive font-weight-bold\">Prominent leader of Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians censured<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"date\">Wednesday, January 12, 2022<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"source\">Indianz.Com<\/div>\r\n<p><\/p>\r\nAaron Payment, the prominent chairperson of the <a href=https:\/\/www.saulttribe.com\/>Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians<\/a>, is losing his national leadership positions after being censured by his board of directors.\r\n<P><\/P>\r\nAt a meeting last week, the tribe&#8217;s board of directors voted 10-2 to censure Payment. A   <a href=https:\/\/www.saulttribe.com\/newsroom\/7563-sault-tribe-board-censures-tribal-chairperson>news release issued by  the governing body<\/a> from Monday  cited a number of complaints against the chair, including  allegations of violating tribal law.\r\n<P><\/P>\r\nIn <a href=https:\/\/www.saulttribe.com\/newsroom\/7554-sault-tribe-board-meets-jan-4-in-sault-ste-marie>taking action on January 4<\/a>, the board effectively revoked Payment&#8217;s ability to represent the tribe in other leadership capacities. As a result, he said he already lost his position as Secretary of the <a href=https:\/\/www.ncai.org\/>National Congress of American Indians<\/a>, the largest inter-tribal advocacy organization in the United States.\r\n<P><\/p>\r\n\u201cTheir actions violate basic tenants of the U.S. Constitution of Equal Protections including prohibitions against <em>Bill of Attainder<\/em> and <em>Ex Post Facto<\/em> laws while excluding any semblance of due process of law,\u201d Payment said the tribe&#8217;s board of directors.\r\n<P><\/p>\r\n \u201cThe board acted as judge, jury and executioner by imposing sanctions without a single piece of evidence,\u201d Payment said  on Wednesday, after learning that he no longer holds his NCAI position.  \u201cThey are now covering their tracks just before an election cycle by desperately looking for evidence after the fact.\u201d\r\n<P><\/p> \r\n<div class=\" content_cards_card content_cards_domain_www-facebook-com\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content_cards_image\">\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"content_cards_image_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aaron.payment\/posts\/10216771834883184\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/plugins\/content-cards\/skins\/default\/content-cards-placeholder.png\" alt=\"Aaron A Payment\">\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"content_cards_title\">\n\t\t<a class=\"content_cards_title_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aaron.payment\/posts\/10216771834883184\">\n\t\t\tAaron A Payment\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"content_cards_description\">\n\t\t<a class=\"content_cards_description_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aaron.payment\/posts\/10216771834883184\">\n\t\t\t<p>I never imagined when re-elected in 2020 with the greatest margin in over a 1\/4 century that my elected career would end like this<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"content_cards_site_name\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/rsrc.php\/y1\/r\/ay1hV6OlegS.ico\" alt=\"www.facebook.com\" class=\"content_cards_favicon\"\/>\t\twww.facebook.com\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n<P><\/p>\r\nBesides losing his role at NCAI, Payment faces removal as president of the <a href=\"http:\/\/m-a-s-t.org\/\">Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes<\/a>, as president of the <a href=https:\/\/www.itcmi.org\/>Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan<\/a> and  as president of the United Tribes of Michigan<\/a>. He  said the loss of his  positions would only end up hurting the Sault Tribe by &#8220;erasing our political capital on the national scene.\u201d\r\n<P><\/P>\r\nIn hopes of retaining his stature, <a href=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo?fbid=10216750497789770&#038;set=a.1251728988309>Payment last week began  circulating a petition within his tribe<\/a>, seeking to overturn the board&#8217;s action. But his fellow leaders  are standing firm in their decision.\r\n<P><\/P>\r\n\u201cWe believe it in the best interest of our tribe that we do not comment any further on ongoing and active investigations,\u201d the <a href=https:\/\/www.saulttribe.com\/newsroom\/7563-sault-tribe-board-censures-tribal-chairperson>board&#8217;s news release<\/a> stated. \u201cThe chairperson\u2019s actions have led to this decision and, contrary to other statements, his actions alone resulted in Tuesday\u2019s censure.\u201d\r\n<P><\/p><div class=\"mt-1 mb-1\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block; text-align:center;\" data-ad-layout=\"in-article\" data-ad-format=\"fluid\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8411603009680747\" data-ad-slot=\"6394965691\"><\/ins><script>(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/div><p><\/p>\r\nPayment joined his tribe&#8217;s  board of directors in 1986 and won the position of chair for the first time in 2004. Last year, he was elected to  a fourth term as chair of the tribe, which boasts 44,000 citizens, making it one of the largest Indian nations in the U.S.\r\n<P><\/P>\r\nPayment had won election as Recording Secretary of NCAI as the <a href=https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/10\/14\/national-congress-of-american-indians-elects-leadership\/>organization&#8217;s annual meeting last October<\/a>. He was the only candidate nominated for the position.\r\n<p><\/p>\r\nPayment most recently  served two  consecutive terms  as 1st Vice President of NCAI. Due to the organization\u2019s term limits, he was barred from running for the position again.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Payment, the prominent leader of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is losing his national positions after being censured by his board of directors.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[590,56,2372,797,138,523,7,591,2371],"class_list":["post-19855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-politics","tag-aaron-payment","tag-elections","tag-itcmi","tag-mast","tag-meetings","tag-michigan","tag-ncai","tag-soo-tribe","tag-utm","no-wpautop"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/04\/aaronpayment-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcoJ7g-5af","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}