QUICK REFERENCE

Questions to ask any candidate

D · Draft — not verified   Not line-checked against the Navajo Nation Code. How we verify →

Are you a candidate? You can go on the record here — answer six questions in your own words.

Want the version built around the six fixes anyone could do now? See The Tune-Up Checklist — and what a serious answer sounds like.

At a forum, at the flea market, at a chapter meeting, or through the question form on this site — the same questions work for every candidate, because they’re about how a person would govern, not who they are.

Jump to: any promise · fraud, waste & accountability · workers’ rights & employee housing · whistleblowing · working with others · K’é and Hózhó

On any promise

• What, specifically, is the first step — and who does it?
• How is it paid for?
• How would we know in a year whether it worked?
• Name a time someone who worked for you told you something you didn’t want to hear — what happened to them?
• Relatives will always work in the same government — that’s the Nation. So: should anyone sit on a hiring or discipline decision involving their own relative? What disclosure and recusal rules would you enforce, and who checks the paper?

See the tactics these questions probe: The Runaround — displacement pressure, improvised rules, loopholes & workarounds.

On fraud, waste & accountability

• Who should answer when chapter money goes missing — and to whom?
• What oversight finding have you read recently, and what did you do about it?
• Should hiring committees be asked to sign nondisclosure agreements about who was interviewed for a position?

On workers’ rights & employee housing

• The Navajo Nation has no general whistleblower act — but 2 N.N.C. § 3767 prohibits retaliation against any party or witness to an ethics complaint, and against anyone offering testimony or evidence. The NPEA separately bars adverse action without just cause (§ 604(B)(8)) and prohibits retaliation (§ 610(N)). Would you sponsor a whistleblower act, and what would it protect? And when a worker’s case is still being decided, what should protect them from losing their footing before any ruling?
• Who should answer for an eviction that proceeds despite a court’s stay — or that a tribunal later finds was built on a wrongful termination?
• On a Nation where the largest employer also provides housing: if losing a job can mean losing your home, what does that do to an employee’s willingness to report wrongdoing — and how would you fix it?

On whistleblowing

• Have you ever reported wrongdoing yourself — and what happened?
• What would you change so an employee can report fraud without losing their job?
• Would you support public tracking of what happens to fraud-hotline reports?

On working with others

• Name someone you disagree with whom you’d still have to work with — how would you do it?
• Which committee or office would your top priority actually run through?

On K’é and Hózhó

• What does restoring balance look like in the first hundred days — concretely?
• How do you serve the people who didn’t vote for you?

Where these come from: How to evaluate a candidate · Whistleblowing 101 · Did They Answer the Question? — and when you get an answer, the five lenses help you weigh it.

Want these asked of everyone, the same way? Six questions go to every candidate in every race, in identical words: the six questions →