Tulalip News

Washburn Finalizes Administration’s Patchak Patch

By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn announced November 12 a finalized rule that aims to resolve some problems created for tribes by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, which said that a litigant can sue for up to six years after the U.S. Department of the Interior takes lands into trust for tribes.

The court ruled in June 2012 in Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak that the law does not bar Administrative Procedure Act challenges to the Department of the Interior’s determination to take land in trust even after the United States acquires title to the property, unless the aggrieved party asserts an ownership interest in the land as the basis for the challenge. In the case at hand, it allowed a lawsuit to go forward challenging a tribal casino in Michigan from opening, despite the suit being filed three years after Interior took land into trust for the tribe. More broadly, it left the door open for costly lawsuits years after tribal projects, including casinos, housing and healthcare facilities, have broken ground.

The new rule partially addresses the issues by ending a 30-day waiting period Interior established in 1996 for the assistant secretary to take land into trust for tribes wanting to develop casinos on such land. That so-called “self-stay policy” was meant to give parties a heads up in case they wanted to file suit. The rule clarifies that the assistant secretary’s decision is final, and it allows the assistant secretary to take the land into trust with no waiting period. Lawsuits, though, are still a possibility.

“The reason for staying is just not so compelling anymore,” Washburn told Indian Country Today Media Network in May when he proposed the rule that has now been finalized. “Our argument is that people can still bring their action if they want to after we’ve taken the land into trust—at least that’s what Patchak says.”

The new rule also includes a 30-day appeal period for Bureau of Indian Affairs land-into-trust decisions that do not involve casinos. If parties do not file an appeal within 30 days before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, then they will lose the right to do so ever.

“If they don’t appeal, then they are out of luck,” Washburn told ICTMN in May. “Kind of like when the minister says, ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’”

“If an appeal isn’t filed in 30 days, it’s golden—the land is in trust, and it’s secure [for tribes],” Washburn added.

Washburn previously admitted that there are shortfalls for tribes here because, under the rule, Interior will be providing wider notice of its decision to acquire land. He said the benefit of the rule outweighs that risk: “If people have concerns, we need to get them out of the bushes and get them to raise their concerns within 30 days—not wait 5 years and 11 months,” he said.

He predicted that critics of the administration’s tribal land-into-trust policies, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), will appreciate that the policy codifies that parties in opposition will be contacted by Interior. “I think that’s a change that she will appreciate,” he said.

An Interior press release said the new rule “demonstrates the Obama Administration’s continuing commitment to restoring tribal homelands and furthering economic development on Indian reservations.”

Beyond the administration, tribal advocates have been asking Congress to pass a true “Patchak patch” that would say that once the United States takes land into trust for tribes, the decision is completely immune from lawsuits whether the lands are intended for casinos or other uses.

“But we can’t wait for Congress to do that,” Washburn said in May. “We don’t know if they will. We certainly would support such legislation, but, in the meantime, we have to figure out how we protect tribes now.”

According to the Department, 38 tribes and tribal organizations commented on the proposed rule before it was finalized, while 16 from state, county, or local governments and organizations representing such governments commented and 12 members of the public, including individuals, advocacy groups and other organizations commented. Most tribal commenters were supportive of the rule, although there were some tribal objections, while most state, county, or local governments and organizations and members of the public were opposed to the rule.

Michael Anderson, an Indian affairs lawyer with Anderson Indian Law, said the new rule is a positive one for tribes.

“This is a good development and could shorten the current six-year statute of limits under the Administrative Procedure Act to challenge Interior land-into-trust decisions,” Anderson said.

The final rule is online here.

Aid struggles to reach Typhoon Haiyan survivors

Global aid efforts are underway and battling logistical issues to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. VPCPhoto: David Guttenfelder, AP — Global aid efforts are underway and battling logistical issues to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. VPC
Photo: David Guttenfelder, AP

Source: USAToday.com

TACLOBAN, Philippines — Five days after super Typhoon Haiyan devastated the central Philippines, government and relief agencies struggled Wednesday to get aid through to the worst hit areas.

In the especially hard-hit city of Tacloban, where the mayor’s office estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 people may have died — though the president’s office says the death toll may be somewhat lower — hungry survivors expressed anger at the lack of help while sporadic looting continued despite armed police patrolling streets that appear part war zone and part garbage dump.

“I live on the road from the airport and I haven’t seen any goods coming out,” said businessman Noel Mateo, 50, who lost five of his seven trucks to storm surge Friday. “I don’t see any reason at all why they can’t give out the stocks,” he said. Mateo said he has heard “good news” on his radio about extensive relief.

To improve the response, the central government is now taking over in Tacloban, said Thelma Barerra, a Dept. of Heath official who led a team of psychological health workers that flew in with 55 doctors from Manila hospitals Tuesday.

“Just like the (2004) tsunami in Indonesia, all service providers have been affected from the mayor on down, so organization has not been good yet and needs central government control,” she said.

“The city government is still trying to be in charge, but we have no capacity,” said Tecson John S. Lim, the Tacloban city administrator Wednesday.

“The central government does what they think they should, and we coordinate,” he said. The city will be without power for another three months, said Lim, although the Philippine energy secretary mandated the process be completed in two months, he said.

According to Barerra, the damage is even worse in Tacloban than in Banda Aceh where she assisted in 2004, when the devastating Christmas-time tsunami struck. Her own team still lacks their medical and goods supplies, stuck at Tacloban airport Wednesday.

Help from abroad is arriving but experiencing similar difficulties.

A 40-strong Belgian emergency response team flew 30 hours and landed Tuesday morning, ready to set up a tent hospital. But all their equipment and medical supplies remained stuck at the airport Wednesday, said Koenraad Schwatgen, a member of the B-FAST team.

“It’s frustrating but understandable. We have to adapt to local conditions,” he said. “We are here to help them in their way, but we always want to help a little bit faster.”

Schwatgen guessed Filipino officials were giving priority to shifting food and water supplies out of the airport. The terminal building was destroyed in the storm but the runway is functional.

Yet residents are seeing little evidence of food and water relief getting through, a scenario that is compounding the pain for survivors still searching for missing relatives.

“No supplies have reached us,” said Edward Bongcaras, 43, who is worried about his two children in south Samar province, a badly hit area where communications have still not been reestablished.

Troopers looking for speeding shoppers on I-5

By Linda Brill, King 5 News

MARYSVILLE, Wash. — In Snohomish County, and north along I-5, the Washington State Patrol has a new holiday speed trap.

It’s aimed at shoppers who are speeding to the mall.

Monday morning, the State Patrol put a plane in the sky to catch holiday speeders near the Premium Outlet Mall at Tulalip.

The pilot measures special markers along Interstate 5, then checks speeds using a stop watch.

With eyes in the air, he radios to troopers on the ground.

On the first day of speed shopping patrol, one trooper nailed a driver going 85 in a 60 mile an hour zone.

The State Patrol says nearly half of the speeders in November and December admit they’re speeding to shop.

“Obviously, holiday shopping is frustrating. It’s a mad dash in and out of stores. We would urge people to be calm and collected as they are driving down the road.” said Trooper Mark Francis.

The special shopping speed trap is extended from Marysville, up through Skagit and Whatcom Counties until the end of December.

The State Patrol has a planned holiday emphasis for Thanksgiving all along I-5.

Jacoby Ellsbury, Navajo baseball standout, in line for deal

Jacoby Ellsbury in his Nike N7 gear. Photo from Twitter

Source; Indianz.com

Jacoby Ellsbury could land a Major League Baseball deal worth at least $120 million, The Boston Globe reports.

Ellsbury just came off a second World Series win with the Boston Red Sox. He’s a free agent and refused a one-year extension with the team, a move that sets the stage for a big deal, the Globe said.

Ellsbury is a member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes. He is Navajo, one of the four tribes in CRIT.

Get the Story:
Three players decline qualifying offers from Red Sox (The Boston Globe 11/12)
13 free agents turn down qualifying offers, including Cano, Ellsbury, McCann (AP 11/11)

Train carrying oil derails, explodes in Alabama

Derailment is latest in string of incidents as US increasingly relies on rail to transport oil

Smoke rises from derailed train cars in western Alabama on Nov. 8, 2013.WBMA via Reuters

Source: Climate Connection

A 90-car train carrying crude oil derailed in western Alabama on Friday, causing flames to burst hundreds of feet into the air.

The train was heading from the oil boomtowns of North Dakota to a Shell chemical plant near Mobile, Alabama. Unlike in recent oil train derailments, there were no reports of injuries or deaths. But the incident was another reminder of the dangers of North America’s increased reliance on a patchwork of railroads used to transport billions of gallons of newly discovered oil across the United States and Canada.

Concern had already been raised after a July accident in Lac-Megantic, Canada, in which 47 people were killed.

In Alabama on Friday, 20 of the train’s cars derailed, throwing flames 300 feet into the air. Those cars were being left to burn down, which could take up to 24 hours, according to the train owner, Genesee & Wyoming.

If full, the train, which passes near schools and crosses rivers in the area, could hold up to 65,000 barrels of crude oil.

It was not initially clear what caused Friday’s accident in Pickens County, Alabama. The train was being driven by two engineers, both unharmed, officials said.

The accident happened in a wetlands area which eventually feeds into the Tombigbee River, according to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. Booms were placed in the wetlands to contain the spilled oil.

Accidents involving oil being transported via train have become more common as oil production has dramatically increased in places like North Dakota and Canada. That has led to flurry of debate over how to best transport the highly-flammable oils, with some advocating for an increased use of pipelines, and others arguing that rail systems make for more environmentally secure transport.

The East and West coasts in particular turned to rail years ago to draw in U.S. and Canadian crude. With no major oil pipelines in operation, or even planned, rail allowed them to tap into the burgeoning shale market.

In the last three months, crude-by-rail shipments rose 44 percent from the previous year to 93,312 carloads, equivalent to about 740,000 barrels per day or almost one tenth of U.S. production.

The practice shows no sign of slowing down. Analysts expect up to 40 times more oil to be transported by trains in the next five years.

While many are concerned, the alternatives for transporting vast amounts of oil don’t seem to please activists and safety experts either. Environmentalists vehemently opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, one of the biggest proposed pipelines in the country.

And research shows that pipelines, if they leak, can spill much more oil than trains do.

The most recent round of controversy over transporting oil by freight started over the summer when a train derailed in Lac-Megantic.

That incident, which the operator Montreal Maine & Atlantic blamed on a train engineer not applying enough brakes on an incline, fueled a drive for tougher standards for oil rail shipments.

Since then, there have been several new regulations proposed for oil-by-freight operations, including better labeling for what’s contained in each train, but nothing permanent has been signed into law.

Hattie Kauffman’s new book resonates

Source: Buffalo Post

A new book by Hattie Kauffman, the first Native American to do standup-reporting for a national television network, only briefly talks about how she rose through the ranks to beome on on-air correspondent for CBS and “Good Morning America.”

Instead, writes Tim Giago, publisher and editor emeritus of the Native Sun News in a book review also carried at indianz.com, in “Falling into Place” Kauffman discusses a childhood and first marriage marred by alcohol, and a divorce that turned Kauffman toward christianity.

… (M)ostly her book is about the trials and tribulations of her childhood as an Indian torn between the Nez Perce Indian Reservation and cities like Seattle … where her parents, dyed-in-the-wool alcoholics, ranged back and forth dragging her and her six siblings along behind them.

But the thing that tore her world apart and brought her to near madness was the request for a divorce by her husband of 17 years, a request that apparently came out of the blue for her.

Giago writes that, until the divorce, this highly successful Native journalist “thought she’d left the ghosts of childhood behind her.”

Hattie writes about her first marriage as a teenager to a boy who grows up to be a wife-beater and an alcoholic. She writes that it is strange that daughters of alcoholics often grow up to marry alcoholics. In their dual roles as alcoholics Hattie remembers getting beaten so severely that she had to be admitted to a hospital. At least through a haze of drunken deliriums, she barely remembers. She eventually realizes that alcohol is a destroyer of lives and stops drinking.

Giago admits some Native Americans, including himself, may not empathize with Kauffman’s religious views.

Many have turned their backs on Christianity and found their own solace and happiness in their traditional spirituality, a spirituality that was torn from them and their ancestors by the missionaries preaching the Doctrine of Christianity.

But he still believes the book will resonate, in part because he says Kauffman remains “an unassuming Native woman who never turned her nose up at anyone even though she rose to the pinnacle of media success.”

– Vince Devlin

Interior Expands Land Buy-Back Process Across Indian Country

Source: Department of the Interior

In Response to Tribal Consultation & Feedback, Buy-Back Program Announces Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement Applications from Tribes

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s commitment to help strengthen Indian communities, and following nation-to-nation consultations with tribal leaders, the Department of the Interior is expanding the implementation strategy for the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program).

The move to engage a significant amount of tribal governments expands on the Department’s initial plan to launch pilot efforts with less than a dozen tribes, allows for a greater amount of engagement across Indian Country, and provides more flexibility and transparency for tribal governments. The cooperative agreements would make funds available to tribal governments to implement key aspects of the Buy-Back Program, such as owner outreach and education. Tribes have the opportunity to actively participate in the process, including identifying acquisition priorities, which will improve the program’s effectiveness and efficiency while minimizing administrative costs.

“This is a major step forward toward strengthening tribal sovereignty by supporting consolidation of tribal homelands,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. “We are moving quickly to establish individualized cooperative agreements, which address the specific needs of each tribe and provide resources for tribal communities to implement the program. Although the task ahead is challenging, we have been given a historic opportunity to work together with Indian Country to meet this challenge.”

The Buy-Back Program was created to implement the land consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement. The Settlement provided for a $1.9 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund (Fund) to consolidate fractional trust or restricted land interests across Indian Country. The Buy- Back Program allows interested individual owners to receive payments for voluntarily selling their land. All lands sold will immediately be held in trust for the tribe with jurisdiction.

Interior holds about 56 million acres in trust for American Indians. More than 10 million acres are held for individual American Indians and nearly 46 million acres are held for Indian tribes. The Department holds this land in more than 200,000 tracts, of which nearly 94,000 – on about 150 reservations – contain fractional ownership interests available for purchase by the Buy-Back Program.

This solicitation will expand the program implementation work already underway and requests tribes to work with Interior to determine the estimated schedule in which they wish to ultimately conduct outreach and engagement. An open solicitation period will be held through March 14, 2014, during which tribes with jurisdiction over these most fractionated locations are invited to submit letters of interest or cooperative agreement applications for participation in the program.

Additional solicitations will follow this initial period. Significant outreach, mapping and mineral evaluations are already occurring at many locations.

“We have heard from tribal leaders and individual landowners that they want predictability and transparency on the timing of implementation efforts,” said Kevin K. Washburn, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. “This open solicitation puts much of the timing in the hands of tribal governments and will allow the program to move on a quicker timeline.”

Implementation decisions will still rely on a number of factors, such as the severity of fractionation; degree of ownership overlap between tracts; geographic location to maximize efficiency and resources; appraisal complexity; and overall interest of the tribe as indicated by their cooperative agreement application.

More information on this solicitation is available here.

Outreach and tribal engagement will also continue with the tribes that represent the locations with the remaining 10 percent of fractionated lands. Flexible purchase ceilings will be used to protect against the risk of premature exhaustion of the available funds.

The program also released an Updated Implementation Plan today, which builds upon significant consultation and feedback from tribal nations over the past year. Updates outlined in the plan include a number of steps that tribal nations can take now to prepare for involvement in the Buy- Back Program. These steps include increasing owner awareness of the value and benefits of participation in the program and designating an authorized tribal point of contact to engage with the Program.

The Updated Implementation Plan can be found here.

Mi’kmaq Anti-Fracking Protest Brings Women to the Front Lines to Fight for Water

Courtesy Ossie Michelin, APTN National NewsThis photo of 28-year-old Amanda Polchies kneeling before Royal Canadian Mounted Police while brandishing an eagle feather during anti-fracking protests in New Brunswick has become iconic as a symbol of resistance to destructive industrial development—and of women's role in fighting for the water. — Courtesy Ossie Michelin, APTN National News
This photo of 28-year-old Amanda Polchies kneeling before Royal Canadian Mounted Police while brandishing an eagle feather during anti-fracking protests in New Brunswick has become iconic as a symbol of resistance to destructive industrial development—and of women’s role in fighting for the water.

By Martha Troian, Indian Country Today Media Network

As Amanda Polchies knelt down in the middle of the blocked-off highway with nothing but an eagle feather held aloft separating her from a solid wall of blue advancing police officers, she prayed.

“I prayed for the women that were in pain, I prayed for my people, I prayed for the RCMP officers,” the 28-year-old Elsipogtog First Nation member told Indian Country Today Media Network. “I prayed that everything would just end and nobody would get hurt.”

As Polchies faced off against hundreds of RCMP officers on the highway near her community, she couldn’t help but notice how many of those beside her were indigenous women—the keepers of the water, fighting to keep fracking chemicals out of the ground.

“So many people got hurt,” she said as she recalled “looking around, seeing all of these women.”

$Mi'kmaq women face police in anti-fracking protest on October 17, 2013, in New Brunswick near Elsipogtog First Nation. (Photo: Twitter)$

Mi’kmaq women face police in anti-fracking protest on October 17, 2013, in New Brunswick near Elsipogtog First Nation. (Photo: Twitter)

Polchies was just one of the dozens of indigenous people who grappled with fully armed RCMP officers just south of a town called Rexton on October 17, 2013. Very early that morning, the RCMP had moved in on an encampment of Mi’kmaq Warrior Society members and others as they slept. They were enforcing an injunction against the blockade of a worksite for SWN Resources Canada, the company that has been searching for shale gas in the area since spring.

Photos and video of the raid show several snipers wearing camouflage or dressed all in black lying in surrounding fields. Hundreds of photos have emerged on social media from this day that show Indigenous people—both men and women of all ages—confronting police. But it’s hard not to notice how many of those images show indigenous women. Many women can be seen drumming, singing, praying and even smudging RCMP officers with the cleansing smoke of sage, cedar, sweetgrass or other traditional medicine.

By the time Polchies arrived that afternoon, the situation had become a standoff. On one side, RCMP officers in a straight line across the highway. On the other, opponents to shale gas—the majority of them Mi’kmaq. Before long, the situation became a fight. Arguments erupted, women screamed, and weaponry was raised. The RCMP used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and even dogs. Polchies saw two women hit with pepper spray in the face. Seeing these women in pain “spoke to” her, she said.

“I just realized I had a feather in my hand,” Polchies said. “I just knelt down in the middle of the road and I started praying.”

Polchies didn’t realize it at the time but a reporter with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network snapped a photo from behind with his phone and posted it to Twitter. That image of Polchies kneeling down with a raised eagle feather, facing a line of officers in front of her, has come to symbolize the conflict between First Nations and the government-supported oil and gas companies that covet the resources under their land. And central to that conflict are women, the defenders of the water.

Mi’kmaq women stared down RCMP officers near Elsipogtog First Nation on October 17. (Photo: Twitter)

SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of Texas-based Southwestern Energy Company, has a license to explore 1 million hectares in the province of New Brunswick. While the company has only been searching for shale gas deposits, protesters believe that once they find them, it won’t be be long before the company employs the controversial technique known as fracking to get at it. Many fear that the practice, which involves injecting toxic chemicals into cracks in the rock to loosen the deposits, will contaminate and destroy local water systems. Protesters want to see SWN pack up and go home. Many women have been arrested, jailed and even injured as they passionately defend their life-giving water supply. Protests have been ongoing since June.

Indigenous women are traditionally responsible for water, said Cheryl Maloney, who is from Shubenacadie First Nation, a Mi’kmaq community near Truro, Nova Scotia, and is president of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association.

“Women have a connection to the water based on the moon and our cycles,” Maloney told Indian Country Today Media Network. “But that alone doesn’t explain the intense connection that our young people, the seventh generation have.”

There is an awakening going on, she said, with young women revitalizing their culture after years of seeing it being oppressed and taken away from their families through residential school.

“All the prophecies are pointing to these young people,” she said. “Our young people are spiritually awakened. Make no mistake, they are spiritually driven and following their ancestors.”

Haley Bernard, 22, of Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia, heeded the call. The recent graduate of Cape Breton University in Mi’kmaq Studies gave her support on the front lines on October 17, answering her best friend Suzanne Patles’ cry for help.

“Women are protectors of the water, we have water in our body, we carry a child, and they’re covered in water, so we’re meant to do that. We’re supposed to do that,” said Bernard. “We know the law, we know our treaties, we know what we’re supposed to protect.”

For her part, Polchies never planned on becoming a symbol. When the line of RCMP officers moved forward, she remained on her knees.

“I heard someone behind me saying, ‘Keep praying if you’re not going to get up.’ That’s what I did.”

All she could see was darkness from the uniforms that surrounded her.

“I just closed my eyes and held my feather and prayed for protection,” she said. “Then all of a sudden there was light.”

Polchies said that’s when RCMP officers moved to the other side of the road and started arresting people. One of the women Polchies saw was 66-year-old Doris Copage, a respected Mi’kmaq Elder from the Elsipogtog First Nation.

“I got pepper sprayed, I didn’t know what that was and I didn’t think they would do anything to the women,” Copage told Indian Country Today Media Network.

Armed with only a crucifix, Copage had set out that day with her husband in response to a call for help from the protest site. Seeing the gravity of the situation, Copage started to recite the rosary with the community’s priest, also present.

“The [RCMP officers] were really mocking at us, talking and laughing,” Copage said, adding that she questioned one of them at the frontline.

“I asked him, ‘Are you really ready to kill the Natives?’ ” she said, and was shocked by his answer.

“He looks at me and says, ‘Yes, if I have to,’ ” Copage said. “I said, ‘How many are you planning to kill?’ He didn’t say how many. He put his three fingers out.”

Copage told the officer that the indigenous people had no protection and that she had only came out as an Elder to pray. She intends to continue standing up for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and the community.

“I want to call it ‘protect,’ ” said Copage, rather than “protest.” “We are here to protect our water, our land. We have a river. It’s a beautiful river, we love it and we respect it.”

Of the 40 people arrested, three men are still in custody, with no trial date in sight. Aaron Francis, Germaine “Junior” Breau and Coady Stevens, members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society, pleaded not guilty in New Brunswick Provincial Courthouse on Friday November 8, according to a statement from the society.

“I am happy they have entered their plea of not guilty,” said Susan Levi-Peters, former Chief of Elsipogtog First Nation, in a statement on November 8, “and I am saddened that they are still locked up for protecting our women and elders who were for fighting for our water and land.”

Dozens of Bambis Stage Sit-in on Road in Japan’s Nara Park

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Blockades have been in the news lately, given indigenous resistance to fracking and other industrial invasions around Turtle Island.

But a different sort of blockade is happening across the Pacific at the tranquil Nara Park in Japan, about 300 miles southwest of Tokyo. It’s a deer park, meaning it is filled with gardens and deer—the Sika deer, Cervus nippon to be exact, also known as the Japanese deer—that are spotted and thus appear fawnlike.

“The park is home to hundreds of freely roaming deer,” according to the website Japan-Guide.com. “Considered in Shinto to be messengers of the gods, Nara’s nearly 1,200 deer have become a symbol of the city and have been designated a natural treasure.”

Shinto, the site explains, means “the way of the gods” and is the indigenous faith of the Japanese people, “as old as Japan itself.” It and Buddhism are the main religions in the country today.

Visitors can buy little crackers to feed the deer. Though the animals can get feisty if they think you’re about to hand over a cracker, they are for the most part tame, the site says, even bowing when offered food, as the website Kotaku.com notes.

In August the deer staged a sit-in of sorts on the road that bisects the park.

Reps. McCoy, Sells express interest in vacant Senate seat

Reps. John McCoy and Mike Sells have said they intend to seek former Sen. Nick Harper’s Senate seat.

By Jerry Cornfield, The Herald

A successor for former state Sen. Nick Harper of Everett could be known by Thanksgiving, and Democratic state Reps. John McCoy of Tulalip and Mike Sells of Everett are both seeking the position.

Democrats in the 38th Legislative District will meet Nov. 26 to nominate three people for the seat which opened up when Harper unexpectedly quit Saturday. He announced his resignation following the Legislature’s special session.

Under party rules, the district’s 28 elected and appointed precinct committee officers are eligible to vote. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Everett Labor Temple.

Names of the top three candidates receiving votes will be forwarded to the Snohomish County Council, which will choose one of them to take Harper’s place.

The County Council could make its decision the very next day — which is the eve of Thanksgiving. Council Chairwoman Stephanie Wright said if it can’t be done that quickly, it will happen the following week.

Harper resigned Saturday with a year left in his term, saying he needed to give up the job he won in 2010 in order to spend more time with his wife and two young children.

His successor will serve in next year’s legislative session and would have run for a full-term in 2014.

Candidates for the appointment are starting to surface.

McCoy, the retired general manager of Quil Ceda Village, was first elected to the House in 2002. Sells, the secretary-treasurer of the Snohomish County Labor Council, was first elected to the House in 2004.

Kelly Wright, who worked for former state Rep. Liz Loomis and ran for Marysville mayor in 2011, said Monday he would put his name in, too. But he said he intended only to be a caretaker of the seat through the next session and would not run for a full term afterward.

If Sells or McCoy is selected for the Senate, a similar process will be conducted to fill the vacant House seat.