Oklahoma’s tribes unite against a common foe: Their Cherokee governor
By: High Country News
Tags: Sovereignty, Tribes, Indigenous, Gaming

Gov. Kevin Stitt’s demands for more money from Indian casinos have sparked a bitter feud with economically powerful tribes — including his own.

When Kevin Stitt campaigned for governor of Oklahoma, he said his identity as a citizen of Cherokee Nation gave him “firsthand” knowledge of the clout tribal nations wield in the state. But since his victory in November 2018, tribes have been teaching Mr. Stitt lessons in the politics of Indian Country.

In a rare act of coalescence, nearly all of Oklahoma’s 39 tribal nations are united against the governor. Soon after taking office, Mr. Stitt proposed a sharp hike in the fees that the tribes pay to operate their 130 lucrative casinos, unleashing fierce discussions across the state about identity, economic power and tribal sovereignty.

“He has a total ignorance of Indian Country,” Rocky Barrett, chairman of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a tribal councilor for the past 40 years, said of Mr. Stitt, the first tribal citizen to become governor of Oklahoma since the 1950s.

Other tribal leaders have been just as pointed. “I don’t think he can spell sovereignty,” said John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw Nation.

Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. poses for a portrait with tribal members during an MLK Day celebration at at a community center in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation is responsible for millions of dollars of infrastructure in the state. | Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

On a deeper level, many tribal leaders said they felt betrayed by the governor, who has said in media reports that he understands “what a tremendous benefit the tribes have been” to Oklahoma, a state whose origins are rooted in the genocide and forced relocation of Indigenous people and the encouragement of white settlement, which threatened the sovereignty of tribal nations.

Several of Mr. Stitt’s allies have turned against him, and some Cherokees have begun collecting signatures in a movement aimed at pressuring the Cherokee Nation to revoke his citizenship.

Pointing to the growing economic sway of tribal nations in Oklahoma’s economy, money is at the heart of this dispute. The tribes paid $148 million in fees from casino operations to the state last year, 88% of which was earmarked for Oklahoma’s public schools, which rank among the most underfunded in the country.

Mr. Stitt, a Tulsa mortgage banker and conservative Republican, proposed that the tribes pay a much higher revenue rate to Oklahoma to operate their casinos, a move that tribal leaders have seen as an aggressive approach and a continuation of generations of broken agreements between the state and tribal governments.

The gaming agreements between the tribes and the state were set to expire on Jan. 1. Mr. Stitt had proposed a new contract to begin this year that would bring the revenue rate more in line with what casino operators pay in Arizona and Nevada. He warned that casinos would be operating illegally if a new agreement wasn’t signed, but operators said they believed the compact would automatically renew if new agreements were not made. Three tribes filed a federal lawsuit in December seeking clarity.

Read more here: https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-oklahomas-tribes-unite-against-a-common-foe-their-cherokee-governor