Cherokee Nation presses for nonvoting House seat

The Cherokee Nation has kickstarted a campaign pressing Congress to honor a 19th century treaty and provide the group with a nonvoting House seat before the end of this legislative session. 

The move would be a long-delayed honoring of the Treaty of New Echota, an 1835 agreement that asked the Cherokee people to move west and cede land to the United States and offered, in return, the right to send a delegate to the House of Representatives.  

“We often get asked, ‘Why now?’ ‘Why 200 years?’ Well, it’s because forced removal means all that we had developed in the east, all that wealth, the housing, all of that — we had nothing when we came here,” Kimberly Teehee, the designated delegate of the sought-after seat, said in a campaign video released Thursday. 

Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. nominated Teehee to be the designated delegate in 2019, and the Council of the Cherokee Nation unanimously confirmed her, but the push to place her in Congress was put off by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a release.  

“It is past time for the United States government to honor its promise and seat the Cherokee Nation’s delegate ... our history cannot be ignored any longer,” said Hoskin in a statement.  

Teehee was the White House Domestic Policy Council's senior policy adviser for Native American Affairs under former President Obama.

As a nonvoting delegate in the House, Teehee would not be able to cast votes on final legislation, but would be able to speak on the House floor and participate in committee votes, according to the release.

Her role would be similar to the non-voting delegates representing Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories such as Guam and American Samoa. 

The Cherokee Nation is asking the House Rules Committee to hold a hearing on the matter and subsequently pass a resolution to establish the seat before Congress adjourns in December.  

The new campaign is pushing for people to contact their representatives and call for the Cherokee Nation’s seat. The effort is also set to include public events and grassroots mobilization.