From the Buffalo News, via Pechanga:
Robert Odawi Porter, 47, is proud of his Harvard Law School education and the fact that he left behind his career as a law professor to return to his roots in Western New York.
Maurice A. John Sr., 62, calls himself a warrior and says he has battled with the state and federal governments for decades.
The two men, both widely known in their tribe, are facing off in the Seneca Nation presidential election Nov. 2.
Porter has the backing of the powerful Seneca Party, which has dominated the Indian nation’s elections since the 1980s. John, who served a term as president from 2006 to 2008, is an independent.
Each insists he is the one to lead the Senecas through a stormy period marked by fights with the state over cigarette taxes and hundreds of millions of dollars in debts associated with the three Seneca casinos.
“I know I am the underdog. … I’m an old man taking on a big machine,” John told The Buffalo News. “But when I travel around our territories and talk to people face to face, I find that a lot of them agree with me that we have to get our financial house in order. We have to stop running up debts.”
Porter said addressing the debt problem is important to him, too. He wants the Seneca Nation to improve its economy by increasing educational opportunities for young people and by expanding the nation’s business interests beyond cigarettes, gasoline and casinos.
“My family never had a lot of money when I was growing up. We got some of our food from government programs,” Porter said. “What opened the door for me, and changed my life, was education.”
Porter grew up in Salamanca, where he was raised by his mother, Lana Redeye, a teacher who is now the Seneca Nation education director. He graduated from Salamanca High School and later earned degrees from Syracuse University and Harvard Law School.
He worked for law firms in Cleveland and Washington,
D. C., before becoming a law school professor — specializing in tribal law—at the University of Kansas, the University of Iowa and Syracuse University’s law school. He is still a tenured professor at Syracuse but is not currently teaching there.
“I am on leave from my job at Syracuse because I am devoting my time to the Seneca Nation,” Porter said.
Porter said he intends to be a strong leader for the Senecas in their fight against state taxation efforts.
“Our nation has a history of struggle, a history of our land being taken away,” Porter said. “But we’re not going away. We’re going to be here for 1,000 more years, and I want people to understand the role we’ve played in Western New York. Nobody else has created 5,000 job in the past few years like we have.”
Turtle Talk 