Cherokee Nation to Send Delegate to U.S. Congress

      The Cherokee Nation will exercise its treaty rights and send Kimberly Teehee to Washington D.C. as its first-ever delegate to the U.S. Congress, marking a new strategy in the ongoing fight for the survival and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples in the United States.

        “This journey is just beginning and we have a long way to go to see this through to fruition,” Teehee said. “However, a Cherokee Nation delegate to Congress is a negotiated right that our ancestors advocated for, and today, our tribal nation is stronger than ever and ready to defend all our constitutional and treaty rights.”

       Confirmed as a delegate by the Cherokee Nation Council on August 30,  Teehee grew up in Oklahoma and cut her teeth in politics in the 1980s, interning for Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to become principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. She previously worked for President Barack Obama’s administration as the first-ever senior policy adviser for Native American Affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council, and has over a decade of experience in Washington, D.C. She has advocated for environmental justice, tribal self-determination, economic growth, health care and education — issues that impact all of Indian Country. 

         Coming at a time when Immigration issues dominate conversation, it is appropriate to focus on political victories for Native Americans.  In November 2018, Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk Nation) and Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) became the first Native American women elected to Congress. Kimberly Teehee will be the third Indigenous woman to represent Indigenous nations in Congress. Unlike Davids and Haaland, however, Teehee will not have the right to vote when the House is in open session. She will, however, be able to participate in committees as a voting member and bring legislation to the floor. This is an important distinction to make: Haaland and Davids are elected members of a congressional district, operating from within the U.S. representational system. Teehee stands as a delegate of a sovereign nation; it is the power of treaties which recognize nation-to-nation agreements that make Teehee’s presence in Congress possible.

       “I think more broadly, we want affirmation that our treaties are still in full force and effect,” Chief Hoskin told Truthout. “You can say that in a theoretical sense, but to actually do it, we’re demonstrating in a real concrete way that the treaty is still alive, it’s a living and breathing document.”

           More than 500 treaties have been signed between Indigenous nations and the colonial United States government, considered under the U.S. Constitution to be the “supreme law of the land.” In the early days of occupation and white settlement, treaties were used to mark land boundaries as well as establish political, economic and military agreements between Indigenous peoples and growing numbers of settlers and colonial powers. Ojibwe scholar Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark reminds us that, “Indigenous nations primarily saw treaties as living relationships, diplomatic processes that enabled the expansion of intricate kin-based networks situated within a relational paradigm that saw the world as a deeply interconnected and interdependent place.” In other words, treaty documents outline responsibilities and obligations that have been agreed upon by the United States government and which it is required to honor and uphold. A treaty is not a relic of history, but an ongoing, living set of relationships.

[This News from Truthout]