Washington, DC— Congresswoman Diane E. Watson today introduced legislation (H.R. 2824) to sever  U.S. relations with Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.  The legislation cuts all federal funding to the Cherokee Nation, estimated to be roughly $300 million annually, until such time that the Cherokee Nation restores full tribal citizenship to the black Cherokees, known as freedmen, expelled from the nation this past March.  The legislation also suspends the Cherokee Nation’s authority to conduct gaming operations until it complies with its treaty and statutory obligations.

 “The Treaty of 1866 states unequivocally that the freedmen are citizens of the Cherokee Nation and have all the rights of Cherokees,” said Congresswoman Watson.  “It particularly pains me, over forty years after the passage of the historic Civil Rights Act, that legislation has to be introduced to compel the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to recognize the basic civil rights of the Cherokee freedmen."

"The Cherokee Nation’s leadership claims that it has the sovereign right to determine who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.  But the sovereign right to discriminate is no right at all.” 

In March, Congresswoman Watson, along with twenty-five of her colleagues, sent a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affair’s (BIA) Assistant Secretary, Carl Artman, protesting the Cherokee Nation’s March 3, 2007 vote that resulted in the expulsion of 2,800 freedmen.  To date, BIA has failed to take any administrative action against the Cherokee Nation for violating its treaty obligations.

Congresswoman Watson’s bill also requires the Department of Interior to issue a report to Congress on the status of freedmen’s rights in all tribes, instructs the Attorney General to issue a determination on whether the federal civil rights of freedmen have been violated, requires an audit of the Cherokee Nation’s expenditure of federal funds, and provides for the freedmen’s private action for relief through the federal courts. 

The text to H.R. 2824 can be located at http://www.congress.gov