Cherokee Nation plays the long game on sovereignty

How race and identity are shaping politics, policy and power.

Jun 16, 2023 View in browser   By Natalie Fertig With help from Jesse Naranjo, Ella Creamer and Rishika Dugyala POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP Hey there, Recast family! I’m Natalie Fertig, a cannabis reporter at POLITICO, and we’re diving into the Cherokee Nation’s battle for more tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma. Quick programming note: We’re off for the Juneteenth long weekend, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Wednesday. Yesterday, in a stunning victory for Native American tribes, the Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The decision keeps in place a 50-year old law that preserves Native American culture and families, the latest win in the ongoing battle for tribal sovereignty. And for Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., the argument was about more than children and families: It was about whether Native Americans are seen by the federal government as citizens of another nation or as a racial group. That legal difference underlies nearly all of Native American policy in the United States. But Hoskin says another SCOTUS decision is already having a massive impact on Cherokee: the 2020 Supreme Court ruling on McGirt v. Oklahoma. In McGirt, the Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans who commit crimes on reservation land will be subject to prosecution by federal or tribal courts, not by a state court. The decision stipulated that land given to the Creek Nation in the 19th century remains “Indian country.” This gave back more sovereignty to the Cherokee and other tribes in Oklahoma over the land they were granted by treaties over a century ago.   Was The Recast forwarded to you by a friend? Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter here. Every week, we interview influential characters shaking up politics. Let us know whom we should profile next. Email therecast@politico.com.   The Cherokee now have greater responsibility to prosecute crimes on 7,000 square miles of land in northeastern Oklahoma — and Hoskin says the decision also raises other sovereignty questions that the tribe and the state will need to deal with in the coming years. Those conversations will be extra complicated because of the poor relationship Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has with Oklahoma’s tribes, despite being a member of the Cherokee Nation himself. He was taken to court by a coalition of tribes in 2020 over attempts to change their gaming contracts with the state. “The State entered into a poorly negotiated deal and now we must bear the cost of this mistake,” Stitt said in a statement at the time of the decision. I sat down with Hoskin to talk about how he is navigating state-tribal relations, pushing for better representation in Congress and thinking about recognition. Hoskin told me this is a long game: “We're just beginning to assert our sovereignty and our treaty rights.” ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: Let's start with the Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma. What are the issues that you're going to be spending a lot of time working on as president of the Cherokee Nation? HOSKIN: The broad theme, in terms of state-tribal relations in my second term, is to do what I can to try to reset the relationship with Gov. Stitt. I'll give Gov. Stitt this: He is plain and clear about his philosophy about tribal governance, which is that they should not exist. [That] has necessitated me and other tribal leaders really turning towards the Legislature, which is proven to be much more reasonable and willing to engage as partners on compacting issues. But we ultimately want to have a good relationship with all leadership in Oklahoma because it's truly in everyone's best interest. We've been really on about a five-decade trajectory of that relationship improving. Gov. Stitt kind of stands out as an anomaly in the time that I've been involved in different aspects of tribal government. Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Chuck Hoskin Jr. speaks Dec. 3, 2021, in Tahlequah, Okla. | Michael Woods/AP Photo THE RECAST: Do you have any sense of why Gov. Stitt has been so different? HOSKIN: My observation has been that he very much likes to view the governorship as kind of a command and control operation. He sees a world in which it is this zero-sum game in which any strength the tribes gain or any assertion of our sovereignty, automatically, demonstrably, comes at the expense of everyone else. In the world that I live in, it's actually the opposite. THE RECAST: In 2020, the Supreme Court decided in favor of Native American tribes in McGirt v. Oklahoma. It’s the first of what has been a couple cases that could deeply change Native American policy around the country. Tell me about McGirt. HOSKIN: The McGirt case becomes of such concern to Indian country because it is about whether the United States ought to be held to its word. One hundred and thirteen years after the United States government and the new state of Oklahoma believed that the reservations were gone, the McGirt case [established that] a federal law called the Major Crimes Act was still in place through all the reservations. What it did as a practical matter is it very quickly changed criminal jurisdiction within these reservations that most Oklahomans would not even recognize on their map. Hoskin speaks during a news conference Aug. 22, 2019, in Tahlequah, Okla. | Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo THE RECAST: What has functionally changed for the Cherokee after the McGirt decision? HOSKIN: We have a 7,000-square-mile reservation that covers all or parts of 14 counties in northeast Oklahoma. It includes some urban areas, the city of Tulsa, some suburban areas, and a great deal of rural areas. Pre-McGirt, 97 percent of that was really not Indian country in the eyes of the United States, and the state of Oklahoma. Now, all 7,000 square miles is our responsibility, to a large degree. We have to scale up our Marshal Service, our prosecutor's office, our victim services, our ability to incarcerate people — just to physically house them. We had to harness $30 million just from our businesses. Those are all very precious dollars that ordinarily are invested in health care, housing, saving the Cherokee language, education, infrastructure, things of that nature. It's an awesome responsibility. It's one we take seriously. But it's one that has consumed a great deal of time, attention and resources. And then there's all sorts of questions that come up, about taxation and regulatory authority that we're going to have to deal with. It is easily the most dramatic change that has happened to the Cherokee Nation since even before statehood. THE RECAST: You’ve mentioned the Cherokee Nation is entitled to a delegate in the U.S. Congress. Tell me more about that. HOSKIN: The treaty that removed us from our homelands [was] called the Treaty of New Echota of 1835. One of those provisions says — remember the United States wrote this, we didn’t — that Cherokee Nation shall be entitled to a delegate in the United States House of Representatives. In 2019, when I took office, I named Kimberly Teehee as our delegate to Congress. We've been asserting that right ever since. We had a hearing before the House Rules Committee last fall in November. She's not been seated. But we got the Congress to look at a treaty that they frankly wanted to ignore for 187-plus years. We're just beginning to assert our sovereignty and our treaty rights, in some sense. We're on a long trajectory. The Cherokee Nation has been on this path of prosperity and gaining strength. In this century, we’re going to continue to push ahead. Hoskin and Kimberly Teehee, right, pose following an announcement Aug. 22, 2019, that he was nominating her as a Cherokee Nation delegate to the U.S. House, in Tahlequah, Okla. | Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo THE RECAST: I've been talking to some smaller tribes about their fight for federal recognition. As one of the bigger tribes in this country, how are you guys approaching these smaller tribes that do not have federal recognition, for a wide variety of reasons? HOSKIN: Our view is that the standard for recognition ought to be the very rigorous federal acknowledgement process that exists right now in the Department of Interior. Congressional recognition is a valid form of recognition, [but] it's not my preferred approach. The really troubling approach is when states start to cloak these organizations as tribes through some state recognition process. Not all tribes are like the Cherokee Nation. Our relationship goes back, on a treaty basis, to the British crown. I realize not every tribe is in that position, but there is a way to scrutinize the record, and do so in a way that's standard and fair and not purely driven by politics. THE RECAST: If you're having to go through the federal government it is always going to be driven by politics, right? HOSKIN: True. But there are some buffering institutions and statutes and regulations that at least people know the rules of the process. As opposed to a rider on a bill that gets little discussion. What we're really looking at is an informed process that implies some scrutiny. Hoskin and and Congressional Research Service attorney Mainon Schwartz speak during a House Rules Committee hearing Nov. 16, 2022, on Capitol Hill. | Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo THE RECAST: Does the Cherokee Nation ever weigh in on other tribes looking for congressional recognition? HOSKIN: We weigh in almost exclusively on state efforts to recognize, and it's almost always where there is a group that's in a dishonest way posing as a Cherokee tribe. I've testified a number of times in the Virginia assembly and in the Arkansas legislature against those. I can't think of a time when we've actively weighed in against the Congress approving a proposed recognition bill — even though it's not what I think ought to be the standard. THE RECAST: Playing devil’s advocate, why not support anyone who's of Native American descent saying “we're this tribe”? HOSKIN: I can see most Americans saying, “don’t we want more recognition for Native Americans in this country?” But I think if people study the history of tribes like the Cherokee Nation — in which we've had this government-to-government relationship, and in which our ancestors sacrificed so much — that sacrifice has resulted in us hanging on to what sovereignty we can. We consider it very precious. Haphazard granting of recognition, if it's not grounded in facts and history, then it does come at some erosion to the rest of us. There are places in this country, in Indian country, where the double-digit unemployment, the suicide rate, all sorts of measures of misery and disadvantage are something that is abhorrent. And the United States [ought to meet] their obligations [to those tribes] before we spend a great deal of time haggling over whether a fake Cherokee tribe in Virginia should be called the Cherokee tribe. THE RECAST: Final question: Is there anything really important about Native American policy in the United States right now you think would be important for people to know? HOSKIN: One issue I think deserves more national attention is the revitalization of Native languages. I can plainly demonstrate to you how the United States purposefully destroys Native languages through its various failed Indian policies, including boarding school policies. The United States has spent vastly more dollars destroying Indian languages than they ever spent trying to revitalize them. We've got this rolling and comprehensive strategy to save this language, and we're doing that largely with our own resources. We've got the expertise to do it, but the United States ought to be contributing more. ◆◆◆ We’re sending you off into the weekend — for some, the long weekend — with our usual roundup of weekend recs. Here’s what you should check out. Illustration by Michelle Garcia for POLITICO Originally intended to compensate Black Americans for historical discrimination, affirmative action instead came to be justified under a mantra of diversity — effectively co-opting its benefits for white people, Evan Mandery writes for POLITICO Magazine. NYC civil rights lawyer Nusrat Choudhury was confirmed as the first Muslim woman to be federal district judge. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) wants to open the storied doors of the House speaker’s lobby to Air Jordans, high-top Chucks and Gazelles, our colleagues Sam Stein and Nicholas Wu write. In comedic slasher “The Blackening,” a group of friends reunite for a Juneteenth weekend getaway, only to become embroiled in a twisted game. The movie smartly subverts the stereotype of Black characters dying early on in horror movies. Barbie gets Karol G treatment as the reggaeton artist enters a wonderfully pink world for her new track, “Watati,” ft. Aldo Ranks. In the new Netflix Korean rom-com “King the Land,” the heir of a luxury hotel conglomerate who hates fake smiles clashes with an employee known for her captivating grin. TikTok of the Day: It's his now   Follow us on Twitter Brakkton Booker @brakktonbooker Rishika Dugyala @rishikadugyala Teresa Wiltz @teresawiltz Jesse Naranjo @jesselnaranjo   Follow us

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