Lawmaker claims 'blackmail' over bill
Cole claims 'blackmail' over Indian housing bill

Published: April 24, 2008

TULSA -- Rep. Tom Cole has accused a House committee chairman of "legislative blackmail" by threatening to keep an Indian housing bill from a final vote if it does not include provisions punishing the Cherokee Nation in the long-running controversy over the tribe's freedmen descendants.

"This is legislating with a gun to the head of the Cherokee Nation," Cole, R-Okla., told the Tulsa World's Washington bureau this week, adding that lawmakers should allow the courts to settle the issue. "This is what got the Cherokees to Oklahoma in the first place ... the misuse of congressional power."

Cole's comments came in response to a statement by Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to The Hill newspaper that he would not take the housing bill to the House floor again without the Cherokee Nation provisions.

Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, also joined the National American Indian Housing Council in expressing concern that Congress' response to the Cherokee controversy could jeopardize passage of the housing bill as well as other legislation supported by tribes across the country.

At issue is language added to the bill by the House last September that would deny housing benefits to the Cherokee Nation until it recognizes freedmen descendants as tribal citizens. A version of the housing bill that omits those sanctions awaits action in the Senate.

Cherokee Nation members voted in March 2007 to remove freedmen descendants from tribal rolls.

Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said most Americans understand why it makes sense for an Indian tribe to believe that only Indians should be members of the tribe.

Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla., won approval of an amendment to the bill that would delay any sanctions against the tribe until the legal fight ends.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

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