Kalle Benallie
ICT
As people around the country head to the polls on Nov. 3 to vote in the midterm elections, citizens of the Navajo Nation will be pulling double-duty as the tribe is set to elect its next president.
On the ballot is Crystalyne Curley and Justin Jones, along with their running mates Chris Deschene and Emily Ellison respectively.
In the last presidential election in 2022, more than 66,000 Navajo Nation citizens cast their vote. As the candidates hit the homestretch of the campaign trail, ICT spoke with the presidential hopefuls.
Crystalyne Curley
Crystalyne Curley thinks it’s time for a woman to lead the Navajo Nation. She has served two two terms as speaker of the 25th Navajo Nation Council, becoming the first woman to hold the position.
On Nov. 3, she may become the first woman to be president.
“It is a male-dominated field but I really think that there needs to be a president that is willing to say that our children matter, that our language is important, that our upbringing does mean something but having the ability to lead with compassion, hope, discipline,” Curley said. “I think that’s where we need to lead the nation because we everybody should have the opportunity to succeed.”
Curley, who is from Fish Point, Arizona, is also a council delegate for five communities within the central agency of the Navajo Nation.
She began working with the Navajo Nation government at the age of 14, working various positions in the judicial, executive and legislative branches. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Curley was part of the incident command structure for emergency response.
She was a policy analyst at Diné College at their Diné Policy Institute. She has two bachelor degrees from Arizona State University and a masters from the University of New Mexico. Curley was also Miss Navajo Nation from 2011 to 2012.
“I bring a lot of the voices of our own Navajo Nation employees to see what is not working or what does work but having a support there administratively and it has to be a lot of administrative pushes. That’s where my background in public administration, public budgeting input versus outcomes, re-evaluating a lot of those,” she said.
Curley said her going to school off the Navajo Nation was a culture shock for her and made her think about the disadvantages of the Navajo people.
“The question has always been there, ‘Why does Navajo Nation trail behind in so much development?’ I grew up without running water or access to clean water when I was growing up and road infrastructure, broadband,” Curley said. “To this day in Fish Point, we still don’t have broadband access.”
She said she has worked twice as hard to attain high positions and work in advisory teams with tribal leaders.
“I didn’t give up because I knew a lot of the disparities that our people felt. I wanted to see, we had to challenge that system,” she said.
Curley said she has a holistic approach and wants to address issues that she has with the council like infrastructure development, water rights, economic development, broadband, roads, senior centers and police response, mental health and suicide prevention with healing.
“We do need our water to establish a permanent homeland and then to provide economic opportunities for our residents. But also, it’s a human rights issue meaning that many of our people should have access to clean drinking water. So those were some of the areas that I helped lead with the council,” she said.
She added how they’re seeing threats at the federal level: voting rights, Homeland Security interference; as well as executive orders threatening land and resources.
Some of Curley’s solutions to address corruption is to secure an attorney general that will work independently and propose an inspector general position.
“You have to make sure that our prosecutor’s office, white collar crime unit, blue collar crime units, Office of the Prosecutor, Ethics and Rules is also dependent or independent from the two branches,” she said. “I think if you create a system, a movement towards that where you make them independent on their own, then you can address another corruption.”
Curley said she comes from the perspective of a mom.
“I want to make sure that our children have a safe future, a safe home where they feel they’re proud of who they are. And having that tone within the president’s office and the vice president that is my vision. But it’s up to the people,” she said.
Justin Jones
Justin Jones, the other presidential candidate, said he’s been enjoying educating Navajo voters on the campaign trail on home site lease permitting processes or financing.
“One of the greatest enjoyment I have is not necessarily campaigning, it’s visiting with people at their home, their communities — is visiting with them one-on-one,” he said.
Jones, who is from Rock Point, Arizona ran for Navajo Nation president in 2022. He said his reasons for running are the same. He said through his law practice, he’s seen recurring issues from clients like land issues, family law issues, administrative law issues and governmental elections.
“One of the main things I saw was corruption. There’s corruption in every form and shape that I’ve seen through the course of the years. And I sincerely believe today that that is one of our main impediments of any type of progress,” Jones said.
Other issues he would like to address are the enforcement of laws and breaking down bureaucracy in the government.
“A lot of it is unnecessary bureaucracy that impedes progress that impedes even just the expenditure of funds that is appropriated either by the federal government, the state governments and even the Navajo Nation government,” he said.
He is also concerned about providing for the future generations, Jones has three children and a wife.
“That’s what I’m worried about the most because I don’t want them, our children, to see and have to go through what our moms, and our dads, grandmas and grandpas and us, this generation, have been dealing with all these many years,” Jones said.
Jones said his lack of involvement in the Navajo Nation government is a benefit because his other work experience can bring new ideas and new leadership.
“Right now I see a regurgitation of leaders, a regurgitation of re-election of the same leaders selling the same thing,” he said. “We go through the same thing every four years and we have no progress. Any plans that they come up with is typically the same thing again.”
Jones says he chose Emily Ellison as his vice president nominee because they have similar viewpoints; she comes from New Mexico and they grew up similarly. Jones grew up without electricity, hauled water, wood, and took care of livestock.
“I really do have a lot of confidence in her. She’s already upscaled the campaign in so many ways, not only from her professional experience. But just her demeanor and just from her background because we have similar backgrounds,” he said.
Jones is a Marine veteran and a former chief judge for the Court of Jicarilla Apache Nation. He also said he used to work as a teacher and hopes to invest in language preservation in the future.
“We’ve tried the Western way of doing things and we kind of neglected our Navajo values, our Navajo philosophies, our Navajo methodologies of how you resolve a problem, how you take care of your elders, how you take care of your children, your grandchildren, your land, your home…” he said.
If elected he said he has transition plans starting Nov. 4th, 2026 to the Inauguration Day in January 2021. Some of the plans are to have legislation drafted for the council that concern agreements with the federal government, the state government and inter-tribal governments; complete pending investigations; address the administrative process of the executive branch; and review finances.
