Interview Q&A

Shaquille Begay — Round 2 Interview

≈ 14 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines

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← Candidate profile · Round 1 answers

Round 2 — the follow-up interview (July 2026)

Round 2 — Platform (2026)

Cal asked: Reintroduce yourself and your platform.

Begay laid out his platform in seven areas: infrastructure (water, electricity, broadband, housing — noting he drove to the Red Lake chapter house for Wi-Fi as a Diné College student); youth & elders (summer youth programs he worked in from age 14; keeping senior centers open, staffed, and fed); education (promoting Diné College and NTU over off-Nation schools); healthcare and 638; economic growth after NGS's closure; supporting Navajo-owned businesses (he works weekends at the marina for a tribal tour enterprise); and law enforcement, with emphasis on understaffed prosecutors, not just police recruitment. He closed on chapter partnership, citing community concerns that delegates disappear to Window Rock [names and places corrected from the auto-transcript].

Mark as read

Who he is — and what sets him apart

Cal asked: Who is Shaquille Begay, and what sets you aside from your opponents?

A community member from Tonalea, raised and schooled locally (Tonalea Day School, Tuba City High, Diné College — three degrees without loans, now in an MBA program), with a PMP project-management certification. He started at the local 638 facility at 18 as an ER tech and holds a public health degree; diabetes is the chronic-disease fight he names first. He frames himself as a new generation of leadership: “I'm a community member. I'm not a politician.”

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A new generation — after the current administration

Cal asked: Voters tried youth and education in the current president and say it didn't deliver. How do you answer that as a young candidate?

“First, I am not Buu Nygren” [name corrected from the auto-transcript] — he said he supported the president's candidacy initially, and that recent events speak to character. His own answer: he doesn't put himself above the people, decides from community opinion, keeps an open line with chapter officials, and tells voters asking whether Window Rock's troubles would repeat with him: “No. I have morals. I have principles.” He urged voters to research every candidate's track record — employment history, board service, what actually transpired — rather than voting for whoever feeds them on election day.

Mark as read

Tribal colleges

Cal asked: Pick from the topic list — he chose schools first.

Keep Navajo scholarship money on the Nation: he questions funding students to leave for NAU/ASU/U of A when Diné College and NTU offer affordable local degrees — citing NTU's nursing and engineering programs and Tuba City's small Master of Science in Biology program, whose recent graduates went on to medical and PA school. He backed the host's framing of building Diné College into the leading tribal college as a concept, not a literal Harvard comparison.

Mark as read

638 healthcare — what he'd improve

Cal asked: You support 638. If elected, what one or two improvements would you make to the 638 healthcare facilities?

His case for 638: government shutdowns furlough IHS, while 638 facilities generate their own revenue and keep people employed — he cited Echo Cliffs opening as 638 expansion while a long-promised IHS hospital hasn't materialized. Improvements: (1) advocate for funding — IHS allocations don't cover operational costs, so revenue-cycle discipline (timely coding, reimbursements) is survival; (2) push for grants actually tailored to Navajo communities — chronic-disease funding is thin and competitive; (3) move diabetes care away from one-size-fits-all toward programs built around each patient's real situation — the grandmother living alone versus the one living with family.

Mark as read

638 oversight — and CO-50-14

A listener asked: Do you support legislation for better oversight of 638 facilities? Are you aware of CO-50-14?

He said he was not familiar with CO-50-14 [the 2014 law establishing the Navajo Department of Health — read it here], but yes to stronger oversight. His proposals: bring back a Navajo Nation Surgeon General as a medically qualified general overseer, and create a committee or subcommittee seating people with clinical backgrounds. He also revised his own earlier position: having once suggested HEHSC as the overseer, he now says the committee lacks healthcare expertise — “they're not healthcare providers. So how are they going to be able to operate a healthcare institution?”

Mark as read

What uniquely qualifies him on 638 disparities

Cal asked: Three of the four District 1 candidates are healthcare-affiliated. What uniquely sets you apart to address 638 disparities?

He's not a board member — two opponents were, and he urged voters to research what happened during their tenure. His standing: nine years inside the system (six as an ER tech, three in his current role) and a patient of it. He named the disparities from the patient side: appointments gone by 7:10 a.m., told to call back tomorrow — frustration that drove him to be seen at Gila River instead, a 638 facility he called decades ahead on scheduling and coordination, and the standard he wants for Tuba City. On accountability, he pointed at boards and management together: when a hospital drops from three stars to one, the board should be asking why — and he floated term limits for boards, citing Gila River's practice, expecting backlash for saying it.

Mark as read

Environment & economic development

Cal asked: (Under economic development)

On the record against fracking, uranium hauling, and uranium mining — hauling passes through Tonalea and Cow Springs on the highway, and he cited the recent accident near Shonto and the Nation's dependence on outside responders. He grounded the position in traditional teaching: care for the earth that cares for us.

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Diné language

Cal asked: (On language and what should decide a vote)

He is transparent that he doesn't speak fluent Navajo and is still learning — raised in a Navajo-speaking home where it didn't take, a consequence he says he lives with. His argument: character over description, noting that some of the Council's most vocal members on hard issues — including the contested $24 million — are its non-fluent members.

Mark as read

Alcoholism, drugs & prohibition

Cal asked: How would you address prohibition on the Navajo Nation?

He would not lift prohibition — he initially misheard and corrected himself on air, adding he thinks it's wrong that Nation casinos hold liquor licenses. His treatment stance: build culturally based programs on the Nation rather than buying rehab capacity off-Nation, tailored to each person's path (traditional ceremony, NAC, or church) — and he tied it to oversight: mental-health programs on the Nation can operate without reporting to anyone, citing pandemic-era fraudulent patient recruitment and a matter he said is currently ongoing in Tuba City. On enforcement: fund prosecutors so cases aren't dismissed on timing, and look hard at consequences for repeat public intoxication and DUI.

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Law enforcement staffing

Cal asked: One officer covering an agency, cases slipping through — what would you do so communities feel safe?

Support recruitment (he noted the lowered age requirement), add hiring bonuses with retention terms — paid after training or probation, conditioned on staying — and, again, prosecutors: ten arrests mean nothing if charges aren't filed in time and all ten walk.

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Closing — telehealth, elders, and the two branches

Cal asked: Why did you come back for a second round — and your closing.

He returned to reach voters at scale before the primary. New ground in the closing: telehealth as the reason broadband matters — no cardiology, neurology, or nephrology on-site means a grandmother travels four hours to Phoenix unless a chapter-house connection can bring the specialist to her screen. On the executive–legislative conflict: he rejected a presidential candidate's suggestion that Council should come to the president, calling Council the general oversight and the lawmakers the president must work with — and noted whoever wins inherits a FY2027 budget already written. Contact: Facebook, and door-knocking Red Lake, Kaibeto, and LeChee housing — “please tie up your dogs.”

Mark as read