Our Sovereign Land

The U.S. Supreme Court’s McGirt decision has presented our state with a rare opportunity: an opportunity to provide a candlelight of sovereignty to tribal nations. Instead of taking and taking, it is a chance to give back, to return, to provide some justice. Statesmen...

Looking back on a Tulsa forum this past summer on the McGirt ruling, it is easy to understand the poisoned relationship between the Oklahoma tribes and Stitt. This was to have been a community impact program. But instead, the forum morphed into fear-mongering, with...

The state has two choices regarding the McGirt Supreme Court ruling: adapt to the ruling by working with tribal nations and U.S. attorneys or spend resources for a long-shot at the high court to reverse its decision. The first option would serve Oklahomans best. Right...

Cherokee Nation Attorney General Sara Hill said the state of Oklahoma has attempted in its pleadings to paint a “false picture of Oklahoma in chaos” in its efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its own decision. “Overturning McGirt has been the...

The Cherokee Nation on Friday responded to the state of Oklahoma’s request that the U.S. Supreme Court reverse its ruling that some tribal reservations were never disestablished. The tribe argued that the state gives no valid reason to revisit what is known as the...

The Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission wants Mayor G.T. Bynum to withdraw a brief filed last week in support of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s attempt to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn its ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. The July 2020 decision found Oklahoma had been...

“Their petitions are somewhat remarkable in that they’re a naked grab for a do-over with the court,” said Stephen Greetham, senior counsel for the Chickasaw Nation, which in its amicus brief called out the governor’s “cynical reliance on the Court’s recent change in...

For months, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has criticized the “dysfunctional chaos” of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that changed how crimes involving Native Americans are prosecuted. Tribal nations have pushed back against that narrative. On Monday, several leaders...

The core of the state's argument is that the McGirt ruling has led to "ongoing chaos affecting every corner of daily life in Oklahoma," and that the Supreme Court must overturn its decision to fix matters. But "the chaos is not there," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief...

“What Oklahoma had 113 years to do, we are doing in a matter of months,” Hoskin said referring to the aftermath of the McGirt decision.