The Case For Tribal Statehood

[ColinC]

Googled this article after I saw another post about the Native American vote being suppressed. Tribal statehood seems like a reasonable solution to cases such as that.

Snip


In response, the Five Tribes held a convention to form an Indian state. They drafted a constitution and proposed a state government for the potential Native American–controlled state of Sequoyah. The referendum was approved by a majority of Native American and white voters, but Congress never considered their request.

Instead, Oklahoma was admitted as a state in 1907, following President Theodore Roosevelt’s proposal to combine Oklahoma Territory with Indian Territory. Despite becoming part of the new state of Oklahoma, the people—and their lands—who would have formed the state of Sequoyah retained their separate legal status, as the Supreme Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma recently reaffirmed. Because tribal lands remain sovereign territories, tribes possess a constitutional pathway to an alternative form of self-governance. Tribes can seek statehood.

https://newrepublic.com/article/168333/case-tribal-statehood