Content about Jerri Jean Branstetter

The Osage News will be interviewing on camera the 2012 candidates running for the Third Osage Nation Congress. The seventeenth candidate to be interviewed in our series "Candidate Talk" is Jerri Jean Branstetter.

The Grayhorse District can breathe a sigh of relief.

The Second Osage Nation Congress unanimously passed ONCA 12-20 Jan. 20, a bill that appropriates $550,000 to the Grayhorse Five Man Board to begin design and construction on a new Roundhouse for the district.

Upon signature of the Principal Chief, the Osage Nation Properties Department in the Nation’s Executive Branch can begin bidding out construction on the project which will level the current arbor and construct a roundhouse in it’s place.

Several legislative items, including a budget to appropriate money for the 2012 higher education scholarships and the health benefit card, are at risk of not being considered because the Second Osage Nation Congress and Treasurer William Kemble are at odds over whether the Nation has an adequate amount of money to consider the appropriations in the Special Session.

WASHINGTON – The Osage Trust Team sat down with U.S. Department of Interior officials Oct. 21 and signed the $380 million settlement agreement for decades of mismanagement of the Osage Minerals Estate.

The signing of the settlement closes the litigation chapter involving the mismanagement of the Osage minerals estate and opens a new one, filled of prosperity and new relations with the U.S. Government, said Osage Minerals Council Chairman Galen Crum.

Osage Nation Principal Chief John Red Eagle’s office served the Second ON Congress with a Motion to Quash a congressional subpoena issued to ON Treasurer William Kemble demanding emails and other documents, Friday (Sept. 9).

In a written response from Kemble to Congressional Speaker Jerri Jean Branstetter, he declined to submit all of his emails from any Osage Nation-owned computer, during the period of Feb. 1 to the present, concerning any aspect of his job. The emails are among nine items demanded in the Congressional subpoena served to Kemble on Aug. 2.

Before adjourning the 2011 Hun-Kah Session on April 15, the Second Osage Nation Congress selected Jerri Jean Branstetter for a second year as Speaker. The Congress also set its committees and selected officers for those committees.

By unanimous vote, Branstetter will remain Speaker for another year. She is the third Speaker in the reformed government’s five-year history. Congressman Raymond Red Corn was also unanimously elected Second Speaker and will also serve a second consecutive year in that post.

On opening day of the 2011 Hun-Kah Session, the Second Osage Nation Congress voted to confirm Aaron Bighorse to the Gaming Enterprise Board but tabled action on the two Gaming Commission appointments selected by Principal Chief John Red Eagle.

[Editor's Note: This story was updated for clarification purposes on Sept. 23.]

Principal Chief John Red Eagle’s budget for the Office of the Chiefs has been causing some friction between some members of Congress and his staff. His budget contains new job titles for appointed members and he is claiming “Executive Privilege” when asked to provide job descriptions.

On the last day of the 2010 Hun-Kah Session Thursday, the Osage Nation Congress rescinded last week’s board confirmation votes conducted by secret ballot then voted again – in the open – on all board appointees which resulted in dismissals of George Pease and Elizabeth Lohah Homer from the Gaming Enterprise Board.

Thursday’s votes come eight days after the Congress declined to confirm board members Frank Oberly, Pease and Chairwoman Homer in a secret ballot vote on April 7.

After three-and-a-half months of back and forth between the Osage Nation Congress and the Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, the 2010 fiscal year budgets were passed and signed into law on Friday at $23.9 million.

“I’m just relieved that the budgets got passed,” said Chief Jim Gray at an all employees meeting at the Wah Zha Zhi Cultural Center Tuesday. “I also want to apologize to all of you. To be caught up in a political tug-of-war between the Executive and Congress was totally unfair to you. I never intended to involve you in this.”