Watson to shut down Cherokee Nation?

Watson bill over freedmen could fall hard on Cherokee if compromise cannot be reached[O]utrage at the Cherokee has grown at a much greater pace since they expelled their freedmen members in a March vote that aroused international interest, and nowhere on Capitol Hill has it grown more than within the Congressional Black Caucus. The so-called 'dear colleague' letter to other congressional members that Watson circulated as a companion to her bill states that the Cherokee are pursuing "the sovereign right to discriminate," which she called "no right at all."

Watson's bill would pull approximately $300 million in federal funding from the Cherokee, suspend its gaming operations, and waive its sovereignty so that the freedmen could sue the tribe in court--all this "until such time as the Cherokee Nation restores full tribal citizenship to the Cherokee Freedmen," she states in her letter to colleagues.

As quoted in a media release, she added, "The Treaty of 1866 states unequivocally that the freedmen are citizens of the Cherokee Nation and have all the rights of Cherokees. 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."