November 3, 2024 4:52 pm • Last updated: November 3, 2024 4:52 pm

Mashantucket – Rodney Butler won an eighth consecutive term on the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council on Sunday and then, in a second round of voting among tribal members, was elected council president for the sixth consecutive time, the tribe announced.

Two other current council members, Daniel Menihan and Michele Scott, were also elected to new three-year terms on the seven-member council, which governs the 1,200-member tribe and oversees its business ventures, including Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Butler, Menihan and Scott will begin their new terms on the tribe’s Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 2, 2025.

“Michele Scott and Daniel Menihan are excellent leaders for our tribal nation, and we thank them for their willingness to once again serve in these critical roles,” Butler said in a statement the tribe issued after Sunday’s vote. “We congratulate them and look forward to continuing to work together in the service of Mashantucket.”

Five other tribal members were candidates for the three council seats up for election: Roy Colebut-Ingram Sr., Rahiem Eleazer, Richard E. Sebastian, Phyllip Thomas and Katrina Young.

The other board members are Latoya Cluff, vice president; Matthew Pearson, secretary; Merrill M. Reels, treasurer; and Crystal Whipple.

A total of 375 tribal members cast their ballots at the tribe’s community center on the Mashantucket reservation, a 41.7% turnout of the 899 tribal members eligible to vote, according to Lori Potter, the tribe’s communications director. The vote took place during the tribe’s annual meeting.

Butler was the only council member nominated for president, as was the case three years ago. He was first elected to the council in 2003 and president in 2009.

Butler, who serves on the boards of several regional and national tribal organizations, was elected earlier this year as board chair of NAFOA (founded as the Native American Financial Officers Association). He is also a member of the Treasury Tribal Advisory Committee, which advises the United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Last month, he traveled with President Joe BidenU.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other tribal leaders to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, where Biden formally apologized for the federal government’s role in forcibly holding Native American children in boarding schools for much of of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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