"the People's Paths!" Cherokee News Path - Cherokee Nation Seeks Federal Court Resolution

TULSA, Oklahoma - The Cherokee Nation filed today a lawsuit asking a federal court in Oklahoma to resolve the long-standing dispute of whether non-Indian Freedmen descendants have a federal right to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation is asking the court to confirm that Congress unilaterally modified the Treaty of 1866, and, as a result, the non-Indian descendants of those Freedmen have no federal rights to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.

“After years of controversy, it is important to let the federal courts settle this issue,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Another federal case in Washington, D.C., involving citizenship status of non-Indian Freedmen is almost six years old, and judges have already dismissed the Cherokee Nation from that case.

“The case in Washington, D.C., has procedural difficulties that may keep it from being heard on the merits,” said Dean Luthey, an attorney representing the Cherokee Nation in the case.

“Last year, I assured members of Congress, including Barney Frank (D-MA), that if they would let the federal courts decide we would push to have the controversy heard on the merits,” Smith said. “This filing today is the Cherokee Nation keeping its word, and letting the federal courts have a clear path to reaching a decision on the merits without compromising the Nation’s sovereign immunity, and without the risk of setting procedural precedents that may affect other tribes. Members of Congress have said they will respect a federal court decision on this issue, and this is the quickest way to an impartial, apolitical, judicial solution. “

The individual defendants in this case are non-Indian Freedmen descendants who became Cherokee citizens, along with more than 2,800 others, during an approximate one-year period in which non-Indian citizenship was allowed because of a Cherokee Nation Supreme Court decision.

In March 2007, in response to that decision, Cherokee citizens voted to amend their constitution to limit citizenship to those with Indian ancestors on the Cherokee Nation’s base rolls. Each individual defendant is challenging the legality of the March 2007 amendment in the Cherokee tribal court. These defendants – along with all the other non-Indians who became citizens during the one-year period -- retain their Cherokee citizenship, the right to vote in Cherokee elections, and social services benefits based on a tribal court order that prevents the constitutional amendment from going into effect until the case is decided. The defendants live in the federal court jurisdiction of the Northern District of Oklahoma, where the case was filed. In addition, the Cherokee Nation named U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar as a defendant.

“The law, the treaty and our history are clear, which is why we are willing to bring the case directly to the court without raising procedural defenses,” Smith said. “This is the best way to have the matter settled once and for all about how Congress has changed the treaty over the years. It is an opportunity for Congress to honor the courts in resolving the issue, rather than to attempt to punish the Cherokee Nation. No court has found us to be in violation of the treaty even though it had been repeatedly broken by the federal government during the last 140 years.”

For a copy of the complaint filed today and for more information about this issue, please visit Cherokee Nation Facts.