[Nearly two centuries after a treaty was approved, the Cherokee
Nation wants the U.S. government to abide by its commitments.]
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187 YEARS LATER, CONGRESS THINKS ABOUT SEATING A CHEROKEE DELEGATE  
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Grace Segers
November 16, 2022
The New Republic
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_ Nearly two centuries after a treaty was approved, the Cherokee
Nation wants the U.S. government to abide by its commitments. _

Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation, and Mainon
Schwartz, attorney at the Congressional Research Service, Tom
Williams/Getty Images

 

In 1835, John Ridge, one of the chief negotiators of a treaty between
the U.S. federal government and the Cherokee Nation, wrote to the
governor of Georgia insisting that the treaty include a provision
allowing a Cherokee delegate to serve in Congress.

“If you fail to obtain for us the right of being heard on the floor
of Congress, by our Delegate, let the Bill perish here, without the
trouble of submitting it to our people only to be rejected,” Ridge
wrote. “But how can I find words to convince my people of the
liberality and friendship of the U.S., when at the outset this right,
which would have rendered them a great people, is denied by
Congress.”

Congress approved the Treaty of New Echota later that year and
included the provision for a Cherokee delegate. And then, as with so
many other promises to and agreements with American Indians, the U.S.
government ignored its commitment. Nearly two centuries later,
Congress is taking baby steps toward righting that wrong.

“Today, I come before you to remind you of the promise the federal
government made to our ancestors,” Chuck Hoskin, the current
principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, told the House Rules Committee
on Wednesday. “I ask the House of Representatives to honor this
treaty right, fulfill its obligation under the treaty, and seat our
delegate.”

Nearly two centuries after the American government pledged to allow
the Cherokee Nation representation in Congress, the committee held a
hearing on the issue in the first step towards seating a delegate.
Hoskin quoted Ridge’s letter in his opening statement
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a reminder of how long this issue has lingered unattended.

Hoskin said that a Cherokee delegate would be “similarly situated”
as current delegates from American territories such as the U.S. Virgin
Islands and Guam: able to sit on committees and introduce bills, but
not able to vote on the House floor. The Cherokee Tribal
Council confirmed
[[link removed]] Kimberly
Teehee as the nation’s delegate to Congress in 2019 in accordance
with the treaty. Teehee is a former adviser to President Barack Obama
on Native American affairs who also worked as a congressional staffer
for several years.

President Andrew Jackson signed the Treaty of New Echota
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which culminated in the displacement of thousands of Cherokees from
their homeland to territory west of the Mississippi River, a forced
removal now known as the Trail of Tears. The treaty, which was opposed
by most Cherokees, including its principal chief, gave them $5 million
in exchange for seven million acres of land. It also promised federal
representation for the tribe—a commitment that remains unfulfilled
187 years later.

“The Cherokee Nation having already made great progress in
civilization and deeming it important that every proper and laudable
inducement should be offered to their people to improve their
condition,” the treaty
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condescendingly, “as well as to guard and secure in the most
effectual manner the rights [guaranteed] to them in this treaty, and
with a view to illustrate the liberal and enlarged policy of the
Government of the United States towards the Indians in their removal
beyond the territorial limits of the States, it is stipulated that
they shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives
of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the
same.”

It has taken nearly 200 years for the Cherokee Nation to push forward
on this issue, Hoskin said during the hearing, because of the great
hardships that the nation has experienced at the hand of the federal
government, and the consistent need to rebuild. “When we get to our
new homeland, in what would later become Oklahoma, we are simply
trying to survive and rebuild a great society,” Hoskin explained.
“We are now, I think, in a position where we can as a practical
matter assert this right, whereas my predecessors in the two centuries
before—frankly, we were just trying to hang on to our way of life
and rebuild.”

There are a few options for Teehee or any other Cherokee delegate to
be seated, according to a July Congressional Research Service report
[[link removed]]. The “option
least likely to raise constitutional concerns,” according to the
CRS, is for Congress to create a seat for a Cherokee delegate through
the ordinary legislative process (passing a bill through both chambers
and getting the president to sign it). No legislation has been
introduced on the topic so Wednesday’s hearing was a small but
important first step.

Congress has handled such situations through legislation in the past.
The House has a half-dozen nonvoting members from U.S. territories:
five delegates (from the District of Columbia, Guam, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, all of
whom serve two-year terms) and a resident commissioner, from Puerto
Rico, who serves a four-year term.

Hoskin and the Cherokee Nation argue that the Senate has already voted
on the issue, in 1835 when it approved the treaty; Hoskin told me in
an interview after the hearing that the issue has now been “placed
squarely in front of the House.” The House could take action alone
by passing a resolution to adjust its standing rules to allow a new
delegate to be seated. But CRS notes that the standing rules of the
House expire at the end of each term, meaning that such a grant would
have to be approved every two years; moreover, adding a delegate
without the input of both chambers could “prompt a legal challenge
to that action’s validity.”

Hoskin said he’d find it “breathtaking” if the House changed the
standing rules to allow a delegate to be seated, and then did not
renew that action in the subsequent term. “I’m a tribal leader, I
know my history, I know the United States has broken a promise or
two,” Hoskin acknowledged during the hearing. “But I think in the
twenty-first century, when this House of Representatives seats Kim
Teehee, there won’t be a Congress that will dare break that promise
to the Cherokee Nation.”

Multiple other tribes have argued that they are also entitled to
nonvoting representation in Congress if a delegate from the Cherokee
Nation is seated, citing its own centuries-old treaties. Mainon
Schwartz, a legislative attorney for the Congressional Research
Service, noted during Wednesday’s hearings that some of the language
in these treaties are more dependent on congressional action than the
Treaty of New Echota. “The language of the Treaty of New Echota is
the clearest of the treaties between the United States and various
tribes,” Schwartz said.

Several tribes, as well as representative organizations like the
National Congress of American Indians, or NCAI, support the Cherokee
Nation’s efforts to get congressional representation. “Seating the
Cherokee Nation’s delegate in Congress benefits all of Indian
Country,” said Shannon Holsey, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee
Band of Mohican Indians and treasurer of the NCAI, in a statement.
“The Cherokee Nation’s delegate would be able to protect and
amplify the interests of not only the Cherokee Nation but all Native
Americans.”

Hoskin told me after the hearing that, given her experience, Teehee
would be able to represent the general interests of Indian Country
even as she is specifically a delegate for the Cherokee Nation.
“There’s so much that Indian Country shares in terms of
overarching goals,” he said. Moreover, it “opens the door” to
examining other treaties between the U.S. and different tribes, which
could be a step towards larger atonement, Hoskin argued.

In a rare example of bipartisan agreement in a highly polarized
political era, Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the ranking
Republican on the Rules Committee, agreed with Massachusetts
Democratic Representative Jim McGovern, committee chairman, agreed
that Congress should act. “I think it’s never too late to do the
right thing,” Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, said during
the hearing. “It’s not as if something that happened 150, 170
years ago can’t be addressed and corrected now.”

McGovern told me that he wasn’t sure whether seating Teehee could
occur before year’s end, but he indicated that passing a resolution
to change the standing rules would be easier than enacting a law. “A
statute would have to go to the House and Senate, and the Senate moves
at a snail’s pace,” McGovern said. “I’m on board, but I
don’t know where everyone else is. I’ve got to make sure that
we’ve got the votes to pass it before we move it.”

Cole told me after the hearing that some House members have
“institutional” concerns because Teehee was approved
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the Cherokee Tribal Council, as opposed to a popular vote. “An item
of great pride amongst most members is that people can’t get
appointed to the House of Representatives,” Cole said. “They’ve
got to be elected. That’s true in the territories as well.” But,
he continued, the concern had been discussed in the hearing; Hoskin
suggested that the issue was worthy of deference to the Cherokee
Nation, whose constitution
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how delegates are selected.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the hearing “a key first step”
toward honoring the government’s commitment. “The Democratic House
remains committed to correcting the profound injustices of the past,
living up to the federal government’s treaty obligations, fully
embracing our trust responsibility and building a brighter, fairer
future for the Cherokee Nation and all indigenous peoples,” she said
in a press release.

The committee hearing on Wednesday was largely friendly, with members
agreeing that addressing the issue was long overdue. “I personally
believe that Delegate Teehee should be seated,” McGovern said in his
closing statement, calling it the “right” and “moral” thing to
do.

“I feel very encouraged and optimistic about the hearing in part
because it was productive, and because it was historic,” Hoskin told
me after the hearing, saying it was the first congressional
examination of the Treaty of New Echota since its ratification, and
another step towards getting Teehee seated. “We are getting closer
to what I think has to be an inescapable conclusion.”

_GRACE SEGERS is a staff writer at The New Republic._

_THE NEW REPUBLIC was founded in 1914 as an intellectual call to arms
for public-minded intellectuals advocating liberal reform in a new
industrial age. Now, two decades into a new century, TNR remains, if
anything, more committed than ever to its first principles—and most
of all, to the need to rethink outworn assumptions and political
superstitions as radically changing conditions demand. Visit the TNR
website to subscribe. [[link removed]]_

* Native Americans
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* treaties
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* U.S. Congress
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* Cherokee Nation
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* representation
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