Turtle Talk

From the Buffalo News

Robert Odawi Porter Elected Seneca President

By Dan Herbeck

Updated: November 3, 2010, 7:47 AM

The Seneca Nation’s new president-elect is an attorney and law professor who graduated from Harvard Law School.

And Robert Odawi Porter, 47, said he hopes to use his legal skills to help the Senecas deal with a wide range of problems and challenges over the next two years.

Porter defeated Maurice A. John Sr. on Tuesday, getting 1,671 votes to John’s 500, the Indian nation reported.

During the election campaign, John repeatedly criticized Porter for being a lawyer. John claimed that a man who has a license from New York State to practice law could not aggressively lead the tribe in its fight with the state over cigarette taxes and other issues.

Porter disagreed, stating that his law experience should help him to be a better fighter for the Senecas.

“I can assure you that the threats that we now face are real and that they are not going to end any time soon,” Porter said. “If we do not have strong leadership in the coming years, it is possible that many of the hard fought gains that we have achieved for our people could be eroded or even lost.”

Porter said he hopes to spend much of his two-year term helping state officials and others to understand what an important role the Senecas play in the Western New York economy. He said the nation created about 5,000 new jobs in the past several years and is one of the region’s biggest employers.

In a 7,000-member Indian Nation that allows candidates and political parties to pay people for their votes, Porter was endorsed by the Seneca Party, which has dominated Seneca elections since the 1980s.

While some Seneca leaders have sought to end the tradition of vote-buying, one of the nation’s officials said voters have come to expect a payment — usually about $50 — for casting a vote.

“The people are still going to vote for who they want when they go into the voting booth,” the official said.

Porter, his mother and his wife all have high-ranking positions with the region’s largest and most well-known Indian tribe. His mother, Lana Redeye, is executive assistant to the treasurer, Jackie Bowen.  His wife, Odie Brant Porter, is executive director of the nation’s capital improvements authority.

John, 62, is an outspoken retired businessman who ran as an independent. John previously served as the nation’s president from 2006 to 2008.

Porter, a former law professor who advocates improving educational opportunities for Senecas, faces some serious challenges.

A federal court battle will determine whether the state will be allowed to tax cigarette sales from businesses owned by Indians to non-Indians. The state has estimated that the taxes would bring in more than $100 million a year, but the Senecas say the taxes will destroy their cigarette economy.

The Senecas say they also face hundreds of millions of dollars in debts, mostly related to construction costs, from their three casinos in Niagara Falls, Salamanca and Buffalo.

Porter worked for law firms in Cleveland and Washington, D.C., and later was a law school professor at the University of Kansas, Iowa University and later, Syracuse University’s law school. He is still a tenured professor at Syracuse but is on leave from the job.

For many years, John has been viewed as a hero by some Senecas because of his defiance of a more than $9 million tax lien filed against him and his wife by the Internal Revenue Service.