Cherokee Nation wants to send a delegate to the House

[Zardnaar]

Borrowing the Māori roll idea, ie individual choice which to enroll in.

We have proportional here though.

Or would you have first people electorates overlap with general electorates?

 

[Ajidica]

cherokee may have a technically sovereign government, but they're still promised a seat that the us gov hasn't upholded.

[/QUOTE]
Assuming of course that a treaty from the early 1800s hasn't been superseded by subsequent agreements between the Cherokee Nation and the US Government.

like, the closest i can get to this from the pov of a dane, greenland has a seat in the danish government, and they still process domestic policy as sovereignly as possible. it's one of those "it's complicated" situations in regards to sovereignty and territory, and i don't think equivocating it with canada is true to the matter at hand.

[/QUOTE]
But is Greenland legally sovereign, a different concept from internal autonomy? I know nothing about Danish constitutional structures.

there's also a lot of entrenched treaties to this day that ruin native life by virtue of us policy (some deadlocks as to territorial rights, for one) that would arguably be dealt with much easier if they got parliamental representation.

that said, the us government kind of has a lot of issues just getting basic stuff done. so even if they got representation, i'm questioning whether it will concretely help much. but they should have representation due to the numerous overlapping entrenchments that concretely screw over native territory.

Yet members of tribal nations are also full citizens of the United States. Like, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota right now (Peggy Flanagan) is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.
As individuals members of tribal nations are full voting members of the United States. A legally sovereign entity having its own Representative in government is a big shift.

 

[Angst]

Assuming of course that a treaty from the early 1800s hasn't been superseded by subsequent agreements between the Cherokee Nation and the US Government.

But is Greenland legally sovereign, a different concept from internal autonomy? I know nothing about Danish constitutional structures.


Yet members of tribal nations are also full citizens of the United States. Like, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota right now (Peggy Flanagan) is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.
As individuals members of tribal nations are full voting members of the United States. A legally sovereign entity having its own Representative in government is a big shift.

post was a bit hard to quote, sorry about the summary here -

greenland is part of the kingdom of denmark, are danish and eu citizens, but have increasing self administration on a number of areas that the danish government has no legal ability to interfere with, while retaining a seat in parliament. as i said, it's an "it's complicated" situation. they have specific issues they know best what to do and because they live with it, and for better processing those interests it's just wise to grant them seats in parliament.

greenland's situation is very different, but they do have specific seats reserved for them in parliament because they're kind of sovereign, kind of not.

i'm no expert on the native american situation, but from what i've gathered from the reception (particularly by the people in question), the knowing better video on native americans was quite poignant in describing how the native american situation has a number of legal deadlocks. they are as sovereign as they are, having local governments, but still stringently within several us federal laws that throttle potential for development.

a lot of the video is context, running down exactly how we got to this situation. if you don't care about his notes on representation (he finds mainstream native representation, as it is, problematic, and i do too), just tune out during those parts and focus on the points on law and economics. they fully depend on change in us policy to change their situation due to the nature of their land treaties which are ridiculously gridlocked. whole video is pretty good

 

[Henri Christophe]

The treaty article in question:

[/URL]

I like this propose the much, I think should be amazing have quotas to native americans in US. parlament.
Maybe each native american nation can elected one representant to parlament, as that is possible to have more friendly laws to native people in US, and this will be a model to all Americas.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I like this propose the much, I think should be amazing have quotas to native americans in US. parlament.
Maybe each native american nation can elected one representant to parlament, as that is possible to have more friendly laws to native people in US, and this will be a model to all Americas.

There are 574 recognized native American tribes in the US. How you going to fit 574 into a 'Congess' that currently consists of 535 members (100 senators, 435 representatives).

A member of the Cherokee Nation, living in say, Oklahoma* is already represented by a senator and house representative from Oklahoma.

*being a member of the tribe, he doesn't need to live on the reservation, he can live anywhere he wants. And even living on the reservation he still can vote for a senator, representative, etc, just like anybody else, except those living in DC and the island territories.

 

[Henri Christophe]

A member of the Cherokee Nation, living in say, Oklahoma* is already represented by a senator and house representative from Oklahoma.

Oklahoma have a majority white population, the state not represented the native american desires.
Another solution should be divided Oklahoma state in the Sequoyah State, to have a rly indigenous state in the US to have real native american representation in the congress.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Oklahoma have a majority white population, the state not represented the native american desires.

You could say the same about many other groups, not just native americans.

Another solution should be divided Oklahoma state in the Sequoyah State, to have a rly indigenous state in the US to have real native american representation in the congress.

Why Cherokee Nation and not also the many other tribes?

If you give one representative (or a few) to represent all the tribes, while there may be some issues they have common ground in, they also have many differences. Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma list of priorities are not going to be a carbon copy of the list of priorities for a tribe in Alaska.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Why Cherokee Nation and not also the many other tribes?

Some other tribes of the big nations as Lakotas or Navajo also deserve to be a separate state in the US, giving to they also representativity in congress.

This thread say about Cherokee because they took the initiative, but that don't mean that can't be extrapolated to other native american nations.
And about Cherokee state, as I said, it should be better to be a Sequoyah state with the 5 civilized tribes.

 

[Angst]

native americans have already formed and organized through a number of pan-amerindian organizations. if ~500 seats are too much, they're probably worth asking irt how they would organize native representation

 

[Zardnaar]

The Maori seats here are the same size as general electorate seats.

Plus proportional representation.

Think there's 7 of them out of 120.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Maori are 17% of population in NZ. Native American population in US is 2%.

Did you know the 117th congress (current congress) has 6 native americans? (not counting the two non-voting delegates from island territories)

Indigenous Americans 117th

INDIGENOUS AMERICANS 117th Congress (as of 09/21/2022) Seniority Member Party & State Start of Service Tom Cole (Chickasaw) (R), OK 01-03-2003 Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Chamorro) (delegate) (D), MP O1-03-2009 Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee) (R), OK 01-03-2013 Aumua Amata Coleman...

pressgallery.house.gov

 

[Arwon]

That's roughly 1%, and a third of that is Alaskan and Hawaiian. You wouldn't expect much else in a simple plurality electoral system though.

 

[Takhisis]

Borrowing the Māori roll idea, ie individual choice which to enroll in.

Do we have other examples? I know that India's done away with the Anglo-Indian constituency's seats in Parliament, for example.

 

[uppi]

Do we have other examples? I know that India's done away with the Anglo-Indian constituency's seats in Parliament, for example.

It is a bit different, but there is the South Schleswig Voters' Association in Germany, which is a party of the Danish and Frisian minority. As a minority party, they are exempt from the 5% threshold to get seats under proportional representation. They do have to get enough votes to qualify for at least one seat though. In the last federal elections they managed to get one seat with 0.12% of the vote.

Anybody can join the party though, and anybody in Schleswig-Holstein can vote for them. But I guess if they campaigned to aggressively for German votes, the special status might be revoked at one point.

 

[Angst]

Maori are 17% of population in NZ. Native American population in US is 2%.

Did you know the 117th congress (current congress) has 6 native americans? (not counting the two non-voting delegates from island territories)

Indigenous Americans 117th

INDIGENOUS AMERICANS 117th Congress (as of 09/21/2022) Seniority Member Party & State Start of Service Tom Cole (Chickasaw) (R), OK 01-03-2003 Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Chamorro) (delegate) (D), MP O1-03-2009 Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee) (R), OK 01-03-2013 Aumua Amata Coleman...

pressgallery.house.gov

i mean yea but house representation isn't really in accordance to population. south dakota has 0.3% of the us population or something (did a quick calculator thing)

 

[Bamspeedy]

House representation is based on population. Senate is not. A state gets 2 senators regardless of size. But that's not the point.

NZ with 'proportional' representation has Maori having 4% of seats (if 5 out of 120 stat posted earlier is accurate), despite being 17% of general population. US without proportional seating has native americans having 1% of seats while being 2% of general population.

Both systems have less seats than they should if trying to get representation that matches the population, US closer to equal.

Yes, I know, it more complicated than that. For NZ having much lower than expected could be from multitude of reasons I won't bother to guess as it would be just that, guesses. US system is based on geography, so a Native American elected in Oklahoma doesn't help a Native American living in Michigan as much as it does if he lived in Oklahoma instead. And that Oklahoma representative is representing more than just Native americans.

 

[Zardnaar]

House representation is based on population. Senate is not. A state gets 2 senators regardless of size. But that's not the point.

NZ with 'proportional' representation has Maori having 4% of seats (if 5 out of 120 stat posted earlier is accurate), despite being 17% of general population. US without proportional seating has native americans having 1% of seats while being 2% of general population.

Both systems have less seats than they should if trying to get representation that matches the population, US closer to equal.

Yes, I know, it more complicated than that. For NZ having much lower than expected could be from multitude of reasons I won't bother to guess as it would be just that, guesses. US system is based on geography, so a Native American elected in Oklahoma doesn't help a Native American living in Michigan as much as it does if he lived in Oklahoma instead. And that Oklahoma representative is representing more than just Native americans.

Seats here are based on population size. The Maori have the choice of what electoral roll to enter on. If every Maori enrolled on the Maori electorate they would have 17% of the seats.

Maori also enter parliament via general seats as well theoretically pakeha can enter parliament via a Maori seat. I think the Maori party ran a pakeha candidate in one of the seats once.

With a Maori "blessing" though such a candidate probably woukdn't win. Lack of profile/connections etc.

Due to proportional representation the seats wouldn't change the numbers in parliament in terms of seats. If a party gets 30% of the vote The get 30% of the seats (slightly more due to rounding).

Maori seats are same size as any other seat. Electorates change boundaries slightly due to population changes so they're all the same size give or take a few hundred people.

 

[Angst]

House representation is based on population. Senate is not. A state gets 2 senators regardless of size. But that's not the point.

NZ with 'proportional' representation has Maori having 4% of seats (if 5 out of 120 stat posted earlier is accurate), despite being 17% of general population. US without proportional seating has native americans having 1% of seats while being 2% of general population.

Both systems have less seats than they should if trying to get representation that matches the population, US closer to equal.

Yes, I know, it more complicated than that. For NZ having much lower than expected could be from multitude of reasons I won't bother to guess as it would be just that, guesses. US system is based on geography, so a Native American elected in Oklahoma doesn't help a Native American living in Michigan as much as it does if he lived in Oklahoma instead. And that Oklahoma representative is representing more than just Native americans.

yea misspoke house/senate.

i am not arguing to copy nz. and i'm not sure comparing the us to nz with some percentages makes the us favorable or even viable. relying on votes to pass through policy in areas as disjointedly wrecked by legislation and alienated is bad, because you're relying on something unreliable - native areas are both technically sovereign and under harsh legislative conditions under the us government. it's legally deadlocked, and needs more serious attention than a semblance of senators imo

 

[Sommerswerd]

Since recognized tribes are officially sovereign governments, wouldn’t this be like Canada sending a delegate to the US House?
And I’m assuming in the intervening years other treaties superseded this in the relation between the Cherokee nation and the us government.

My first reaction to the notion of giving Cherokee Nation a House Rep was "Sure, the more the merrier... no taxation without representation and all that..." but my next thought was the same as yours "Hey wait a minute, Native American nations are their own sovereign nations, where they have their own laws and the US has limited (or no) jurisdiction on their lands." I must admit that I don't even know how it all works vis-a-vis the US tax system, but it is a little bit of a head scratcher to think that Cherokee Nation would get to remain sovereign, but then also get representation in the US Congress. How is that going to work?

And that's putting aside the issue that our House of Representatives is proportional(ish). Would Cherokee Nation take its Rep out of California's end? Or would it come from the state where their land is located? Lots of Native nations have their land located in states that already only have one House Rep... so ... we're back to taking California's Reps then? Or are we just adding Reps? Adding Electoral College votes too?

One last thing that just occurred to me is as a practical matter, how the heck do we justify giving Cherokee Nation, or any Native nation representation in Congress without first giving representation to Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands, not to mention Ton-D.C.? Lots of questions on this one.

 

[Henri Christophe]

without first giving representation to Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands, not to mention Ton-D.C.? Lots of questions on this one.

I think Puerto Rico, American Samoa, US Virgin Island and some other territory must to become independent from USA. The time of empires is already over, why US have theses posetions?