How the People Build It
≈ 8 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
B · From the record Routes assembled from official complaint forms and Navajo Nation Code citations. How we verify →
There are five working routes from "this needs to change" to changed law.
Here is each one: what gets written, who signs it, and where it goes.
The fixes this guide is built around: publish the Code · put deadlines on the Labor Commission and publish its decisions · pass a general whistleblower law · fund the Auditor General · fill the vacant Supreme Court seat.
The same routes work for any fix.
ROUTE 1 — The chapter resolution (start here; it's the nearest door)
What it is: an official position of your chapter, adopted by vote at a duly called chapter meeting. Council delegates and committees treat chapter resolutions as the formal voice of communities.
What gets written: a one-page resolution. Format: WHEREAS clauses (the facts — e.g., "the Navajo Nation Code has not been codified since approximately 2009, and Council resolutions themselves direct codification by the Office of Legislative Counsel"), then RESOLVED clauses (the ask — "the [Name] Chapter calls upon the Navajo Nation Council to fund and direct an official, public, current codification of the Navajo Nation Code").
Who signs: the chapter president and secretary certify it after the membership votes at a chapter meeting.
Where it goes: to your Council delegate (by hand or email, with a cover note asking them to sponsor legislation), and copies to the relevant standing committee. Keep a certified copy.
Why it works: committee members may only consider what is on the record.
A certified chapter resolution IS the record. Multiple chapters passing the same resolution is how issues become unignorable.
ROUTE 2 — Testimony on the record (no signatures needed; just you)
Budget hearings: the Budget and Finance Committee holds hearings at each of the five agencies. Register at the table, fill out a “Request to Speak” form, and say it: “Publishing the Code is a budget line. Fund it.” You may attach written testimony or a chapter resolution. What is said on the record must be considered; a private phone call does not.
Public comment on pending legislation: every bill gets a public comment period, and anyone can write in. Here is exactly how, step by step:
Step 1 — find the bill's tracking number. Every bill gets a number that looks like 0102-26 (four digits, a dash, the year). It is stamped right on the bill's first pages. Three places to look:
- The Council website's legislation list (navajonationcouncil.org → Legislation) — each posted bill is a PDF with the number in it;
- DIBB, the Legislative Branch's own tracking system, where every public bill and its status is listed by that number;
- The bill's 5-day public posting itself, which prints the number and invites comments.
Step 2 — write your comment. Plain words are fine. Say which bill (the tracking number), what you think, and why. One paragraph counts.
Step 3 — send it. Email it to comments@navajo-nsn.gov with the tracking number in the subject line. Done — you are now on the official record, and the committee must have your comment in front of it.
(One honest note: the tracking system indexes bills-in-progress beautifully — it is the finished laws at the other end that fall into the uncodified void. The pipeline’s front door works. Use it.)
ROUTE 3 — Sponsored legislation (the direct fix)
What it is: an actual bill. Only a Council delegate can introduce one — so the citizen's job is to hand a delegate a bill worth sponsoring.
What gets written: you don't have to draft statute. A one-page legislative proposal is enough: the problem (documented), the fix in plain terms, and the ask ("sponsor legislation directing and funding the Office of Legislative Counsel to produce a current public codification, with a completion date"). The Office of Legislative Counsel drafts the formal bill text once a delegate sponsors.
Who signs: the sponsoring delegate. Your job is persuasion — and an election season is the single best moment that exists for it, because every candidate can be asked, on the record: *"Will you sponsor this in your first session — yes or no?"* (That question is already in the questionnaire.) Where it goes: delegate → Office of Legislative Counsel drafting →
5-day public posting → assigned standing committee(s) → Naabik'íyáti' Committee → full Council (the § 164 process). You can testify and comment at the committee stages.
ROUTE 4 — The citizen initiative (the people's own law)
What it is: the people placing a law directly on the ballot by petition of registered voters — the route that needs no delegate at all. The Supreme Court has affirmed the initiative power belongs to the People.
What gets written: the proposed law's text and a petition for signatures by registered Navajo voters.
Here is the honest catch — and it proves this whole website's point:
the detailed requirements (exact signature threshold, petition format, filing procedure) live in Title 11, the Election Code — one of the five Titles never published.
We cannot print the current requirements because no public source contains them.
So the first instruction of this route is itself an action: go to any Navajo Election Administration office (they exist at all five agencies; main office: Navajo Inn Complex, Window Rock, 1-800-775-VOTE) and request, in writing, the current initiative petition requirements. Their written answer becomes a public record — and if they cannot produce one, that too is a finding. Either way, the people learn something no website can currently tell them.
Where it goes: completed petitions are filed with the Election Administration; a qualifying initiative goes to a ballot.
ROUTE 5 — The vote itself (the lever you already hold)
Every route above runs faster when the people choosing the delegates have put the question on the record first. Before July 21: ask every candidate — at forums, in chapter meetings, through Cal's questionnaire — the yes-or-no versions: *Will you fund codification? Deadlines for the Labor Commission?
A general whistleblower law? A date?* Their answers publish. Then vote accordingly, and hold the winner to the printed answer.
The starter kit (what to actually produce this month)
1. One model chapter resolution on codification — written once, shared with any chapter that wants it. (Say the word and it gets drafted.) 2. One legislative proposal page for delegates and candidates — same.
3. One written request to the Election Administration for the current initiative requirements — a single letter, and its answer becomes the first public copy of rules no one can currently read.
4. Questionnaire answers — already in motion through Cal.
None of this requires an election. A chapter resolution can be introduced at the next meeting. A comment can be emailed today — and proposed legislation posts for public comment on DiBB, the Legislative Services public site, where anyone can read the full text; per the Nation’s own legislative process policy (NABIMA-16-17), anyone may initiate legislation with a delegate’s help. The law that governs the Navajo Nation belongs to the Navajo people — and most of these doors were built by law the people already have.
*Sources, checked July 2026: 2 N.N.C. §§ 102, 164 (legislative process); 2 N.N.C. §§ 224–225 (verified verbatim); 12 N.N.C. (Auditor General access, verified); the Legislative Branch's public review postings (comment address and 5-day posting requirement, from current 2026 postings); Navajo Election Administration public materials (initiative-by-petition, office locations); In re Two Initiative Petitions Filed by Shirley, SC-CV-41-08 (initiative power); Title 11's unpublished status (the published Code itself). Where a requirement could not be verified — Title 11 petition details — this guide says so rather than guessing. Nothing here is legal advice.*
The starter kit — download, adapt, use
Model chapter resolution (PDF) — the one-page "publish the law" resolution, ready for any chapter to adapt and vote on · Legislative proposal for your delegate (PDF) — the one page that asks for sponsorship · Written request to the Election Administration (PDF) — asks for the current initiative rules in writing; the answer becomes the first public copy.