House Rules Committee appears open to seating Cherokee Delegate in Congress

WASHINGTON D.C. — Members on both sides of the aisle appeared open to allowing the Cherokee Nation to have a delegate seated in the U.S. House of Representatives but also said there were some things that needed to still be worked out.

Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and tribal law experts testified before the House Rules Committee Wednesday morning asking for the tribe’s selected delegate Kim Teehee to be seated in the House by the end of this calendar year. The tribe was promised a delegate could be seated in the house under the terms of the New Treaty of Echota.

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The treaty was an agreement between the Cherokee Nation and the Federal government entered into back in 1835. The Cherokee Nation agreed to give up seven million acres of land and be removed to Oklahoma territory in exchange for a permanent delegate of the Cherokee Nation to have a non-voting seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in addition to other promises. The treaty initiated what would be known as The Trail of Tears.

“This country has a history of broken promise after broken promise to our Native American communities, and this cannot be just another broken promise,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), House Rules Committee chairman said.

McGovern said it appeared there was bipartisan consensus to move forward with the seating of a Cherokee non-voting delegate in the U.S. House, but there were some questions among members of the House that needed to be addressed.

Those concerns varied from whether a Cherokee delegate would have any business sitting on House committees such as foreign affairs, or if the delegate should have specific standing membership only on issues impacting tribal matters within the U.S. Department of Interior and other domestic issues.

Another concern raised was the idea of double-representation in Congress in which some people in eastern Oklahoma would get extra representation in Congress in addition to what they already have now with one house member and two U.S. Senators.

A legal expert pointed out that when other states were created in what was tribal territory in places like North and South Dakota the reservations were dissolved, but in Oklahoma, especially recently highlighted in the Supreme Court’s McGirt decision, when the State of Oklahoma was formed, Congress did not dissolve the reservations within the state’s boundaries.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) is the ranking member of the Rule Committee and a member of the Chickasaw Nation. He said he felt the seating of a nonvoting Cherokee Delegate was doable and there was bipartisan agreement to get this issue settled once and for all.

“They are tough issues we ought to grapple with,” Cole said about America’s past with Native Americans.

Cole said the witnesses in the hearing had precise answers for all of the concerns members of Congress brought to the committee, and he felt many fears had been relieved.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” Cole said. “This is something that happened 150, 160 years or so ago. That doesn’t mean it can’t be addressed and corrected.”

Hoskin said it was time for America to live up to its promise it made to the Cherokees.

“It’s a historic day for the Cherokee Nation. It’s a historic day for the United States,” Hoskin said.

In his testimony, Hoskin pointed out that the Cherokee Nation upheld everything it promised it would do, but it was the U.S. Federal government that has not held up its end of the deal.

“The New Treaty of Echota is a living document, and article seven is in tact,” Hoskin said about the promise of a Cherokee delegate in Congress.

It is now up to members of the House to decide on how to move forward. There can be a vote every two years to allow a delegate to be seated, but some members insisted the Cherokee Nation not have to come back and request to be seated every two years. Instead, others are searching for a more permanent resolution that will allow for the permanent seating of the delegate.